You can see it coming
Look at the cloud. That's certainly a place I would look if I were trying to envision a future for an organization and understand changing market and business dynamics.
The buzz about SaaS (Software as a Service) and cloud computing has been increasing, with Steven Jobs' recent announcement of Apple's iCloud service just the latest entre' on the growing menu,
The potential for cloud computing and SaaS to bring paradigm shifting opportunity and disruption was brought home at a Proformative seminar for CFO-types that I just attended. My mission as a general manager, strategist and marketer infiltrating this seminar was to gain a better understanding of how medium-sized and growing organizations can gain traction by employing newer financial tools.
What was presented described the move from spreadsheets to applications to integrated systems for accounting, reporting and analysis. It showed how cloud accounting, reporting and ERP (enterprise resource planning) offerings by NetSuite and Host Analytics can be used to meet an organization's accounting, reporting and analytical needs. It provided a view of tailored real-time dashboards integrating financial, operating, marketing, sales and outside competitive, benchmarking and economic data that allow the user to drill down for desired detail, set alerts and direct others to act as appropriate.
Most striking from the cloud systems presentations were these points:
IT is bypassed.
Problematical, laborious and error-prone "management by spreadsheets" is ended.
Users can configure the information they want to see.
Everyone is working off the same base of financial and operational data - no separate or redundant sets.
Budgeting becomes an integrated, much faster process: Again, no more spreadsheets!
Real-time data is offered for decision making.
Underlying data quality issues are exposed so they can be addressed.
The door is opened to adding on cloud business intelligence and predictive analytics applications.
The seminar offered research results attributed to the Aberdeen Group that show that companies implementing ERP systems not only gained improved processes but also saw more growth and profitability. For "best in class" users of cloud ERP systems, the reported profit increase was 33%. Now that is indeed transformational!
The presenters emphasized that these systems help free up accounting and finance time so people in these functions can be more involved in analysis and decision making. However, one wonders if instead this will be viewed by senior management as yet another opportunity to shed people from the organization and in fact is part of the reason why profit increases with ERP implementation.
With the cloud doing work that accounting, finance and IT formerly did for the organization, why would restructuring and reduction in force not be the result?
