A growing number of CFOs are using cloud and mobile tools to improve business unit collaboration and shift to real-time planning and reporting.
More than a quarter (28 percent) of the senior-level finance and business unit executives surveyed by Oracle and Accenture said they are using cloud technologies to support budgeting, planning and forecasting. Another 34 percent plan to move those functions to the cloud over the next year, the survey said.
"CFOs today are creating modern finance organizations that are adopting the cloud and other disruptive technologies to realize the power that digital can wield and help propel the enterprise forward," said Scott Brennan, a managing director, Accenture Strategy in Finance & Enterprise Performance in a statement.
Survey respondents said the impetus driving adoption of cloud finance tools and mobile collaboration platforms is a need to support business units with real-time insights into organizational performance. With many finance functions relying on manual planning and reporting processes, nearly a quarter of the non-finance respondents said their ability to access up-to-date comparisons of their unit's performance with budget expectations was lacking.
In response to a hunger for clearer insights, 24 percent of the finance organizations have adopted cloud-based tools for core financials, with another 45 percent developing roadmaps for doing so.
Other ways CFOs and business-unit leaders are collaborating include:
- Developing automated alerts about conditions that could trigger governance, risk or compliance issues
- Dynamic financial planning and forecasting using near real-time data
- Folding live data into business models and scenario plans
- Supporting business decisions with real-time data
According to the survey,
"Empowering Modern Finance: The CFO as Technology Evangelist," CFOs are moving to a higher-level, strategic collaboration with business units. This evolving role is supported with analytical tools to review financial and non-financial data, as well as a growing use of mobile and cloud technologies to enhance the finance function's productivity and efficiency.
Survey respondents said while progress is being made, this shift will require additional work. Many are companies relying on week-old (or older) data to support key decisions, or wrestling to consolidate information from disparate reporting systems (often resulting from multiple acquisitions).
Similarly, about 30 percent of finance and line-of-business leaders said their processes are still paper-based, but there is a clear trend toward automating those processes. Nearly 50 percent of the respondents are using mobile apps, and 53 percent are leveraging web-based systems.
Oracle chairman Jeff Henley said in a webcast summarizing the survey results CFOs are increasingly collaborating with chief information officers to evaluate potential technology investments.
Other survey findings include:
- Nearly 75 percent of finance executives believe technologies such as the cloud, mobile technology and social media will change how finance is structured and run
- Nearly 50 percent of respondents reported an increase in the number of finance analysts hired over the past two years, reflecting the growing need for finance talent with a deeper and broader range of business and analytical skills
- More than two-thirds of respondents agree the CFO is a strong evangelist for transformational potential of technology
Oracle and Accenture said the survey respondents included 1,275 CFOs, senior finance executives and line-of-business leaders from organizations of varying sizes, locations and industries.