The global Coronavirus Covid-19 pandemic has seen many changes and challenges to the way that businesses operate. Face-to-face gatherings and water-cooler conversations have been replaced by virtual meetings utilising Skype for Business, MS Teams and/or Zoom. Traditional work methods have altered permanently with only half of all staff likely to return to desks at the city centre office blocks.
Cloud-based financial reporting applications with modern User interfaces are gaining prominence as legacy batch processing is replaced by new entrants to the performance management market space and established vendors move from perpetual on-premises licencing models to annual subscriptions for SaaS (software as a service). Introducing self-service reporting and analytics to the finance teams.
Finance professionals who have long complained of being ‘hostage’ to the services of IT departments are now able to build, modify and model business activities through simple “drag and drop” menus. With guided Data exploration and self-assembly reports formats, finance teams are now at the heart of the delivery of Business Insights. No longer just guardians of the financial numbers and controls.
Many of the new software vendors provide “cloud-services” that are hosted by Microsoft (Azure) or Amazon Web Services (AWS), either as multi-tenanted solutions, or virtual private networks (VPN’s) and compliance with the latest IT security protocols and GDPR (general data protection regulations).
Maintenance of corporate IT data centres is no longer a requirement for mid-market organisations as Data processing moves from local area networks (LAN’s) to systems and tools that can be accessed by desktop browser applications. The role of IT department focuses upon network availability and speed
Significant growth capital has been raised in recent times by new and established software vendors alike in order to leverage their offerings within an evolving financial performance management space. In recent times, we have seen similar announcements from the likes of Unit4, Board, Prophix, Vena, Fluence Technologies, and Longview, indicating an industry-wide move towards this business model.
Global enterprises benefit from many new features, functionalities and ‘story telling’ capabilities that are being incorporated within the proprietary software solutions from the established CPM Vendors. Recent entrants leverage existing skillsets within both mid-market and enterprise-wide organisations with solutions that are appropriate for start-ups and young enterprises and which scale as they grow.
LSA Solutions, formed in 1996, as a leading value-added reseller of financial performance management applications has been active in the marketplace for more than a quarter of a century. Comprised of an elite team of dedicated finance and IT professionals, LSA has specialised in financial consolidation and reporting solutions that are cost effective and appropriate for both mid-market and enterprise-wide ‘office of finance’ operations. Combining best practice budgeting and forecasting processes alongside internal monthly management and the external statutory and regulatory reporting requirements of business stakeholders. Providing todays’ finance professionals with tools that deliver Business insights.
LSA Solutions senior manager, Alan Sutton says .., “the challenges being encountered daily by finance departments across industries and business sectors are to build Data collection and reporting structure and automation, whilst leveraging the internal MS Excel and accountancy skillsets that have naturally evolved”. Whilst leading software vendors strive to be the single-platform solution, modern interfaces and new entrants are changing the landscape for Financial Close and Consolidation software alongside Financial and Operational Planning that can be integrated with Human Resource Management tools, enabling once again “best of breed” solutions with strategic alliances being formed between Vendors.
Industry leaders and ‘founding fathers’ of established “engines” of financial consolidation are today embracing latest technologies to provide agnostic ‘cloud-based solutions’ that carry a distinguished pedigree and proven track record. Financial reporting pain points can be addressed in the knowledge that latest solutions can be integrated to existing visualisation and planning tools previously acquired.
No longer is it necessary to engage in the massive disruption caused by “big bang” implementations of unfamiliar techniques and protracted learning programmes associated with re-educating hundreds of end-Users for the adoption of global IT programs. Rather, Financial Performance Management can be standardised and delivering improved Business Insights within weeks with today’s Vendors.
For further information, and a free evaluation of your financial processes, to determine which of the latest Vendor offerings might benefit your financial performance management, please send contact details to LSA Solutions; info@LSA-Solutions.co.uk or feel free to contact Alan Sutton directly.
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