Advice and Information for Finance Professionals

A century-old company replaced an aging Infor system with Oracle ERP Cloud. Learn what they gained.

A century-old company replaced an aging Infor system with Oracle ERP Cloud. Learn what they gained.

Community college deploys Oracle Student Cloud to recruit and engage students across an expanding portfolio of learning programs.

Community college deploys Oracle Student Cloud to recruit and engage students across an expanding portfolio of learning programs.

In two years, an estimated 43% of the US workforce could be freelancers. How can finance teams adapt?

In two years, an estimated 43% of the US workforce could be freelancers. How can finance teams adapt?

Gartner recently published a research note, “4 Things You Need to Know Before ‘Soaring to the Cloud’ With Oracle ERP Applications.”

Gartner recently published a research note, “4 Things You Need to Know Before ‘Soaring to the Cloud’ With Oracle ERP Applications.”

The University hopes to guide students to the best financial aid options for their goals.

The University hopes to guide students to the best financial aid options for their goals.

A 300-percent surge in orders is no sweat for GE Additive, thanks to a unified ERP cloud.

A 300-percent surge in orders is no sweat for GE Additive, thanks to a unified ERP cloud.

By Jennifer Toomey, Adriana Smith and Nick Stankovic, Oracle Does this scenario sound familiar to you? You have great plans for your business, and there are myriad opportunities in front of you. You want to move quickly to take advantage of them. But your IT systems are holding you back. Your sales team is using CRM from a vendor that doesn’t sell much else. Your finance team uses on-premises ERP for accounting, and does planning, budgeting, and analysis using spreadsheets. Meanwhile, human resources is managing payroll using an outsourced provider that doesn’t integrate with your on-premises HR system or your ERP system. Then along comes a cloud provider like Workday that promises to simplify all of it for you. They vow to give you a single, seamless, highly usable solution. Over the past year, however, we've seen the line between promises and reality come into sharper focus. It's important to keep looking at what Workday can actually offer across its business applications and compare how these offerings stack up against Oracle Cloud. This turns out to be a big topic, especially when you get into detailed, hard-fact comparisons. We thought it would be useful to distill all of this into five things every potential customer should know as they weigh the merits of Workday versus Oracle for finance, reporting, planning, HR, supply chain, and other business applications. 1. Innovation Matters, Especially Today Over the years Workday has talked about “the Power of One,” meaning a single system for both finance and HR. Innovation plays a huge role in this story: The best way to maintain a single, seamless user experience is to invest—heavily and consistently—in building an in-house R&D and technology innovation pipeline. However, the reality is that Workday mainly uses acquisitions instead of in-house R&D to drive its innovation pipeline. Rather than working on truly unique and innovative capabilities, Workday is fighting a long, hard, uncertain battle to integrate a grab-bag of inconsistent, incompatible acquired offerings. The cost of that fight is clear. On the cutting edge, Oracle's artificial intelligence and machine learning (AI/ML) capabilities are driving high-value innovations such as digital assistants, powerful new mobile apps, built-in machine learning capabilities for end users, and advanced controls. Oracle's internal innovation engine has enabled more than 1,200 enhancements and features for Oracle Human Capital Management (HCM) Cloud alone. Workday, by comparison, is betting that it can integrate acquired applications (like Adaptive Insights, for planning) to gain functionality that Oracle Cloud already offers. Even if those bets pay off—and these types of integration efforts are almost never an easy task—Workday is still playing catch-up. As Oracle keeps the pedal down on its own innovation engine, industry analysts have noted that Workday’s portfolio of applications is not completely comprehensive, that Workday has functional gaps compared to other HCM vendors, and the extent of support for use cases for emerging technologies such as adaptive intelligence, machine learning, or digital assistants, is not as strong as competitors like Oracle. 2. Your Business is Unique In the world of cloud applications, customizations are the enemy of innovation. One of the biggest benefits of software-as-a-service is that the cloud provider updates the software on a regular basis. If you’ve changed the underlying code, an update can cause your painstaking customizations to break. Yet businesses invest a fortune to stand apart from competitors. Your business applications should support those efforts—not undermine them. Rather than customizing your cloud ERP or HCM applications, you can extend them using platform-as-a-service (PaaS). With PaaS, you can build new capabilities that live outside of your core applications, meaning you can upgrade your SaaS environment without affecting your extended functionality. Oracle offers its own cloud platform to let you build extensions for your Oracle Cloud applications. Workday’s platform is still in limited availability; until it is generally available, customers who would like to expand their Workday applications must use a set of third-party integration tools. 3. You Can't Run a Business on Slideware and Solution Gaps Analyst reports reveal that Workday is missing some mainstream capabilities that Oracle offers today—and, in many cases, has offered for years. ERP users looking for quote-to-cash, order management, or inventory valuation tools won't find these capabilities in Workday; neither will HCM users looking for HR applications with complex scheduling requirements, HR case management, HR Help Desk, Advanced HCM Controls, HR Risk & Compliance, or work-life solutions. From financials to planning to supply chain, working with Workday means living with solution gaps—or, if you're lucky, with incomplete functionality and partially integrated acquisitions. Again and again, customers have a choice: Get the capabilities they need from Oracle Cloud, or settle for the possibility that Workday will eventually move this missing functionality from slideware to software. 4. You Need to Be Ready for Future Growth As your business grows and scales, existing technology and business needs will change, and new ones will emerge. Some firms will need to integrate external data sources; others will need access to cloud platform and infrastructure capabilities. Still others will want more flexible cloud deployment options and contracts. Workday’s focus is on finance and HR software. For lines of business such as sales, marketing, customer service, or supply chain, you’ll need to connect Workday to systems from other providers. Eventually, you’ll end up with an IT hairball that’s nearly impossible to untangle. In contrast, organizations can (and are) running their entire business on Oracle Cloud: finance, HR, customer experience, supply chain, and more. Oracle Cloud Applications all run on the same data model and use the same interface—so that both the data and the user experience are consistent across lines of business. Oracle PaaS lets you extend these capabilities if and when you need to—something that smaller cloud providers can’t match. And we offer Data as a Service (DaaS), so that you can combine anonymized third-party data with your own data to discover unforeseen trends and insights. As business needs change, companies can add new capabilities with Oracle—without developing a cloud hairball that ties up growth in knots. 5. One Fact Is Worth a Thousand Promises It's increasingly clear that Workday has a lot riding on its future roadmap—about capabilities, completeness, and giving customers a clear path to scale, compete, and succeed. Maybe Workday will deliver on that roadmap—or maybe it won't. Either way, when your business runs on Oracle Cloud, you can stop betting on a vendor's promises, and start depending on hard facts: Oracle offers nine pre-configured payroll localizations—while Workday offers just four. Oracle offers a complete ERP, EPM, HCM and analytics solution, using the same data model across the entire cloud. Workday has a separate data model for planning (Adaptive Insights) which can lead to mismatched data and reporting.   Oracle Cloud includes a full set of line-of-business offerings across Supply Chain, Sales, Marketing, and eCommerce. Workday does not. The examples go on and on. It simply comes down to this: Oracle delivers. Workday is incomplete. Organizations running their businesses in the Oracle Cloud have streamlined processes, empowered their employees, made their teams more nimble, increased customer satisfaction, and fueled growth—just take a look at our thousands of success stories and analyst reports across the domains of ERP, EPM and HCM. We can’t think of a more ringing endorsement than that.    

By Jennifer Toomey, Adriana Smith and Nick Stankovic, Oracle Does this scenario sound familiar to you? You have great plans for your business, and there are myriad opportunities in front of you. You...

Five manageable steps for growing businesses to plot their path to successfully choose the right ERP software solution.

Five manageable steps for growing businesses to plot their path to successfully choose the right ERP software solution.

If you missed the last big wave of business change, here's how to catch the next one.

If you missed the last big wave of business change, here's how to catch the next one.

Familiar features and tools can make cloud migration easier than anticipated.

Familiar features and tools can make cloud migration easier than anticipated.

Close collaboration between HR and finance is essential to workforce strategy and planning.

Close collaboration between HR and finance is essential to workforce strategy and planning.

Enjoy the history and sights of San Antonio, Texas, while learning about your finance applications.

Enjoy the history and sights of San Antonio, Texas, while learning about your finance applications.

HR and finance teams need stronger analytics skills and tools to better collaborate on human resources planning.

HR and finance teams need stronger analytics skills and tools to better collaborate on human resources planning.

A Chicago-based manufacturer of off-road tires took a leap to the cloud recently, and shows no signs of turning back.

A Chicago-based manufacturer of off-road tires took a leap to the cloud recently, and shows no signs of turning back.

Adventist Health supports its healthcare vision with a move to a unified Oracle Cloud.

Adventist Health supports its healthcare vision with a move to a unified Oracle Cloud.

A pair of upcoming events for higher education offer learning opportunities for growth.

A pair of upcoming events for higher education offer learning opportunities for growth.

Learn from the winners of our 2019 Change Agents of Finance Awards, announced last night at Modern Business Experience.

Learn from the winners of our 2019 Change Agents of Finance Awards, announced last night at Modern Business Experience.

Entertainment trailblazer moves to cloud applications to support growing and diversifying business demands

Entertainment trailblazer moves to cloud applications to support growing and diversifying business demands

Modern Business Experience kicked off with news of easy-to-use AI for finance and supply chain.

Modern Business Experience kicked off with news of easy-to-use AI for finance and supply chain.

A value realization assessment can help you measure the return on your cloud ERP and HR investments.

A value realization assessment can help you measure the return on your cloud ERP and HR investments.

Need to move ERP to the cloud? Here are 5 arguments to get your C-suite on board.

Need to move ERP to the cloud? Here are 5 arguments to get your C-suite on board.

New research shows a troubling talent gap in the office of finance.

New research shows a troubling talent gap in the office of finance.

EmblemHealth implemented a full cloud suite in just 11 months. Learn how.

EmblemHealth implemented a full cloud suite in just 11 months. Learn how.

CFOs seek faster close cycles with better reporting and fewer manual tasks. Intelligent process automation (software-driven processes) can absorb the repetitive steps in typical close cycles so that finance specialists can spend more time on analysis and partnering with the business.

CFOs seek faster close cycles with better reporting and fewer manual tasks. Intelligent process automation (software-driven processes) can absorb the repetitive steps in typical close cycles so that...

As CIMA turns 100, the institute take a look at the future of accounting.

As CIMA turns 100, the institute take a look at the future of accounting.

New research from IMA uncovers how to embrace finance analytics for organizational success.

New research from IMA uncovers how to embrace finance analytics for organizational success.

Attend the focus group luncheon at Modern Business Experience.

Attend the focus group luncheon at Modern Business Experience.

Why should finance leaders attend Modern Business Experience?

Why should finance leaders attend Modern Business Experience?

A new survey illustrates the pressures facing higher education. Learn more in this webcast.

A new survey illustrates the pressures facing higher education. Learn more in this webcast.

It’s time to move ERP to the cloud. Learn how to get your journey off the ground.

It’s time to move ERP to the cloud. Learn how to get your journey off the ground.

It’s time to move ERP to the cloud. Learn how in the first of this two-part series.

It’s time to move ERP to the cloud. Learn how in the first of this two-part series.

According to the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, student loan debt approached $1.5 trillion in 2018.

According to the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, student loan debt approached $1.5 trillion in 2018.

