Software & Services Safari

Brian Sommer

New Finance Agenda

By Brian Sommer | August 17, 2010, 2:24pm PDT

Summary: Today’s CFO/Finance agenda - Six major focus areas for top finance/accounting executives

When I was at the American Accounting Association conference a couple of weeks ago, I had the opportunity to hear several of the keynote speakers. Karen Watts of Corefino spoke about several new challenges for CFOs. She identified the following the challenges that should be of interest to ERP and financial/accounting software users and vendors:

1) Emergence of the strategic CFO – This trend continues to gain momentum. More than ever, CFOs are eyeing the CEO chair. They can’t move up if they’re still pre-occupied with journal entries and other transaction aspects of finance/accounting. The most strategic CFOs are more attuned to operations, collections, shareholder relations, M&A and other more strategic business needs.

2) Driving the business to leaner and more efficient operations – Benchmarking and process excellence disciplines are still popular in back office functions simply because there are still opportunities to improve the effectiveness and efficiency of finance processes.

3) Escalating regulatory complexity – Regulation isn’t going away. It’s getting more prevalent. The challenge for CFOs and CEOs is to possess a single GRC (governance, risk and compliance) framework and not a collage a multiple, conflicting GFC products.

4) Need for more fraud discouragement mechanisms – Fraud is not going away either. The fraudsters are often more clever and approaching their craft from new angles (e.g., internet based, corporate identity theft, etc.).

5) Current IT models (e.g., on-premise solutions) are breaking business budgets – The on-premise model for ERP is expensive. The cost of software maintenance, especially the user maintenance cost, is expensive. SaaS, especially the true multi-tenant solutions, may be a better choice.

6) Need for new experienced, value-added hires to enter the Finance organization – The future of Finance may require a new breed of worker who is more technologically and business savvy. Clerking, filing and matching skills will be outsourced and off-shored. Business analytic skills will be de rigueur.

While I may not have captured Karen’s sentiments exactly, her points are right on.

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Brian is currently CEO of TechVentive, a strategy consultancy serving technology providers and other firms. He is also a research analyst with Vital Analysis.

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Brian Sommer

I am co-owner of TechVentive, Inc. The company has been engaged on numerous consulting engagements, often for technology firms, service firms and litigators. As a general rule, I do not write about current clients of TechVentive. Should that occur, I will note this in blogs. Readers should assume that I have had client relationships with many ERP and other technology providers. Some of these relationships may be quite small and short-lived while others more significant. One of TechVentive's business units publishes research reports about technology providers. As a result, this business receives small amounts of revenues from a wide variety of software firms, software buyers and others when they purchase copies of reports. Some firms do secure reprint rights to these reports. None of these purchases, individually, represents a significant amount of total revenue for me and the nature of it is hard to predict where it will come from. I also provide some marketing strategy and/or market segmentation work for software firms as I have developed a unique database that segments the largest 4000+ technology buyers in the world. Many technology firms periodically engage me for unique views into this database for future marketing campaigns. I do not blog about these efforts and do not blog about client firms while they are active clients unless some pressing news story erupts. If that event occurs, I will indicate any perceived or real conflict of interest. Occasionally, I will develop unique intellectual property pieces for technology or service providers. If I should blog about a vendor with whom I have recently developed a special information product, I will note this in a blog to avoid any appearance, real or unintended, of bias. For the most part, I have no investments in technology firms. While I've been offered friends and family stock and other inducements in the past, I have steadfastly refused these. I used to be a partner with Andersen Consulting and had no ownership stake in the firm for many years. I frequently refer to this in my blogs and do not hide my prior association with the company. I did purchase a few shares of Accenture and Cognizant stock in late - 2008. I have sold some of those positions in late 2009. Readers should assume that most software conferences that I write about involved some measure of fees waived and/or travel reimbursement. I do not charge vendors to attend these events nor will I accept payment for same. I do get reimbursed for many speaking engagements. I generally note at the end of blogs whether the vendor reimbursed me for travel expenses. Generally, this includes airfare and hotel. I do not request, receive nor accept travel perks such as first class airfare.