Trends

CFO technology study suggests cloud-based approach

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Stamford, Connecticut-based Gartner Inc. is the world’s leading information technology research and advisory company. Key findings from the 2015 Gartner Financial Executives International (FEI) CFO Technology Study show that:

  • Cloud usage is increasing for many finance-focused applications
  • 46% of CFOs reported that they are currently using or are planning to use cloud deployment for financial modeling/business analytics
  • 45% of CFOs reported that they are currently using or are planning to use cloud deployment for budgeting, planning and forecasting

 

 

Gartner Inc.’s Recommendations:

  • Consider the cloud for improved functionality. If your on-premise solutions have aged and you want to improve specific areas (such as mobile expense reporting), cloud solutions may fill in functional gaps
  • Consider a hybrid approach for specific functionality or for departments/units where the incumbent on-premise solution is not cost-effective or is too complex to meet your business needs
  • Analyze the cost structure to implement a cloud approach to ERP and financial management solutions and evaluate applications to ensure that the solution can address the complexities of your business processes
  • Corporate performance management (CPM) applications continue to lead business intelligence (BI) and analytics investments
    • 52% of CFOs reported that their organizations were upgrading or enhancing their performance measurement/scorecard/dashboard technologies
    • 48% of CFOs reported that their organizations were upgrading or enhancing their budgeting, planning and forecasting technologies

 

Further Gartner Inc. Recommendations:

  • Understand the benefits of financial CPM and strategic CPM and how these can be integrated into your BI platform and performance management business processes
  • Assess CPM product versions and roadmaps regularly to gauge the benefits of version upgrades or product component expansions
  • Ensure that these purchases are strategic and complement other aspects of your overall performance management and BI frameworks
  • CFOs have more influence on technology, as many IT decisions are shifting to business areas
    • The CFO’s influence over IT is consistent and, in many organizations, is growing

 

Final Gartner Inc. Recommendations:

  • CFOs need to be proactive in making technology decisions for all finance applications, ensuring that they have a financial system that supports the strategic objectives of their organization
  • CFOs and IT professionals need to understand how the CFO should be involved to ensure that the right IT investments are selected and that they deliver the right benefits based on the organization’s goals and strategies

 

Questica Performance allows organizations to establish and manage objectives, leveraging financial and statistical data from any number of sources, to effectively measure performance. Simply put, Questica Performance will improve an organization’s efficiency and effectiveness. Scorecards are a built-in method for the ongoing monitoring of measures, making use of the green/yellow/red thresholds via at-a-glance Dashboard displays.

 

Questica Budget is a web-based budgeting tool that provides a controlled environment for budget input, review, approval and maintenance. Questica Budget offers one point of data entry and seamless integration with an organization’s financial system.

 

Both Questica Performance and Questica Budget represent proven COTS (commercial off-the-shelf) software solutions that are available as cloud-based solutions. Questica currently manages over $55 billion in annual public sector budgets. If you are considering cloud deployment for your finance-focused applications or are planning to upgrade your performance measurement and budgeting technologies, take action today and request a demo of the Questica solutions

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