Still cautious about cloud? EPM Cloud can offer a quick win for finance.

Still cautious about cloud? EPM Cloud can offer a quick win for finance.

Standardization as a business practice is incredibly important, because it ensures that customer and employees alike are beneficiaries of best practices.

Standardization as a business practice is incredibly important, because it ensures that customer and employees alike are beneficiaries of best practices.

In the battle for fraud prevention and security, it's your bots against theirs.

In the battle for fraud prevention and security, it's your bots against theirs.

Would you want to work with a software company that didn’t use its own software? Probably not. So, when Oracle CEO Mark Hurd talks about the features and benefits of Oracle Cloud applications, it should cheer Oracle’s customers to know that he speaks from direct experience. Hurd explains why Oracle is its own best customer.

Would you want to work with a software company that didn’t use its own software? Probably not. So, when Oracle CEO Mark Hurd talks about the features and benefits of Oracle Cloud applications,...

A spate of highly-publicized project failures shows that SAP has become too costly, too complex, and too big a security risk. Compare S/4HANA to Oracle ERP Cloud.

A spate of highly-publicized project failures shows that SAP has become too costly, too complex, and too big a security risk. Compare S/4HANA to Oracle ERP Cloud.

Research shows a wide gap between how finance professionals assess their own digital skills, and how leaders assess them.

Research shows a wide gap between how finance professionals assess their own digital skills, and how leaders assess them.

There are numerous benefits to a multi-pillar cloud deployment, but many worry about the risks. KPMG offers 5 keys to success.

There are numerous benefits to a multi-pillar cloud deployment, but many worry about the risks. KPMG offers 5 keys to success.

Scottish Water reduced customer complaints 85% and is closing its books 40% faster with its move to Oracle ERP Cloud.

Scottish Water reduced customer complaints 85% and is closing its books 40% faster with its move to Oracle ERP Cloud.

The nominees have been announced for Oracle’s Change Agents of Finance Awards, and they have some amazing stories to share. Here are 10 things you can learn by reading the nominations and casting your vote.

The nominees have been announced for Oracle’s Change Agents of Finance Awards, and they have some amazing stories to share. Here are 10 things you can learn by reading the nominations and casting your...

Smart sporting goods manufacturer SRAM migrates from Hyperion on-premises to Oracle EPM Cloud to improve the financial close.

Smart sporting goods manufacturer SRAM migrates from Hyperion on-premises to Oracle EPM Cloud to improve the financial close.

Oracle ERP Cloud is ranked the #1 solution for value-based care, according to a Black Book survey. See it in action at HIMSS 2019.

Oracle ERP Cloud is ranked the #1 solution for value-based care, according to a Black Book survey. See it in action at HIMSS 2019.

Making the leap to digital finance won’t automatically make your venture more profitable, but it can significantly improve your chances. Organizations that have invested in digital finance are 59% more likely to have had positive revenue growth over the past 12 months. Learn why.

Making the leap to digital finance won’t automatically make your venture more profitable, but it can significantly improve your chances. Organizations that have invested in digital finance are 59%...

New research uncovers the key traits of digital finance leaders and shows a strong link between digital finance and organizational success. Get the full report.

New research uncovers the key traits of digital finance leaders and shows a strong link between digital finance and organizational success. Get the full report.

Oracle CEO Mark Hurd says the questions CEOs ask about blockchain have less to do with how it works and are more about how it will help boost revenue and increase productivity.

Oracle CEO Mark Hurd says the questions CEOs ask about blockchain have less to do with how it works and are more about how it will help boost revenue and increase productivity.

CFOs are emerging as the changemakers of modern business strategy in several industries, but they need the right tools to drive value, improve efficiency, and enable strategy beyond the borders of the finance function.

CFOs are emerging as the changemakers of modern business strategy in several industries, but they need the right tools to drive value, improve efficiency, and enable strategy beyond the borders of the...

If you're an Oracle user in higher education, you qualify for membership in the independent Higher Ed User Group (HEUG). Sign up to attend the HEUG Symposium.

If you're an Oracle user in higher education, you qualify for membership in the independent Higher Ed User Group (HEUG). Sign up to attend the HEUG Symposium.

Finance leaders are eager to understand how emerging technologies like AI can help the business. Join the CFO webcast to learn how.

Finance leaders are eager to understand how emerging technologies like AI can help the business. Join the CFO webcast to learn how.

Oracle ERP Cloud helps customers gain access to more information across the enterprise, greater analytical acuity, and real-time reporting that results in improved end-to-end financial management processes. Read the report to learn more.

Oracle ERP Cloud helps customers gain access to more information across the enterprise, greater analytical acuity, and real-time reporting that results in improved end-to-end financial...

Effective strategic workforce planning requires aligning finance, HR, and executive leadership to identify and fill future human resources and skills gaps. Get advice on where to start.

Effective strategic workforce planning requires aligning finance, HR, and executive leadership to identify and fill future human resources and skills gaps. Get advice on where to start.

Finance and HR functions have traditionally run their own systems and processes, leading to incomplete insight on departmental budgets, salaries, bonuses, commissions, and benefits. With a unified cloud, leaders get better insight and teams work better together.

Finance and HR functions have traditionally run their own systems and processes, leading to incomplete insight on departmental budgets, salaries, bonuses, commissions, and benefits. With a unified...

Here are the key benefits of a unified approach to finance modernization.

Here are the key benefits of a unified approach to finance modernization.

When you take away spreadsheets and consolidate tribal knowledge into one enterprise performance management (EPM) cloud solution, your management team can make better decisions to help your business transform and grow.

When you take away spreadsheets and consolidate tribal knowledge into one enterprise performance management (EPM) cloud solution, your management team can make better decisions to help your business...

CFOs and other finance professionals are gaining widespread awareness of the benefits of AI, now that Oracle ERP Cloud features integrated AI in a number of critical functions.

CFOs and other finance professionals are gaining widespread awareness of the benefits of AI, now that Oracle ERP Cloud features integrated AI in a number of critical functions.

The Modern Finance Leader takes a look back at its most popular stories from 2018.

The Modern Finance Leader takes a look back at its most popular stories from 2018.

As your small-to-medium business (SMB) grows, you can encounter problems with point solutions. Find out how to know when it is time to integrate with an ERP Cloud solution.

As your small-to-medium business (SMB) grows, you can encounter problems with point solutions. Find out how to know when it is time to integrate with an ERP Cloud solution.

Gartner recently released its first Magic Quadrant for Cloud ERP for Product-Centric Midsize Enterprises. Oracle ERP Cloud is the only cloud ERP positioned in the “Leaders” quadrant of this report.

Gartner recently released its first Magic Quadrant for Cloud ERP for Product-Centric Midsize Enterprises. Oracle ERP Cloud is the only cloud ERP positioned in the “Leaders” quadrant of this report.

Most companies take weeks or months to produce sales plans, often leaving significant revenue on the table. Oracle Sales Planning helps build smarter plans, faster, so your sales reps can be productive at the start of your fiscal year. Learn more in this webinar.

Most companies take weeks or months to produce sales plans, often leaving significant revenue on the table. Oracle Sales Planning helps build smarter plans, faster, so your sales reps can...

With the uptick in seasonal sales, order management remains one of the most crucial components of operations for small-to-medium businesses (SMBs). Find out how Oracle Order Management Cloud can help you keep up with the busy holiday season to ensure a seamless customer experience for your consumers.

With the uptick in seasonal sales, order management remains one of the most crucial components of operations for small-to-medium businesses (SMBs). Find out how Oracle Order Management Cloud can help...

Kimberly Ellison-Taylor is regularly on the list of top influencers in finance. She shares her views on finance, technology, and the future of the accounting profession.

Kimberly Ellison-Taylor is regularly on the list of top influencers in finance. She shares her views on finance, technology, and the future of the accounting profession.

When fighting emerging technologies that can disrupt your business, you have to disrupt yourself first: digitize the finance tools that can help you predict the future of your business. Strategic modeling in the cloud is a great place to start.

When fighting emerging technologies that can disrupt your business, you have to disrupt yourself first: digitize the finance tools that can help you predict the future of your business....

Data infrastructure powerhouse Western Digital is bringing together three Fortune 500-size organizations onto Oracle ERP Cloud to deliver greater business intelligence, agility and value to its customers.

Data infrastructure powerhouse Western Digital is bringing together three Fortune 500-size organizations onto Oracle ERP Cloud to deliver greater business intelligence, agility and value to...

Don't Let Customizations Get in the Way By Paul Laverty, Oracle Americas Practice Leader, DXC Technology Early on in the evolution of cloud technologies, many PeopleSoft customers were resistant to adopting cloud because they were burdened with heavily customized applications. Since SaaS applications are based on standardized processes, many companies found this to be a point of resistance. However, the standardized processes are based on best practices, which means that most companies don’t need as many customizations as they previously required with on-premises solutions. If a customer has a mission-critical customization now and there’s no other option than to customize, that functionality can be rebuilt using Oracle Platform as a Service (PaaS) and easily integrated with the Oracle SaaS application. As Oracle Cloud technologies have evolved, we’re able to remove barriers, including the “lack of customizations” argument as an inhibitor to moving PeopleSoft applications to the cloud. In fact, with nearly every PeopleSoft upgrade project in recent years, customers have been moving away from heavy customizations. Or, they’ve been looking for SaaS applications that can co-exist with their on-premises solutions. For example, if a company has been using PeopleSoft Financial Management, they can migrate some of the functionality to the appropriate finance modules of Oracle ERP Cloud as a way to make their path to the cloud less daunting. My point is that with today’s Oracle Cloud solutions and tools there are many, many different roads to the cloud that can eliminate the traditional barriers for migration. Overcoming the Challenge of Customizations When working with PeopleSoft customers who are delaying a cloud migration because of customizations, we drive a series of steps to help them understand that moving to Oracle ERP Cloud really does make sense for their business. Starting with a fit-gap workshop, we walk through the features and functionality of the latest version of PeopleSoft to show them that they don’t really need that many customizations anymore. Then, we highlight similar functionality in Oracle ERP Cloud as an alternative to an on-premises upgrade. If necessary, we create a business case to illustrate to the customer that they can actually save money by moving to a more standard cloud application versus continuing to use so many customizations. The main objective is to demonstrate to customers that they can realize significant cost savings and a better TCO when they move away from multiple customizations and migrate to Oracle Cloud. In addition, customers find costs savings from lower support and maintenance costs and a streamlined upgrade/testing process since that burden shifts to Oracle. Ready to Migrate: Getting There Quickly Once a customer is ready to migrate from PeopleSoft to Oracle ERP Cloud, even with numerous customizations, the process for a cloud application migration can run quite quickly. We use native Oracle tools and other intellectual property, like our project management process and integrations, to accelerate the migration. For example, we conduct a full assessment to understand the customer’s goals and whether they want to move all or just some of their functionality to Oracle Cloud. Next comes an analysis of their overall architecture using the PeopleSoft toolset. Then, we use Oracle Cloud Manager to help us plan their path to the cloud. We focus carefully on mapping networking and security components, like IP addresses, servers, and firewalls, to ensure that all elements integrate properly. With a full regression test, if the customer has deployed PeopleSoft Test Framework and built test scripts, that can also be used to speed the testing. Also, leveraging the record-and-build tool, the customer has the ability to record test scripts and reuse them. If you use Oracle development products and a fine-tuned project management process, it will speed the deployment and testing of cloud solutions—which helps get Oracle Cloud Applications up and running in days instead of weeks. Customer Perspective: Migration from Legacy PeopleSoft to Oracle ERP Cloud A Florida-based mid-sized investment and financial services company was facing an end-of-life situation with the underlying hardware for its on-premises PeopleSoft Financials applications. With a major upgrade looming, the company evaluated and ultimately deployed an Oracle ERP Cloud solution as a modern alternative to its legacy application. With a concerted effort to avoid customizations, the company opted for a “vanilla implementation” to make use of the best practice functionality and ensure that the twice-a-year upgrades would be as low-impact as possible. According to the project manager, “We’ve had to change our mindset to adopt the SaaS application functionality as it’s packaged. We use some of the functionality that’s available with each release, but we don’t always use all of it. And that’s okay for our organization. With that said, the big benefit is that we always have the latest and greatest functionality when it hits the market. I find that once our accountants get comfortable with the regular tasks that they perform every month, their comfort level improves, and in turn, our user adoption rises.” DXC Technology is an Oracle Platinum partner with a long-standing Oracle partnership and successful track record for delivering high value to clients. DXC's deep industry, systems integration and managed services expertise, coupled with Oracle Cloud technology, ensures organizations continue to compete in the digital world. Did you know? Cloud delivers 3.2x more ROI than on-premises applications. Get the research.

