Navigating the Path to Modern ERP Solutions for Midsize Companies

How do you choose the right ERP technology that will scale with your business operations and help you get ready for the future? It’s all about flexibility, speed, agility, and focus. ERP software comes with an endless array of formats, environments, interfaces, and capabilities. However, knowing which offering to implement is still a challenge. As operations grow and expand into new locations, midsize businesses can quickly outgrow existing technology. But this reality shouldn’t keep midsize businesses from adopting an ERP system. Instead, they should upgrade their understanding of dynamic ERP add-on technologies that can scale the context of current and future business requirements.

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You Need More Than an ERP Add-On for Analytics

Most ERP vendors offer tools that can accelerate analytics, such as bolt-on applications that speed up the extraction of data and analytics. These tools might shave a few minutes from reporting or help speed up the financial close, but they do little to reduce or simplify your ERP data models. The problem is that most ERP solutions require separate data models for analytics and transactions: separate tables and datasets, which are often multiplied for different business units, functions, and industries, all requiring updating and verification. A simpler data model is what allows business processes to be more efficient while also simplifying the IT landscape.

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The Evolution of the Finance Function in 2019

A shift in the finance function has occurred due to more and more businesses adopting dynamic finance analytics technologies. For finance professionals, the new model will focus less on accounting skills and more on data analysis, financial modeling, and communications expertise. That will result in a much more dynamic workforce, with analysis, interpretive skills, and data-driven insights providing it with a much deeper sense of its value. This shift, which will enable finance to play a bigger role in guiding performance and strategy across the enterprise, will project well into the future of the finance role.

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Retailers Must Prepare for the Next-Generation of Customers

“The changing landscape across today’s retail and consumer industries has resulted in a rapid rise of emerging technologies, especially when it comes to automation and artificial intelligence. Retail is one of the sectors to already implement and invest in cognitive and AI technologies, resulting in new and unexpected offerings for consumers and shoppers around the world.”

As the next generation of customers expects brands to provide unmatched experiential design and functionality across multiple interfaces, retaining customer loyalty requires retailers and manufacturers to implement cognitive, automated services while still remaining transparent and secure.

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Large Businesses Still Need to Scout New Technologies

While scouting out new technologies is important, it often takes up so much time for business leaders that they end up going back to their current systems. If a company is serious about responding quickly to the ways customer behaviors are changing, the startups that are gaining momentum in its industry, and the new technologies that ought to be integrated into its offerings, there are probably dozens or hundreds of people throughout the organization who should be tuned in to those signals. Businesses that are trying to invest in understanding how the world around them is changing and how it will affect them, they must also invest in the relationships and systems that allow them to take quick action on what you find.

Read More at The Harvard Business Review >

Retail Profitability is On the Rise

Retail is considered one of the most challenging industries because of the sheer amount of fierce and visible competition in the market, shrinking profits, rising customer expectations, and the need for talent to work 24/7, 365 days a year. Retail is also one of the most profitable industries for the exact same reasons. Unfortunately, retailers are constantly trying to figure out who their most profitable brands and partners are, and who are not. Profitability can be extremely difficult to navigate in the retail space because it is always changing and there are no re-dos. A tunnel-vision approach to profitability causes decisions to be made that are expected to protect profit, but sometimes cause larger, negative downstream effects. So, what can retailers do?

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Your Finance Technology Can Be a Significant Strategic Partner

“The technology tidal wave is causing disruption, but it also provides opportunities for accountants and finance professionals to develop leadership skills.”

Blockchain and cryptocurrencies as well as artificial intelligence (AI) continue to drive innovation and change throughout the business landscape. While these specific trends can seem abstract, accounting and finance professionals do need to understand what these technologies are. Arguably more important than any specific technical knowledge, however, is the ability to leverage these innovations to become strategic partners.

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Driving Success with Predictive Analytics & Machine Learning

Many finance leaders are seeking predictive analytics and machine learning (PAML) technologies to deliver better outcomes to customers and stakeholders. However, a recent Forrester study found that only 15% of organizations have adopted these technologies. There is a major discrepancy between adoption of PAML technologies and intent to adopt, because over 90% of organizations say PAML is important for building more personalized customer experiences and is needed to drive efficiency with back-end and customer-facing applications. A common obstacle to adoption is that organizations are typically split into two sides of the house: the experimental side and the operations side, often at a rapid clip. There are three core attributes to drive success with PAML technologies.

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Improving the Relevance and Value of Financial Reporting

“How can CFOs and finance organizations improve the relevance and value of financial reporting? Like the competitive life cycle of a firm or product, financial reporting and accounting are at a crossroads: decline or resurgence. Significant forces of change during the last four decades have radically altered the way companies create long-term value. Yet financial reporting and accounting haven’t changed markedly and even have moved in the wrong direction in some cases.” The first step in regaining relevance in financial reporting is for all of us to recognize a problem exists. CFOs and management accountants have an opportunity to experiment and develop internal performance reports focused on the components of the Strategic Resources & Consequences Report that create sustained competitive advantage.

Read More at Strategic Finance Magazine >