A cloud with a silver lining for the future of finance

Share this post:

Migration of company data and business processes to the cloud is one of the megatrends of these past few years. Apart from radically reducing the total cost of ownership, the cloud also plays into the needs of a mobile workforce, and relieves some pressure from the IT departments, who are often suffering from a shortage of qualified workers. For the finance department, migrating its planning, budgeting and forecasting processes to the cloud brings with it a whole range of other advantages as well. Seamless information flows, inclusive communication with relevant stakeholders, open discussions… They’re of primordial importance in a time when the finance department has to work with a wealth of financial and non-financial data from across a wide range of departments.

However, we’re not there yet. As you may have experienced in your own work life, those different departments right now are still making use of a wealth of (sometimes very specific and tailor-made) software tools and applications, that do not always get along with each other, so to say. A unified solution is still far away in lots of organizations, according to an FSN report on planning, budgeting and forecasting, for which nearly 1,000 senior finance executives were questioned.

The power to take finance further

The report also notes that, when deployed in a well-thought-out manner, a migration to the cloud has the power to give the finance function a whole new dimension. Drawing information from throughout the company in a rapid manner, finance teams who work with a unified cloud solution are much more agile and precise, adding much more value to the organization. As the report notes, finance teams in companies with at least a partial migration of their planning, budgeting and forecasting to the cloud “are over one and a half times more likely to be able to reforecast earnings for the organization within 24 hours.” Moreover, they are “a third more likely to get the forecast right to within 5%.”

If you want to know more about how finance teams can generate more accurate, faster forecasts and plans by evolving towards one unified planning, budgeting and forecasting solution, you can download and read Chapter 4 of the FSN report “Cloud Uptake is Rising but Outdated Processes Remain Unchallenged” here.

Want to get started with such a solution today, try IBM Planning Analytics and download your free trial.