Don't Let Customizations Get in the Way By Paul Laverty, Oracle Americas Practice Leader, DXC Technology Early on in the evolution of cloud technologies, many PeopleSoft customers were resistant to...

Institutions of higher learning see themselves as incubators of great ideas. From scientific research to medical trials to archaeological digs, faculty and students are on a continual quest to uncover new knowledge and innovations. But when was the last time your campus did something innovative to boost student recruitment? Make better financial decisions? Or improve student retention and success? When it comes to campus technology, many institutions of higher learning are far behind the times. While students interact with each other on their mobile devices via SnapChat, Twitter or Facebook, they struggle to get the same ease of use with their course calendars, student finances and transcripts. Make no mistake: innovation in these areas is on its way. I’ll give you one example: technology experts are already looking at the tamper-proof security and permanence of blockchain as a way to store and share student records. When someone sets up a student record blockchain, will your institution be in a position to join? Will you have the right technology in place to get access? This is where cloud applications begin to show their value. Unlike on-premises systems (with which most institutions are burdened), cloud applications are updated regularly by the provider with the latest technology innovations—including emerging technologies like artificial intelligence (AI), the Internet of Things, blockchain and more. Cloud gives your institution the freedom to innovate using technology that’s always up-to-date. Not All Clouds are Created Equal Most providers only offer one piece of the cloud puzzle: marketing, or student services, or finance, or some other stand-alone system. These disconnected clouds require significant integration efforts for services to flow smoothly from one department to the next. This slows down IT efforts and gets in the way of innovation. Success requires an entirely new kind of student system—one built from the ground-up on a single platform, with a game-changing financial aid module, real-time insight and collaboration tools, powered by AI, and updated quarterly by a cloud provider that values research and development as much as you do. We invite university business officers to join our webinar to see Oracle Student Cloud in action. Register today and learn how to: Optimize enrollment Improve recruiter productivity Track student interactions Improve student engagement Easily manage financial aid packages Deliver student success Register now to see how Oracle Student Cloud gives you the freedom to innovate.

Institutions of higher learning see themselves as incubators of great ideas. From scientific research to medical trials to archaeological digs, faculty and students are on a continual quest to uncover...

Moving to the cloud just got a lot easier—and faster. On June 5, Oracle Executive Chairman and CTO Larry Ellison announced the “Soar to the Cloud” solution, the world’s first automated enterprise cloud application upgrade product. What does that mean for Oracle’s on-premises customers? It will enable them to reduce the time and cost of cloud migration by up to 30 percent by leveraging a complete set of automated tools and proven methodologies. And, it’s the last upgrade they will ever need, as Larry stated during the launch event. I was excited to be a part of that event—but I’m even more excited to be a part of Oracle Soar. It will drive a fast, predictable, and cost-effective cloud journey because it applies the same power of automation that is infused in every Oracle Cloud application. As a result, Oracle customers can quickly enhance their finance, HR, and supply chain applications—and take advantage of machine learning. It’s the combination of tools, methods, and people that makes Soar work. I’m proud that many of those people are part of my Oracle Applications Consulting team, and they are intimately familiar with the tools and methodology that drive Soar. The solution includes a discovery assessment, process analyzer, automated data and configuration migration tools, and rapid integration tools. Guided by a dedicated Oracle concierge service, the Soar automated process is fueled by True Cloud Method, Oracle’s proprietary approach to support customers throughout the cloud journey. True Cloud Method is the underpinning of every Oracle Applications Consulting implementation project. So, we know that it ensures a rapid, “no surprises” migration that aligns with industry modern best practices because we’ve proven it time and again. One of the coolest parts of the Soar solution is the fact that customers can monitor the status of their cloud journey with a mobile application that includes a step-by-step implementation guide. The intuitive app lets customers know what needs to be done daily to ensure the project stays on course. And without a doubt, staying the course will be driven by an experienced Oracle launch team. The people behind the development, direction, and deployment of Soar represent the best in the business. I’m thrilled to call them colleagues and friends. Oracle Applications Consulting is excited to dig into the work of catapulting our clients to success with the hottest cloud technology on the market. Are you ready to Soar to the Cloud with Oracle? Your launch team is ready for you. Learn more here.  

Moving to the cloud just got a lot easier—and faster. On June 5, Oracle Executive Chairman and CTO Larry Ellison announced the “Soar to the Cloud” solution, the world’s first automated enterprise cloud...

By Steve Cox, Group Vice President, Oracle ERP EPM Product Marketing How many times have you visited a company’s web site, only to be greeted by a small pop-up window asking, “How can I help?” Such a greeting is becoming more and more common. Often, it’s our first interaction with an organization, and can influence how we perceive their customer service. But that helpful greeting is rarely given by a human being. It’s nearly always a chatbot.   So we’re on the same page: chatbots are text-based (we’re counting emojis as text) and designed to work within a single-purpose application (like Slack, WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, or a web site). There are also virtual assistants (like Amazon’s Alexa), which are voice-activated and generally connect to a mobile device. We’ve been so comfortable with the QWERTY (or AZERTI) keyboard that we’ve maybe forgotten that they were designed to slow humans down (because we type too fast). Bots can make it easier for us to interact with software—to move us into the fast lane when it comes to transaction processing or decision-making. Today, companies like Oracle are embedding voice bots into business software, to help with tasks like recommending suppliers, filing expense reports—even advising which invoices to pay first. We don’t have to double-click or tap anymore; we ask a question and get an immediate answer. Bots Can Automate the Mundane Soon you’re going to see bots help your organization speed period close, manage budgets, and perform financial forecasting. You’ll use these intelligent assistants to eliminate redundancy in work previously performed by people, liberating your team to use their knowledge and experience to provide insights and enable better decisions across the entire business. Imagine, for example, being able to ask, “What is customer X’s credit status?” and receiving a response instantaneously. Or, think about when your company makes a new hire; that person will need a laptop. In the near future, all they’ll have to do is say, “I need a laptop.” The voice bot will check the employee's profile and respond with something like, “Employees performing your job function generally choose this laptop.” The bot might next suggest another accessory or two needed for the laptop, and the new hire will say, “Great, let me purchase the laptop and the two accessories you recommend.” The transaction will complete automatically, the bot will generate a purchase order, manage any approvals needed, and advise the new employee of the laptop’s arrival date. A function that could consume hours will take just a few minutes.  In finance departments, bots can perform similar functions to automate repetitive processes that consume employee hours—time that could be better spent on higher-level tasks such as faster decision-making and architecting a new financial strategy. Bots will be able to provide an immediate and informed answer to a question like, “How much have we spent on travel and expenses this year?” Then, a manager can instantly determine if there is room in the budget to send employees to an overseas conference. Oracle Is Ahead of the Curve At Oracle, we are embedding intelligent bots into our products and applications. At this year’s Oracle OpenWorld, we introduced an array of new AI updates to our Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) Cloud and  Enterprise Performance Management (EPM) Cloud offerings—including a bot that serves as an expense reporting assistant and intelligent algorithms that recommend suppliers and vendor-specific discounts. We’re also building bots into Oracle Project Portfolio Management (PPM) Cloud for more efficient task assignment and tracking. It wasn’t that long ago that getting insights from financial data was a massive task requiring hours, if not days, of a financial analyst’s time. With intelligent chatbots and voice bots, it will be possible to get those insights from real-time financial data without information overload. The Future of Finance Is Here We expect that bots will soon be able to automate the entire financial close, only asking a human to step in when an exception arises. Increasingly, finance employees will be freed from performing rote tasks, and will be able to spend their time on truly challenging and critical work. This isn’t just good for the business in terms of having more minds working on long-term financial strategy; it’s also good for keeping employees engaged, challenged, and enthusiastic at work. Intelligent bots will be a critical part of unleashing the power of people in the organization to do amazing things. Learn more at Modern Business Experience, presented by Oracle. Register now.

By Steve Cox, Group Vice President, Oracle ERP EPM Product Marketing How many times have you visited a company’s web site, only to be greeted by a small pop-up window asking, “How can I help?” Such a...

I recently had the opportunity to sit down with Siddhartha Agarwal, Group Vice President, Product Management and Strategy, Oracle Cloud Platform, and Steve Cox, Group Vice President, Oracle ERP EPM Product Marketing, for the second podcast in our “Tomorrow’s Enterprise, Today” podcast series, where we are discussing how organizations are embracing cutting-edge technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning to drive rapid and continuous innovation to better serve their customers, employees and partners and the different strategies and paths of technology adoption experts are seeing today. AI will undoubtedly change and influence the future of Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems and the finance industry, and will no doubt have a decisive impact on the business of the future, regardless of industry or if you are a small-to-medium business (SMB) or a larger business. But in order to gain value from the new technological advances, SMBs need to revise their current technology strategies and be prepared to change and adapt to the developments. In this podcast, Siddhartha and Steve cover the three advances the finance industry is experiencing with regards to emerging technologies and discuss how you can take advantage of these to achieve digital transformation. Tune into the podcast "Three Advances in Finance That You Can’t Ignore Anymore" and the rest of our "Tomorrow's Enterprise, Today" podcast series to learn how Oracle can help your SMB with its journey to digital transformation.

I recently had the opportunity to sit down with Siddhartha Agarwal, Group Vice President, Product Management and Strategy, Oracle Cloud Platform, and Steve Cox, Group Vice President, Oracle ERP EPM...

