SMBs have migrated to the cloud for functions such as enterprise resource planning (ERP), customer relationship management (CRM), and sales force automation (SFA), for some time now. With new remote collaboration tools going mainstream to enable work without disruption, these businesses are now facing an urgent need to maintain new workloads on the cloud and integrate new applications with on-premise systems. The finance function, in its new avatar, is expected to ensure quick RoI from IT implementations.
Considerations mid-market CFOs must take into account as they work with their IT teams to select a cloud provider include:
The pandemic has brought the need for continued evaluation of non-financial drivers of growth and profitability into sharper focus. Finance leaders need tools to conveniently query internal and external data for useful and dynamic insights. In our conversations with mid-market players across the world, we find that only a few organizations have been successful in assessing the RoI of their finance analytics implementations, although nearly every organization recognizes the need for real-time insights extracted from diverse sets of data. Finance organizations must start by curating a list of analytics projects mapped to business problems and take up small projects across integrated financial planning, performance reporting, and forecasting, before considering larger ones.
In addition to tools finance leaders can use to query data without the need to build complex models, extensive automation can help them focus on the high-value decision-making aspects of their job. Here, finance functions can start by assessing tasks that currently prevent them from devoting sufficient time to delivering great insights, and then begin automating such tasks. Robotic Process Automation (RPA) is a mature and low-cost technology, so finance functions are likely to observe efficiency gains that more than offset the cost involved.
According to recent research by CFO.com, concerns around data security, financial processes, and financial statement accuracy have increased during the pandemic. Investments in VPN, mobile device management, endpoint security, identity-based network architecture and cloud-based disaster recovery solutions have increased, and we expect this growing trend to continue in 2021 and beyond. Again, to keep cyber assailants at bay, it’s best to migrate to cloud services from cloud providers that have integrated robust security controls over the years.
For CFOs, it’s the most challenging yet interesting time of their career. As an unprecedented recession introduces new challenges, technology presents new solutions and answers. Emerging technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) may not be high on the priority list for mid-market firms yet, but investing in the right foundational tools and technologies such as Cloud today is what will help them emerge stronger on the other side tomorrow.
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HighRadius Integrated Receivables Software Platform is the world's only end-to-end accounts receivable software platform to lower DSO and bad-debt, automate cash posting, speed-up collections, and dispute resolution, and improve team productivity. It leverages RivanaTM Artificial Intelligence for Accounts Receivable to convert receivables faster and more effectively by using machine learning for accurate decision making across both credit and receivable processes and also enables suppliers to digitally connect with buyers via the radiusOneTM network, closing the loop from the supplier accounts receivable process to the buyer accounts payable process. Integrated Receivables have been divided into 6 distinct applications: Credit Software, EIPP Software, Cash Application Software, Deductions Software, Collections Software, and ERP Payment Gateway - covering the entire gamut of credit-to-cash.