Cloud services are not only a way of economizing operations and making efficiency savings; they are the foundations upon which a more innovative approach to business can be built. By Jennifer Toomey, Senior Director, Cloud Business Group, Oracle In today’s unpredictable business environment, your organization needs to put technology at the heart of its growth strategy. An important aspect of that strategy is developing agile forecasts, and operating on a platform that enables you to get ahead in the digital economy by meeting your customers’ demands and expectations. Moving to cloud applications will not only transform the way your organization works but can also facilitate its growth. Each business will have its own set of challenges and objectives, and assessing the value of cloud can appear to be difficult—and sometimes even puts businesses off taking their first steps. At Oracle, we are here to help you visualize, plan and take the next steps on your journey. What is cloud worth to your business? The Oracle Enterprise Performance Management (EPM) Cloud tool can help you to estimate the potential savings and revenue increases that your organization could realize with Oracle Cloud. By simply entering a few details about your business’ current size and performance, the tool will calculate your potential savings. Taking into account your industry and location, the tool will offer recommended improvements that can be made in each of the following areas: Improved planning staff productivity Improved reporting productivity Reduced working capital costs Improved decision-making profit margin Improved analysis quality to drive revenue You can fine-tune the input information to adjust the results of the tool and increase the accuracy of the data returned. In addition to the recommendations, there are a number of resources that can be explored, including eBooks and videos detailing stories from Oracle Cloud customers. Click Here to Calculate Your Benefits Further to the immediate results shown by the tool, by submitting your details you can receive an in-depth, personal report on how Oracle can make savings across your business. Breaking down each of the focus areas above, the report goes into greater depth on the potential benefits your business can reap by moving to Oracle EPM Cloud. Savings and revenue improvements are provided across a range of criteria, allowing you to identify the areas in which you can expect to see the greatest returns and where to focus your attention. Drilling down into specific aspects of Oracle EPM Cloud, the report will demonstrate how connecting your business will enable you to lead with confidence, cut expenses and labor-hours, and develop agile forecasts. Supplementary resources including blogs, videos and demos can also be accessed via the report, providing further information and references from Oracle customers. When you are ready to begin your journey to cloud, Oracle and our partners will help to guide your path by sharing modern best practices and driving your business towards measurable results that will allow your organization to thrive leveraging the latest innovative technologies. Make the case for EPM cloud in your business. Calculate the benefits and get your personalized report.

Cloud services are not only a way of economizing operations and making efficiency savings; they are the foundations upon which a more innovative approach to business can be built. By Jennifer Toomey,...

Eight of the ten fastest-growing companies on this year’s Forbes Global 2000 Growth Champions list are not headquartered in the United States. The same is true for 70 percent of the 50 fastest-growing companies on that list. These companies are based in China, Spain, and Vietnam, among others, and they serve a wide range of industries, from real estate to telecommunications to software development. There’s no one reason why so many non-U.S. companies are outperforming America’s brightest businesses, but equal access to world-class business software is likely a major contributing factor. A decade ago, the majority of companies using enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems were based in North America or Western Europe. These systems were bulky and complicated suites of software installed to corporate data centers and employee machines, requiring regular updates and maintenance. Oracle CEO Mark Hurd observed “most of these applications… [have] all been very monolithic. They typically haven’t integrated cross-application. They’ve been highly customized to the processes that our customers have had, and those processes were automated 20 years ago.” It’s true that the high cost of ERP adoption and upkeep prevented many companies based in developing countries from adopting on-premises solutions. However, it wasn’t just the high cost of on-premises ERP systems that often prevented their implementation in the developing world. Differences in culture and language were barriers to adoption as well, particularly in many Asian countries, which have a different approach to workplace management than most enterprises in the Western world. For example, an ERP system coded by developers from North America to address problems common to North American companies needed extensive customization for deployment in Asia. Even customization didn’t guarantee that a product designed in the West would properly serve the needs of a Chinese company or a Brazilian startup. A mismatch often arose when the ERP systems available weren’t localized to accommodate Chinese laws and language or if there weren’t enough technology professionals with the right skills and language fluency to help Brazilian companies navigate their ERP journeys. The cost, complexity, and cultural incompatibility of legacy ERP systems has been largely addressed with the advent of cloud ERP. Not only do cloud ERP systems offer a more flexible cost structure and easier implementation than on-premises ERP systems, they’re often more effectively localized. Cloud computing requires data centers in strategic locations around the world, which, in turn, requires localized tech talent. The need for local top-tier developers simply didn’t exist for on-premises ERP deployments. The companies that used on-premises systems were responsible for building out their own infrastructure and maintaining the local tech talent to keep it running smoothly. Software localization and customization were more likely to be the responsibility of a local contractor or employee with no direct relationship to the ERP developer. When top-tier coding talents emerged in the developing world, they were often lured to Silicon Valley, where they adopted the style and practice of Western developers coding for Western audiences. On the other hand, a regional data center for cloud software can serve as a hub for talent as well as business development, encouraging people around the world to build the skill sets that later expand that software’s reach and adoption. Prototypical versions of this localized tech hub can be seen in several Indian cities, such as Bangalore and Hyderabad, which established business-friendly technology zones several decades ago and now host the campuses of many multinational technology companies. Earlier this year, Hurd told Forbes that Oracle’s build-out of additional regionalized data centers is “really about extending our global reach. We have customers in countries all across the world... Having local capabilities is clearly a distinct advantage.” The end result of having access to cloud ERP software, particularly software that’s been properly localized, is that businesses in developing nations can effectively use the same fundamental technology tools that companies in North America and Europe have used for years. These cloud ERP systems are more affordable and offer more utility than ERP systems developed in earlier years, which were designed for on-premises implementations by a team of programmers based in Silicon Valley. Last year, Mark Hurd spoke to Recode’s Kara Swisher about the opportunities this access offers: “Bimbo, for example, has moved to cloud ERP... you see a lot of innovation down in Mexico, a large desire to take advantage historically. Remember, in Mexico, like Latin America, one of the biggest issues has always been the lack of available skilled resource, which in the old on-premise world really hurts you. So, when you needed people that could write and extend and customize code, you didn’t have the talent... the IP that’s running at GE is the same IP that’s running at Bimbo... The opportunity now for companies in Latin America to get absolute leading-edge IP that you couldn’t get before has changed dramatically.” Easier and less-expensive access to integral business software such as ERP systems frees companies in developing nations from the burden of creating their own software. Once deployed, a properly localized ERP system can give tech personnel more time to innovate. It also allows high-level users to focus on strategic initiatives instead of monotonous administration and manual data-entry work. When more companies around the world can start on the same solid technological foundation, the result is a stronger worldwide competitive business landscape.

Eight of the ten fastest-growing companies on this year’s Forbes Global 2000 Growth Champions list are not headquartered in the United States. The same is true for 70 percent of the 50 fastest-growing...

With the arrival of process automation, cognitive tools, and blockchain, finance organizations are facing the potential for major transformation. In the last of our series of three blogs, we’ll take a look at how blockchain is shaping the future of finance. By Girija Krishnamurthy, Deloitte Consulting LLP Part 3: How Blockchain is Disrupting Finance Many people know blockchain as the technology behind Bitcoin. The distributed ledger technology allows users to add blocks of information onto a chain of transactions, creating an immutable history of accepted, time-stamped and encrypted data visible to participants. Blockchain has proved to be a reliable and versatile platform for cryptocurrencies, which have thrived despite some well-known growing pains. Nevertheless, the ups and downs of Bitcoin and its offshoots made some risk-averse finance leaders a bit skeptical of this emerging disruptor. If CFOs look outside the walls of finance, they’ll see blockchain taking off in many directions. There are dozens of potential applications for blockchain in industries ranging from financial services and telecommunications to consumer products, health care and logistics. For example, a Fortune 100 logistics company is investing heavily in blockchain technology to provide greater visibility and efficiency in its freight business. This logistics company hopes that blockchain’s distributed ledger may likely enable it to track freight even when it moves to parts of the supply chain it doesn’t own, such as rail lines. Health care companies are now using blockchain’s digital encryption technologies to help make medical records more mobile and improve the traceability of drugs. And blockchain’s immutable transaction-recording system could make claims processing and dispute resolution more efficient. Even groceries are getting into the act. A growing number of grocery store chains are investing in blockchain solutions to track foods from the farm to the grocery aisle to the table. The distributed ledger provides a clear chain of custody as edibles from mangoes to chickens travel across global supply lines with multiple handoffs. Using blockchain, organizations will be able to trace bad food back to its source in seconds and perform a speedy recall—fast enough, perhaps, to avoid incidents like the romaine lettuce e-coli outbreak of earlier this year. Blockchain for Finance Yes, blockchain is coming to the finance function too. In a Wall Street Journal article, Deloitte’s Rich de Mole and Dean Hobbs explain how blockchain has the potential to reshape finance processes to deliver cost and control benefits. The authors point out that blockchain can be used to improve procure-to-pay, order-to-cash and intercompany transactions. When it comes to managing supply chains, for example, blockchain technology can enable an effective integration of finance processes including settlement, financing, insurance, and warranty. Other organizations are looking at use cases ranging from simplifying cross-border payments to streamlining stock trading. One of the many useful features of blockchain technology is the ability to create “smart contracts” that govern how transactions are processed. Once participants on a blockchain accept a contract, the terms and conditions can’t be changed, unless all the parties agree to modify them. The permanent nature of transactions recorded on a blockchain, together with its total transparency, can help reduce the possibility of fraud and errors. Hobbs and de Mole point out that finance organizations can use blockchain to control many kinds of transaction processes, including “self-validating” sub-ledgers for order-to-cash and procure-to-pay integration, revenue cycle management, and trade finance. Deloitte worked with one company, for example, to set up an intercompany blockchain to document purchase agreements, confirm receipt of goods and services, facilitate settlement, and process payments. Blockchain and ERP It’s no wonder that more and more ERP providers—Oracle among them—are integrating blockchain into their ERP cloud applications. Yet companies that pursue blockchain initiatives may want to reconsider changing their existing enterprise systems. As Hobbs explains, blockchain “simply shares data you select with specified parties so they can see the same information you’re seeing at the same time.” The more immediate challenge, he says, is establishing a sustainable group of trading partners bound together by smart contracts and clear rules of engagement. Deloitte, for its part, has been making significant investments in blockchain solutions. Deloitte recently launched a blockchain lab designed to accelerate development of a range of use-cases and empowering organizations to connect and exchange value in more dynamic, efficient and immediate ways. Starting small makes sense and can potentially reduce risk. Some finance organizations may want to get their feet wet by piloting blockchain for intercompany transactions with the goal of simplifying the sale of goods and services across legal entities. This can give companies valuable experience working with blockchain before extending the technology to include external trading partners. Organizations that start early on disruptive blockchain projects could gain a first-mover advantage that could propel growth and innovation. Does your finance organization have a strategy to harness blockchain technology? I’d love to hear from you.   Tune in to the joint Oracle and Deloitte Digital Finance webcast series to learn more about how automation, cognitive, and blockchain are disrupting finance. Girija Krishnamurthy is a principal with Deloitte Consulting LLP and leads the Digital Finance area of Deloitte’s Technology practice. Girija brings over 17 years of deep finance transformation and implementation experience for clients spanning North America, EMEA and Asia Pacific. She holds an undergraduate degree in Engineering and an MBA in Finance and Information Systems. As used in this document, “Deloitte” means Deloitte Consulting LLP, a subsidiary of Deloitte LLP. Please see www.deloitte.com/us/about for a detailed description of our legal structure. Certain services may not be available to attest clients under the rules and regulations of public accounting.

With the arrival of process automation, cognitive tools, and blockchain, finance organizations are facing the potential for major transformation. In the last of our series of three blogs, we’ll take a...

What is the biggest competitive threat to today’s banking incumbents? If you asked many of them, they might say the biggest threats come from fintech start-ups, blockchain innovators, or some other new business model that no one has invented yet. But a new paper from American Banker argues that the biggest threat is coming from within banks themselves—in particular, their reluctance to move to the cloud technologies required to become a digital business. “The primary threat to any financial institution is therefore not external at all,” the authors write. “It is its own internal inability to nimbly execute on the digital imperatives necessary for success in the difficult-to-predict but most certainly lucrative future of finance.” CFOs can lead this charge towards a digital future, the writers argue, because the systems under their purview—ERP, ledgers and sub-ledgers, reporting, audit, etc.—hold the key to agility, efficiency, and innovation. Internal decision-makers depend heavily on enterprise resource planning (ERP) and enterprise performance management (EPM) systems. They rely on these systems to understand what’s going on across the business; to optimize allocation of resources for maximum return-on-capital; and to keep within the institution’s acceptable limits of risk. Financial services companies have much to gain from cloud ERP and EPM systems, which are much more agile, efficient and innovative than their on-premises predecessors. The Gains to Financial Services from Cloud ERP There are a number of advantages that financial services institutions can gain from moving ERP and EPM to the cloud, including: Multi-dimensional insight. To make timely, fact-based decisions, managers and executives need ready access to historical, real-time, and predictive insights. Historical and real-time insights might be delivered in the form of traditional reporting and business intelligence; while predictive insights (looking towards the future) might rely on more advanced data science and visualization to help decision-makers predict trends in customer behaviors, operating margins, and product performance. Accelerated feedback loops. In a fast-paced, innovation-driven marketplace, it’s not just about making the right decisions. It’s about continuously re-evaluating those decisions based on empirical feedback and then quickly making adjustments—whether it’s a bit of fine-tuning or a wholesale change in strategy. In addition to delivering rich insight, cloud ERP must enable speed and frequency of change. Continuous cost alignment. Agility requires the ability to act quickly within the right cost parameters. Historically, that’s been a challenge for banks. With on-premises systems, new technologies required a sizeable investment in advance of returns (the “cap-ex” model). With cloud, banks can now quickly launch pilot programs at more sensible cost. If those programs succeed, they can scale them under an op-ex model that remains well-aligned with the income these new programs generate. If the pilots are not successful, the institution can exit with minimal loss exposure. Cloud ERP thus optimizes margins and mitigates risk, in addition to enhancing agility. Governance, Risk and Compliance in Cloud ERP Governance, risk management, and compliance mandates can often constrain the agility needed to compete in fast-moving financial services markets. Here again, the cloud can be of extraordinary value. Cloud applications are updated quarterly by the providers to help compliance with regulatory requirements, consumer protections and risk management—making it easier and less costly for banks to comply with new or modified mandates as they emerge. Banks can allocate their finite resources to high-value innovation—rather than to low-value compliance burdens. The future belongs to those who transform digital uncertainty from an institutional threat to a source of sustainable competitive advantage. In an upcoming webinar, American Banker will discuss why a digital advantage is critical for the future of banks. You’ll learn how to handle moving to the cloud, why it’s about more than just the technology, and how the choices you make can affect your business. Register now for the American Banker webcast.

What is the biggest competitive threat to today’s banking incumbents? If you asked many of them, they might say the biggest threats come from fintech start-ups, blockchain innovators, or some other new...

Does this scenario sound familiar to you? Your company has a new product ready to launch. The product development team is eager to get it out to the market. Finance has run the forecasts, and the new product is going to be big: it has the potential to increase revenue by 19 percent in the first year, and 31 percent next year. But your company has supply chain issues at the Mexican plant that are causing delivery delays; and attrition on the design team is more than 40 percent; and the materials budget is off by 17 percent; and sales generates 75 percent of its revenue from older products. Your customers might be ready for your latest innovation, but your business isn’t. This is a perfect example of a business that can’t keep up with the pace of change. According to Steve Cox, Global VP of ERP EPM Product Marketing at Oracle, companies are constrained by yesterday’s technologies and operating models: aging IT infrastructure, manual processes, people and cultures that are resistant to change. In his Oracle OpenWorld session, “The Last Upgrade You’ll Ever Need,” Cox urged companies to immediately start looking at tomorrow’s technologies—cloud applications built on machine learning, chatbots, intelligent process automation and more—to immediately start automating as many functions and processes as possible. “Everything that technology can do, it will do,” Cox said, describing the current era as “the last mile of automation.” In the finance function, for example, half of a team’s time is spent on manual, mundane tasks: transaction processing, reconciling numbers, chasing and waiting for information. Yesterday’s ERP doesn’t provide the level of insight, speed or automation required to keep up with today’s pace of change. Companies need tomorrow’s ERP: built on emerging technologies to include features like expense reporting assistants, supplier recommendations, intelligent payments, and more. And because it’s in the cloud, tomorrow’s ERP is updated every 90 days with the latest functionality. “This is about making your organization future-ready,” said Cox. “You can consume innovation at a pace that was unheard of in the old, on-premises world.” A Connected, Intelligent Business Senior Vice President of ERP Product Marketing, Juergen Lindner, echoed the sentiment in the OpenWorld session, “Create Tomorrow, Today: Transform into a Connected and Intelligent Business.” “What makes the conversation about cloud meaningful is the access to innovation,” Lindner said during a panel discussion with Oracle customers and IDC. “When you compare the richness of functionality of cloud applications to on premises, it’s the secret sauce to future-proofing your business.” Lindner cautioned audience members about the “cloud hairball”: multiple point solutions from multiple cloud providers that aren’t integrated with each other. This not only hinders the flow of information from one system to the next, it prevents the process automation that companies are seeking to achieve. The Dangers of Disconnected Clouds IDC’s recent InfoBrief, “Technology Challenges Driving Large Enterprises to a Connected Cloud Suite” (sponsored by Oracle) found that only 5% of large enterprises have all their SaaS applications fully integrated with corporate-wide systems. In cases where applications are integrated, only 25% of respondents said the SaaS provider offers this integration. Instead, organizations rely on on-premises integration platforms (21%), cloud-based integration platforms (20%), custom in-house integration (16%), and systems integrators (14%) to build the integrations they need. “Many large enterprises have made repeated, disconnected cloud purchases that have left them with a complex portfolio of inconsistent and potentially incompatible solutions that are expensive, cumbersome and not easily leveraged as a whole for strategic advantage,” IDC writes. The firm advises organizations to reassess cloud vendors based on a proven ability to deliver full SaaS integration, as well as their ability to provide a head start with innovation and digital transformation. IDC's advice aligns with Oracle's approach. We offer a complete, connected suite of cloud applications, infused with machine learning, chatbots and other emerging technologies, to provide immediate innovations that you can begin using right away. “This is something that Oracle is in a unique position to provide,” said Lindner.  Learn more about Oracle ERP Cloud and Oracle EPM Cloud.

Does this scenario sound familiar to you? Your company has a new product ready to launch. The product development team is eager to get it out to the market. Finance has run the forecasts, and the new...

Using Newtonian physics to describe the behavior of quantum particles, according to physicist Brian Greene, is like pretending that photons are baseballs. Your predictions will come out wrong. Greene was one of the keynote speakers during the opening day of Oracle OpenWorld 2018. He dove into the heady topics of quantum entanglement, black holes and multiple universes with unbridled enthusiasm. The audience was standing room only, and they were just as riveted by the subject matter as Greene clearly was. For a cosmology enthusiast like me, it was the perfect way to kick off Oracle’s biggest annual event. Knowledge, understanding, and predictability are key themes, as attendees are hungry to understand emerging technologies like machine learning, blockchain, the Internet of Things and more. In particular, finance attendees are eager to understand how these new technologies can help make their businesses more productive and predictable. For those attendees, there were many exciting answers available. Oracle Turbo-Charges Cloud ERP Suite One of the biggest announcements this year is about the new capabilities available in Oracle ERP and EPM Cloud. Rondy Ng and Matt Bradley, who lead the development teams for these applications, shared how emerging technologies are providing new capabilities to finance teams, including: Intelligent Process Automation: Using machine learning (ML), rather than business rules, to automate and improve labor-intensive tasks. For example, rules-based image scanning might match 60 to 70 percent of invoices; that still leaves a lot of invoices to process manually. If an invoice is kicked out for review, ML learns from the manual entry and uses it to better recognize similar characters in future. Other processes that can be automated with ML include transaction matching, account reconciliations, and other activities associated with the financial close. Expense Reporting Assistant: A new chatbot assistant processes expenses with greater efficiency. Not only does this simplify expense reporting for end users, it improves accuracy and ensures that company policies are consistently enforced. Intelligent Payments: New artificial intelligence capabilities take advantage of in-the-moment supplier profiles and risk data to generate vendor-specific offers in exchange for early payment of outstanding payables. This helps organizations reduce costs and build stronger relationships with top suppliers. Supplier Recommendations: Combines your internal ERP data about suppliers, purchase orders, invoices, payables, and other details with external sources of data, to help you choose the best suppliers for your needs. Advanced Access Controls: Advanced Access Controls constantly examine all users, roles, and privileges against a library of active security rules—across general ledger, payables, receivables, and fixed assets—to help protect business data from insider threats, fraud, misuse and human error. In addition, embedded machine learning helps to identify patterns associated with fraud attempts that humans might otherwise miss. Intelligent Performance Management (coming soon): The ML capabilities in Oracle EPM Cloud can uncover hard-to-spot data patterns, providing meaningful insights to the right team members, at the right time, to help them make better, more timely business decisions—predictions that (unlike quantum baseballs) are much less likely to be wrong. A Better Way to Build Subscription Business Models Another big announcement for finance professionals is the announcement of Oracle Subscription Management. Designed to help companies quickly offer new subscription services, it helps organizations manage: Renewals, cross-sell and upsell Configure, price and quote Sales planning (CRM) Subscription contracts and billing Collection and payments Revenue recognition compliance with ASC606/IFRS15 This innovative subscription management solution helps organizations to: Support Subscriptions Across All Customer Touchpoints: Omnichannel support gives renewal specialists, service agents, sales reps and customers a consistent subscription experience. Increase Subscription Revenues Through Powerful Customer Insights: Rich analytics and reporting tools provide a full view of customer programs, with a single view of KPIs and powerful analytics to optimize funnel conversion. Continuous insights help agents drive new deal activity by initiating or upgrading customers. Orchestrate the Full Customer Lifecycle: Unified front and back office processes—from outbound communication to renewals and charges—provide powerful insights into new deal activity, opportunities and buying habits. The solution also supports revenue recognition compliance, calculates complex and recurring pricing models, and simplifies the management of mixed orders with recurring services and physical products.   The difference between Oracle’s approach to emerging technologies, and the way that other vendors approach them, is that we don’t just give you a toolset to develop finance applications and use cases. We use machine learning, blockchain, IoT and more to deliver these new applications and use cases to you, the customer, right from our cloud. And we upgrade our ERP and EPM Cloud every 90 days, so that you always have access to the latest, greatest features. With more than 5,500 ERP/EPM Cloud customers, Oracle’s approach to finance innovation appears to be winning over businesses around the world. Stay tuned for more this week from Oracle OpenWorld. Missed Oracle OpenWorld? Join us in Las Vegas for LIMITLESS, March 19-21, 2019. 

Using Newtonian physics to describe the behavior of quantum particles, according to physicist Brian Greene, is like pretending that photons are baseballs. Your predictions will come out wrong. Greene...

Fall isn’t just the time when college campuses come alive with activity. It’s also show time! Events and trade shows for higher education are ramping up, and the opportunities for learning are abundant. Starting next week, a pair of events for higher education will provide insight to finance and business officers looking to modernize their institutions, and for IT professionals seeking to support that mission. EACUBO 2018 The Eastern Association of College and University Business Officers (EACUBO) will be hosting its annual meeting starting Sunday, Oct. 21 in Buffalo, New York. The EACUBO Annual Meeting will focus on topics such as key financial and resource administration, change and strategic management, innovation, collaboration and leadership, and analyzing prudent risk taking. One session not to be missed is “Cloud Based ERP System Collaboration,” presented by Saint Michael’s College. Saint Michael’s is a partner—along with Champlain and Middlebury Colleges—in the Green Mountain Higher Education Consortium, which is implementing a cloud-based ERP system for use by all three colleges. The presentation will outline the business drivers behind the project, as well as the methods used to share and standardize business processes. The session will also highlight the critical role of data governance models early in planning. William Anderson, CIO, and Mary Jane Russell, Director of Business Intelligence and Associate CIO, both of Saint Michael's College, will be the presenters. The session is on Tuesday, Oct. 23, 1:15 - 2:15 pm. Don’t forget to drop by booth #5 for updates on the latest on Oracle Student Cloud, as well as demos of other cloud applications for higher education. EDUCAUSE 2018 An even bigger splash will be made the following week at EDUCASE, Oct. 30-Nov. 2 in Denver, Colorado. The EDUCAUSE Annual Conference brings together the best thinking in higher education technology. Higher ed professionals and technology providers from around the world gather to network, share ideas, grow their skills, and discover solutions to today’s challenges. It’s the largest gathering of your peers throughout the year.  On Wednesday, Oct. 31, we’ll host a session on how to Innovate and Differentiate with Enterprise Cloud Services. You’ll hear from technology leaders at forward-looking institutions, including: Tonjia Coverdale, Vice President and CIO, Central State University Max Davis-Johnson, CIO and Associate Vice President, Boise State University Anthony Espinoza, CIO, Stephen F Austin University Frank Lever, CIO, Moody Bible Institute The panel members will discuss how they are embracing new technologies—such as chatbots powered by artificial intelligence, modern student systems, and cloud services such as database, integration, security and management. Together with Oracle Student Cloud, these institutions are creating dynamic, modern and personalized experiences for their entire communities. If you need help getting around the area, look for the Tesla cars branded with Oracle Student Cloud on the sides. Anyone with a conference badge can hop in for a ride to wherever you need to go. And be sure to visit the Oracle booth, #502, where you can see demos of Oracle Student Cloud, Student Financial Planning, Planning and Budgeting, Finance, Human Capital Management, and the Oracle Cloud Platform. We hope to see you at both events! Register now for the EACUBO 2018 Annual Meeting and EDUCAUSE 2018. 

Fall isn’t just the time when college campuses come alive with activity. It’s also show time! Events and trade shows for higher education are ramping up, and the opportunities for learning...

By Jennifer Toomey, Senior Director, Cloud Business Group, Oracle As my colleague Anne Ozzimo recently wrote, “The role of finance is being disrupted… with finance operating models and skill sets evolving to support customer-first strategies and dynamic new business models.” New operating models, emerging technologies and skill sets will be a focus next week at Oracle OpenWorld, along with a wealth of information and customer stories for those involved in enterprise performance management (EPM). Where should you start? We recommend beginning with the big picture: the ERP/EPM keynote, “Thriving in the Age of Business Model Disruption” (Monday, Oct 22, 11:00 a.m. - 12:15 p.m. at Moscone South - Room 153/155). Speakers from Office Depot, Dropbox, and Oracle will be discussing how EPM can help enable business model change and blaze the trail toward the intelligent enterprise. How Do I Move from On-Premises to Cloud? This year’s agenda is filled with case studies of customers who have successfully moved from Hyperion on-premises applications to EPM Cloud. Gather insights and strategies from other customers by attending our Customer Panel on Migrating to Oracle EPM Cloud. This practical session explores performance and migration considerations through two successful Oracle EPM Cloud migration and implementation case studies. Oracle Financial Consolidation and Close Cloud is ready for prime-time, and many customers are moving from Hyperion Financial Management (HFM). Hear the Avis story in Ride Along with Avis on Its Journey to Oracle EPM Cloud. The session entitled Oracle Hyperion Financial Management to Oracle EPM Cloud: Financial Close explores the process in detail with a customer case study and helps dispel the myths and uncertainty. On the planning side, hear how Hertz moved from Hyperion Planning to Oracle EPM Cloud and worked with Deloitte to build a depreciation engine for its entire fleet—something that would not have been possible in the on-premises world—in the session, Improved Business Outcomes: Moving from Oracle Hyperion to Oracle EPM Cloud. There are many paths from on premises to the cloud, and you can hear about a few of these at The Modern Office of the CFO: Shared Tales from On-Premises to the Cloud. For example, Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan initially planned to migrate just its on-premises planning to Oracle Cloud and instead decided to improve processes including strategic modeling, financial close, and data management functions across the enterprise—and adopted other Oracle SaaS offerings. Dexcom approached its cloud journey as an opportunity to undergo a financial transformation: in addition to migrating Oracle E-Business Suite to Oracle ERP Cloud, Dexcom implemented Oracle EPM Cloud, including financial consolidation and close, account reconciliation, profitability and cost management, and enterprise planning and budgeting. What’s New with Oracle EPM Solutions? Emerging technologies like artificial intelligence, machine learning, and robotic process automation are on everyone’s minds. When you’re making a major investment in EPM, you want to know what you’re getting, now and in the future. To get the long-term view, come to Emerging Technologies in EPM. In this session, experts discuss how emerging technologies are opening up exciting new opportunities in EPM. The presenters will provide a forward-looking overview of innovation and automation across the full spectrum of EPM business processes, including planning and forecasting, financial consolidation and close, process orchestration, account reconciliation, and performance reporting. For a more comprehensive overview, global VP of product management, Hari Sankar, will present the Oracle EPM Strategy and Roadmap. This session will cover functionality such as planning and budgeting, profitability and cost management, financial consolidation, financial close, external and internal reporting, and master data management. If you’re not ready to migrate your on-premises EPM solution, make sure to attend Overview and Update: On-Premises EPM Applications and Roadmap. This session explores in detail the strategy and solution delivery roadmap for EPM on-premises applications, so you’ll know what to expect from your continued investment. Got questions? Head to the Product Development Panel Q&A: Oracle EPM Applications. Here, the Oracle EPM Cloud development team will address your questions on product capabilities, release plans and roadmap, and related topics. What Stories Will Customers Be Sharing? One of the best things about Oracle OpenWorld is the opportunity to hear customers’ real-world success stories. This year we’re pleased to offer stories on virtually every topic area, in every industry. Want to know how Oracle's latest EPM cloud solutions support the needs of enterprise organizations in healthcare and beyond? Come to Modern Healthcare in Oracle EPM Cloud to hear how Harvard Pilgrim Health Care went live with an integrated reporting, planning, and allocation solution powered by Oracle EPM Cloud. If you’re in a government organization of any scale, get insight from Customers Present: EPM in the Public Sector. You can also learn about the City of Detroit’s experience of Improving Government Operations with the Cloud. Here how Hilton Grand Vacations recently went through a divestiture that resulted in the need for new and improved close and reporting processes during Journey to the Cloud: Enabling Oracle EPM Cloud for Hilton Grand Vacations. In another opportunity to learn from and with your peers, current Blackline users shouldn’t miss Case Study for Migration from Blackline to Oracle Account Reconciliation Cloud. You’ll learn how Tribune Publishing increased efficiency and successfully migrated a highly complex transaction matching solution, as well as its overall close and reconciliation solution, from Blackline to Oracle Account Reconciliation Cloud. Finally, hear from customers about the newest EPM Cloud offering, Oracle Enterprise Data Management. Attend Customers Present: Oracle Enterprise Data Management Cloud Service to learn from Oracle Data Relationship Management and Oracle Enterprise Data Management Cloud Service customers about how they are solving challenges of migrating to or coexisting core information assets across hybrid, multi-cloud environments. Why Not Create Your Own Agenda? In addition to presentations, our popular Hands-On Lab sessions offer specific guidance on capabilities for financial close, enterprise planning, enterprise data management, account reconciliation, and more. Build your OpenWorld 2018 schedule and learn more here. Register now for Oracle OpenWorld 2018.  

By Jennifer Toomey, Senior Director, Cloud Business Group, Oracle As my colleague Anne Ozzimo recently wrote, “The role of finance is being disrupted… with finance operating models and skill sets...

By Declan Tyrrell, Finance Evangelist, EMEA Sales Factory at Oracle, and Former CFO I’ve been in the world of finance for a long time. As a former CFO, I’ve seen the role evolve from one of financial steward, to corporate strategist. With the pace of business change now faster than it has ever been, the role of the CFO will be help build an engine to drive the business forward. Data will be the fuel for that engine, and sustainable profitability will be the destination. Data, Past and Present It is not unusual for finance to spend 90% of its time getting information into relevant business systems, validating it, and getting it out again for reporting—leaving limited time to interpret the data. By the time we generate and distribute management information (which can take in excess of 10 days), all we are doing is asking management to explain our current under-performance. This, in essence, has our management driving the business by looking backwards. From 12 Days to 14 Minutes Modern finance systems allow us to close our books faster. When I became CFO of a law firm, the first thing I did was to set a goal of closing the books at 5 p.m. on the last working day of the month, and generating reports by 9 a.m. on the first working day of the following month. Using automated workflows and automatic checks and balances, I reduced the month-end close from 12 days to 14 minutes. I overlaid the reports to management with a “traffic light” system (green, yellow or red) and automated commentary; this gave the information clarity and purpose. I continued to meet with the management teams mid-month, but instead of asking them to explain under-performance, I asked what actions they had taken since they received the information. This empowered managers to look forward, not backward, and take action. This approach led to a doubling of revenue over a three-year period and a tripling of profit per equity partner. Everywhere I have applied this approach, it has empowered management to take action and be forward facing. I have seen significant increases in profitability—as high as 250% in one organization and 400% in another. Using Data to Shape the Future As modern finance systems continue to evolve, the concepts of continuous close or real-time data validation are becoming a reality for more and more businesses. This opens up a world of opportunity for finance. Imagine not having to worry about the accuracy of your data—whether financial, internal or external. Imagine a finance “bot” that continually monitors the data, running scenarios and trend analyses to identify potential future issues or areas of opportunity. This would empower the business, and finance, to focus on the issues and opportunities rather than wasting time on ensuring data accuracy. Are You Profitable? Profitability is critical. You have to understand your profitability, and most organizations don’t. A typical scenario is when a company prices its products and services to win, rather than to be profitable. But once you’ve empowered your organization with the ability to easily see and analyze financial data, you’re able to figure out the formulas that drive profits. It’s not just costs. Maybe you’re losing money because processes aren’t efficient enough. Maybe it’s the discounts you offer. Maybe you’re failing to recover all the hours of work you put into servicing an account. With cloud-based profitability and cost-management, you can run what-if scenarios that will quickly tell you things like how to grow your margin from 4 to 9 percent—just by changing your discount rate from 15 percent to 10. Every CFO knows the key to growing profit margin is understanding the organization’s key performance indicators and how they impact profit. This sounds like a simple statement, but the complexity of multiple systems and siloed data can make this a nearly impossible task. We have always been good at organization profit measurement, profit by line of business or region, etc. The real power comes from understanding the component parts of the profit margin and how to tweak them. When I restructured the finance team at a law firm, they had no capabilities in place to easily analyze profitability by client. When I started to introduce profit analysis by customer, we discovered, unsurprisingly, that 80 percent of the firm’s revenue was coming from 20 percent of its customers. That’s not unusual, but we needed to dig deeper. It’s one thing to have a client that brings in $1 million a year, but how much of that income is profit? When we looked under the hood, we found the firm’s biggest client offered high-volume, low-value, fixed-price transactional work. And over the course of the previous four years, costs associated with that client had exploded because the staff doing the work had become more qualified and were being paid more. We knew we had to either increase the price we were getting for the work or decrease the cost of doing it—maybe both. We went to the customer to ask for more money for the work, which we received. Then, with the help of machine learning, we automated a lot of the work and pushed most of the rest to lower-cost employees. After only six months, this client became the firm’s highest value customer. You might be able to do this kind of analysis now, but how much effort does it take? Probably a great deal. With automation, you can conduct the analysis quickly and easily. Who Is Your Customer? With cloud-based finance applications, you’ll have accurate data in real time, and the ability to understand and share it. You’ll really start to understand who your customers are and how much value each one brings to the table. Maybe you’ll see more opportunities to cross-sell your products or services to existing clients. We all know it’s cheaper to sell new business to an existing customer than to win an entirely new client. With greater access to financial data and the tools to analyze it effectively, you’ll see opportunities to serve clients across multiple departments, not just one. You’ll also be able to roll data back two years, five years, a decade. Unlike traditional computing environments, cloud-based systems are designed to scale and accommodate all your data requirements, all the time. How many clients did you lose? Are there trends among those you’ve lost over a certain time period? Which clients grew during the same period? Which ones are entirely new? Can you identify sweet spots or hot clients? If so, can you share those hot clients with other departments and grow new lines of business with them? The Future is in the Cloud If you want this kind of analysis at your fingertips in real time—if you want to be able to use predictive analytics to know what’s coming around the corner—then it’s time to become the progressive CFO of the future. Today’s CFOs have an opportunity to be proactive contributors to innovation and growth. With access to real-time data in the cloud and machine learning-infused automation, finance leaders have more time and capabilities to drive profitable change by improving decision-making, automating non-value adding tasks, managing risks, and optimizing assets. If you automate all the transactional functions that go into closing the books, for example, you will always know where your company stands right now financially. And with cloud capabilities, you can share that information with key stakeholders quickly and easily. Then, as a team, you can work on getting your business turned around, facing forward, and growing profits. As Oracle CEO Mark Hurd said at the 2018 Modern Finance Experience, “CFOs are driving cloud migration because it just makes sense. It reduces expenses, increases efficiency, and creates more opportunity to truly innovate.”

By Declan Tyrrell, Finance Evangelist, EMEA Sales Factory at Oracle, and Former CFO I’ve been in the world of finance for a long time. As a former CFO, I’ve seen the role evolve from one of financial...

By David Haimes, Senior Director of ERP Development, Oracle At the UN General Assembly in New York last month, Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari pleaded with his international peers to help fight corruption, which he said is an extreme threat to stability, peace, and economic security for millions of people in developing nations like his. Much of the corruption in Nigeria is tied to illicit financial flows, Buhari noted. During the same week, the Columbus, Ohio, suburb of Dublin (population 42,346) was reviewing proposals for its history-making plan to become one of the first US cities to have a blockchain-based identity system for citizens. One discussed use is voting and monitoring of voting. Viewed together, these examples illustrate the widespread opportunity for blockchain to improve accountability in the public sector at all levels and in many vital functions, whether the organization in need is an emerging nation with complex problems or a small town that wants to be more open, efficient, and innovative. Government Applications of Blockchain Blockchain, also known as distributed ledger, is a type of software that documents and couples user identity and transactions, and creates linked blocks of those records so that anyone participating in the chain of transactions has visibility into all activities. Potential government applications include: Collecting and spending tax money Banking and capital markets regulation Asset traceability Delivery of services Voting Licensing Court records Law enforcement In the case of something like voting that requires anonymity, voters would be identified by a digital key, which means records are documented on the blockchain anonymously. The digital key concept is how digital currency is “owned.” The pure transparency and indisputable record of activity that blockchain provides can help prevent public corruption. Essentially, when transactions such as paying taxes, transferring money, and voting happen in a blockchain, a linked community of watchdogs is automatically created. It’s like having access to public records without having to go to a public facility to monitor them as activities are recorded. Blockchain also provides data-security benefits and works in real time, which improves a government agency’s ability to protect public data and keep records current. Access to a blockchain requires a digital key, and activity within the chain is documented immediately. How Governments Are Likely to Use Blockchain Governments in emerging markets in Asia, Africa, and the Middle East are hot spots for blockchain at the national level because they are building up digital infrastructure for the first time. Because they don’t have embedded hardware and software systems as developed governments do, they can be faster with adoption. For these countries, blockchain could be a way to accelerate their emergence in the global economy. Qatar has committed to becoming an entirely blockchain-based government by 2020, and the country already is creating blockchain-based apps for citizens to access information such as food origin. Nigeria is considering different applications of blockchain, including using Oracle Blockchain Cloud to enhance customs-services operations. For developed countries and their regional and local counterparts, blockchain adoption will happen where it makes the most sense. If a digital system is in place and working well, government leaders probably won’t run out and replace it just to say they are using blockchain. If a digital system is in place but is not functioning well, is not secure, or is lacking a reliable checks-and-balances capability, blockchain-based applications could be the answer. One area that’s certain to be of interest is identity management. Right now, different public groups issue different forms of identify to prove citizenship or privileges, such as a state driver’s license, a federal health-services card, and a city ID for using city-owned amenities. That’s a lot of redundancy and multiple opportunities for fraud. Blockchain makes it possible to maintain one secure version of identity verification. Keeping Up with the Business of Blockchain Another aspect of government accountability regarding blockchain is economic development and empowerment. Blockchain is a transformational technology. It will forever change the way goods and services are delivered and exchanged, how markets and money transfers are regulated, how contracts are established, as well as many other aspects of doing business around the globe. Governments should embrace opportunities to attract and build blockchain knowledge in their communities and should use blockchain to make it easier to do business with and within their communities. Lots of large, public companies are investing in blockchain initiatives, but small, local governments such as Dublin, Ohio, are investing in blockchain, too. Gartner estimates blockchain’s business value-add will grow to just over $360 billion by 2026, and then surge to $310 trillion by 2030. Even though widespread adoption is years away, blockchain technology is easy to access and use today. Why not get started now? Not only will your government agency be preparing for tomorrow, but you will also be an early adopter of what’s sure to be a much more accountable era in public governance. On Wednesday, Oct. 24, I’ll be presenting other use cases for blockchain applications as part of Oracle OpenWorld 2018. If you’re planning to come to OpenWorld, I invite you to attend. Register now for Oracle OpenWorld.

By David Haimes, Senior Director of ERP Development, Oracle At the UN General Assembly in New York last month, Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari pleaded with his international peers to help fight...

By Angela Mazza Teufer, Senior Vice President ERP, EPM, SCM Western Europe, Oracle When we’re young, we have very different notions of what makes us "super" people. We want to be Iron Man with his suit, Captain America with his shield or Wonder Woman her bracelets of submission. But as we become adults and come to grips with reality, our definition of what it takes to be "super" is completely different.    In fact, in business, we use "super" to describe leaders who are finding the right balance between work and life. Modern superheroes lauded in the media are those who are successful in their field while also making enough time for family and hobbies outside of work. Maybe that’s getting home in time to put the kids to bed, finding time to train for a marathon, or just putting in the hours to learn how to play an instrument. We’re in awe of these individuals not because of a tremendous feat of strength or heroic act, but because achieving a perfect work/life balance is one of the hardest things to do as an adult. This is where ERP cloud applications are delivering the power needed to be "super." ERP might stand for “Enterprise Resource Planning”, but let’s make it stand for “Earn, Rest and Play”—helping business decision makers find the right work/life balance and prove their true worth as modern superheroes. ERP, when bringing automation to the equation, can speed up manual tasks as well as eliminating time-consuming and costly upgrades. Focus can instead be dedicated to more strategic elements of the job. Recent Accenture research showed that finance staff spend an average of 60 to 70 percent of their time on tasks such as processing transactions, accounting, controlling, compliance and reporting; that’s a lot more time back in their day. We’re already seeing a couple of CFOs splitting their time more evenly between Earning, Resting and Playing, thanks to ERP: Umair Junaid, CFO at Access Power, was spending a lot of time manually pulling together the financial reports coming in from the company’s operations across many different countries. It was a time-heavy process given each region has its own regulations and accounting practices. Automating the process with an ERP cloud means he has a better handle on reports from across the regions and can use them to facilitate the organisation’s growth plans, but without needing to put in more hours at work.  Christophe Eouzan, Chief Accounting Officer at Orange, needed a way to free up both his and the wider corporate finance team’s time so they could focus on higher-level work that would be more valuable in supporting a company-wide transformation initiative. With an ERP cloud taking care of time-consuming, non-strategic tasks like requisitions, purchase orders, and vendor invoices, Orange has been able to free up finance back-office personnel. Now Eouzan can focus on more important, value-added tasks, such as forecasting, supplier transaction transparency and building a digital working environment. With businesses more reliant on data, CFOs need to be more than number-crunchers if they’re to maximise their earning potential and add value in the right places. Our market-leading ERP helps them achieve this, making them more productive and successful at work, while freeing up the time to "do it all"—dedicating attention to family, friends, hobbies, and their general well-being. That’s why ERP with automation capabilities is the real power helping business people become our modern day superheroes.

By Angela Mazza Teufer, Senior Vice President ERP, EPM, SCM Western Europe, Oracle When we’re young, we have very different notions of what makes us "super" people. We want to be Iron Man with his...

By Anne Ozzimo, Senior Director, Oracle ERP/EPM Cloud Business Group, Oracle In her new book The Inversion Factor, author and leading technologist Linda Bernardi argues that traditional product-centric business strategies are no longer sufficient to ensure business success. Bernardi advocates inverting your strategy away from designing products or services you hope customers will like, to an innovation strategy predicated on anticipating customer needs and fulfilling them in ways never before possible, from delivering groceries in a two-hour window, to selecting the perfect pair of jeans for your body type.    The role of finance is being disrupted as well, with finance operating models and skill sets evolving to support customer-first strategies and dynamic new business models. Emerging technologies like IoT, blockchain, artificial intelligence, and autonomous technologies are behind the shift toward customer centricity, helping humans sift through reams of data to understand their customers more intimately than ever before. But human acumen is needed as well, especially from the finance team, whose job has moved beyond interpreting data trends to proactively monetizing these insights with management to create new sources of revenue and growth.   The role of disruptive finance is one of the key trends being explored at Oracle OpenWorld this October 22-25, 2018 in San Francisco, with Inversion Factor author Bernardi among those speaking at the annual Finance Executive Networking Luncheon and CFO Workshop hosted by Oracle CEO Safra Catz and her finance executive team. These are just two of the many sessions at OpenWorld designed to help professionals network and learn about finance and technology trends, change management and implementation best practices, and share other strategies and methods to support finance modernization. Some not-to-be-missed sessions include: ERP General Session October 22, 2018, 11:00-12:15 pm, Moscone South Hosted by Oracle Applications Development SVPs Rondy Ng and Matt Bradley and available to all OpenWorld attendees, this session examines the dynamic and disruptive business models powering the shift toward a service-driven economy, and how upcoming releases of Oracle ERP Cloud and Oracle EPM Cloud will support these new, recurring revenue streams. Among the highlights: new product demonstrations; a development expert panel focused on AI and UX; and an interactive discussion with Dropbox Chief Accountant Tim Regan and Office Depot Senior Director Damon Venger, who will share their business strategies and how Oracle ERP and EPM Cloud solutions are helping to power their business models. CFO Workshop: The Customer-first Economy October 23, 2018, 7:30-11:00 am Contact your Oracle sales representative for more information. The CFO workshop, hosted by Oracle Executive Vice Chairman Jeff Henley and Oracle EVP Doug Kehring, will bring together senior finance executives for an interactive session on how to lead in the customer-first economy. Inversion Factor author Linda Bernardi will share the six principles of inversive business models and explore those principles with finance executives at Instacart and Stitch Fix, two examples of true inversion. During the workshop, Oracle’s finance executives will team up with Oracle ERP and EPM Cloud customers to discuss how emerging technologies are reshaping finance processes to support customer-first operating models. Discussions will focus on: Intelligent Operations: Optimizing the Continuous Close, Procure-to-Pay and Record-to-Report Processes Predictive Guidance: Zero-Touch, Rolling Forecasts and Real-Time Management Reporting The Future-Ready Workforce: Digital Skills, Cross-Functional Teams, Strategic Mindset Finance Executive Networking Luncheon: Feed Your Need for Disruptive Thinking October 23, 2018, 11:30-1:15 pm Contact your Oracle sales representative for more information. A perennial highlight for finance executives attending Oracle OpenWorld is the Finance Executive Networking Luncheon hosted by Oracle CEO Safra Catz and her finance executive team. The luncheon brings together finance practitioners wanting to be inspired by the latest thinking on finance and technology best practices. During lunch, Safra will share her insights on why finance executives need courage, clarity, curiosity, and conviction to thrive in today’s nonstop economy. She will also give an update on Oracle’s own ERP and EPM Cloud journey, and the benefits Oracle is receiving by standardizing on a modern cloud. Joining Safra to share their stories are finance change agents at Instacart, Royal Bank of Scotland, and Beall’s, in an interactive session moderated by author Linda Bernardi and Chris Wood, VP of Business Transformation at FedEx.   Explore ERP Cloud at Two Focus Groups and Have a Meal on Us! Executive Focus Group Breakfast: Wednesday, October 24, 2018, 7:30-8:45 am General Focus Group Luncheon: Wednesday, October 24, 2018, 12:15-1:45 pm If you are considering an upgrade or finance modernization initiative, these two focus groups are just the ticket you need to get on the cloud fast track. Designed to debunk many of the myths around finance in the cloud, these sessions will answer all your questions or concerns in a confidential, interactive environment.  Beyond Cost: Cloud Innovation Benefits There are a number of other opportunities to get up speed on how Oracle ERP and EPM Cloud can benefit your organization, including these highlighted sessions open to anyone attending OpenWorld: Tomorrow’s ERP, Today: The Last Upgrade You’ll Ever Need October 22, 2018, 4:45-5:30 pm The leader for this session is Steve Cox, Group Vice President, ERP and EPM Product Marketing at Oracle. Steve will discuss the key findings of a survey of organizations that have implemented cloud ERP and EPM systems. These customers were drawn to the cloud for cost savings, but found that the innovation-related benefits are the more meaningful and longer-lasting gains. Attendees will come away with a vision of where their businesses need to go next to compete, grow, and thrive. Improved Business Outcomes: Moving from Oracle Hyperion to Oracle EPM Cloud Wednesday, Oct 24, 11:15 a.m. - 12:00 p.m. | Moscone South - Room 157 Moving to the cloud is not about simply lifting and shifting capabilities from on-premises to the cloud; it’s an opportunity to reinvent and transform your business processes. Attend this session to hear how Hertz successfully moved from Hyperion Planning to EPM Cloud, and in the process, worked with Deloitte Consulting to build a depreciation engine for each automobile in Hertz’s fleet, something that would never have been possible before the cloud. Oracle ERP Cloud and the $2 Trillion Productivity Opportunity October 23, 4:45 p.m. - 5:30 p.m. | Moscone South - Room 214 See how Oracle ERP and EPM Cloud are driving increased productivity and how finance teams can position their companies to take advantage of the huge opportunities that emerging technologies offer. New research from the Wharton School predicts the US GDP could grow by $2 trillion over the next 10 years—with the productivity boom being powered by emerging technologies such as AI, machine learning, IoT, and more, and the cloud services that deliver them. Attendees will hear from National Rural Utilities Cooperative Finance Corporation and learn why CFOs are poised to lead this growth. Learn how to position your company to get ahead of the future of finance—realizing Tomorrow’s Finance, Today. Visit the OpenWorld session catalog to view the complete list of ERP and EPM sessions. Register Now for Oracle OpenWorld 2018.

By Anne Ozzimo, Senior Director, Oracle ERP/EPM Cloud Business Group, Oracle In her new book The Inversion Factor, author and leading technologist Linda Bernardi argues that traditional product-centric...

Have you ever heard of the “quadruple aim”? If you’re a finance or business leader in healthcare, you probably have. It refers to an industry-wide set of goals for U.S. healthcare providers, which can be broadly categorized as: Enhancing the experience of care for individuals Improving the health of populations Reducing the per capita cost of healthcare Improving the clinician experience As in every business today, technology plays a critical role in helping healthcare organizations achieve their goals. The Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society (HIMSS) recently undertook a survey to understand how healthcare organizations are making use of new technologies—including cloud, artificial intelligence and machine learning (AI/ML), blockchain, and the Internet of Things (IoT)—to help them with these four strategic priorities. We’re excited to share some preliminary findings with you, and invite you to attend the HIMMS webcast for a more in-depth look. 5 Key Findings from the HIMSS Survey 1. Hospitals and health systems are managing multiple strategic priorities related to the quadruple aim. Technology can be a key enabler to advancing those goals; yet, for most targeted outcomes, fewer than half of the hospitals and health systems surveyed feel their technology plans are well aligned with their goals. Q. How well do you feel your organization’s current or planned use of technology solutions is aligned to advance the following goals? 2. A lack of willingness to embrace new technologies may be one barrier to better alignment, with most organizations wanting evidence of success or more mainstream adoption before committing. 3. Despite this, hospitals and health systems are moving forward with technology that is key to driving digital transformation. Cloud enjoys the most widespread adoption, but decision makers also report solid interest in AI/ML and IoT. Q. Which of the following best describes your organization’s plans with respect to the following technologies? 4. Cloud is a technology hospitals and health systems are increasing their focus on. Three-quarters report interest in a cloud-first approach to managing applications and services, but they cite concerns regarding security, governance, integration, data protection and storage. Q. Is your organization taking a cloud-first approach to managing its applications and services? Q. What obstacles must be overcome to enable a cloud-first strategy at your organization? 5. The top use cases cited for AI/ML, IoT and blockchain are: AI/Machine Learning: Clinical decision support & predictive analytics IoT: Remote health monitoring for chronic conditions Blockchain: Securing medical records/patient data Join HIMSS for the full survey results. Attend the webcast, “HIMSS Media Insights on Technology Disruption in Healthcare.” You can also learn more about technology options for healthcare organizations in the webcast, “Transformative Financial Analytics for Today’s Modern Healthcare Organizations.” This event will take a deeper dive into the critical role of technology in helping healthcare organizations achieve their strategic goals. The speakers will: Explore trends in strategic financial management, planning, and reporting Review the necessary analytic tools to help manage today’s complex healthcare organizations Discuss how emerging technologies like AI/ML and IoT are becoming important strategic tools for optimizing performance and decision making Share a live demo of strategic financial analytic tools Register today to attend “Transformative Financial Analytics for Today’s Modern Healthcare Organizations.” 

Have you ever heard of the “quadruple aim”? If you’re a finance or business leader in healthcare, you probably have. It refers to an industry-wide set of goals for U.S. healthcare providers, which can...

In years past, many corporate IT departments and their finance departments operated as independent fiefdoms, which could often lead to inter-departmental clashes and wasteful spending. Many IT professionals would gladly throw every possible resource into developing a great new technology or application, but there are limits to what any company can spend on research and development before the bottom line starts to suffer. As a result, many modern enterprises, whether or not they claim to be “tech” companies, now route final authority for IT decision-making through their finance department. Oracle CEO Mark Hurd highlighted the shift at this year’s Modern Finance Experience conference when he noted, “About 60 percent to 70 percent of IT departments now actually report to finance, to the CFO.” Every modern enterprise needs a capable IT department, no matter how much development and production they might offload to the cloud. But every modern enterprise also needs to manage its costs so that it has the resources to grow, both for today and well into the future. It’s no longer enough for today’s CFO to be a cost-cutting, balance-sheet-optimizing accounting whiz. The modern CFO should view their role as a combination of savvy financial management and smart technology stewardship, and should undertake both functions with an eye towards their company’s long-term success. Does this mean that a CFO must learn how to code and get down in the trenches with their organization’s developers and network administrators? Not necessarily. Hurd comes from a sales and operations background, and he understands the importance of cloud computing and other technologies primarily from a cost-benefit perspective. Organizations Can Reduce Costs with Cloud ERP This is one key reason why he’s been such a vocal proponent of cloud computing. As he noted in a LinkedIn article published last year, “Companies can reduce costs 30% by simply moving to the cloud—reason enough for most companies to make the move (and many are). Think of that: You can strip out 30% of your IT costs without any reduction in performance and reliability.” A CFO doesn’t necessarily need to know how to set up a company-wide cloud solution like Oracle ERP Cloud to take advantage of its benefits to their bottom line. Understanding how cloud ERP can help their organizations, and working with IT staff to ensure it’s implemented carefully and comprehensively the first time around, can pay dividends for years. Data from Oracle and from independent studies supports this approach. Nucleus Research found that cloud applications produce 3.2x ROI over on-premises systems. Cloud ERP’s advantages are evident even within finance departments, particularly where shared workspaces and AI-driven automation can significantly increase productivity and minimize the risks of data entry errors that can lead to reporting or compliance issues. Hurd offered a compelling example during his Modern Finance Experience keynote, one relayed to him by Caesars Entertainment CEO Mark Frissora. As Hurd said, “Frissora talked about audit fees that are down more than 20 percent. They ran the company on 2,000 spreadsheets that are now gone.” How many data entry errors might crop up across 2,000 spreadsheets? A CFO who understands their organization’s tech stack, and who understands why and how to make it better, is an essential part of any modern C-suite. A CFO who refuses to learn more about the technology that undergirds their organization is one liable to cost that organization money, and that in turn may lower their chances of remaining CFO for long. Learn how CFOs can lead IT at Oracle OpenWorld 2018.

In years past, many corporate IT departments and their finance departments operated as independent fiefdoms, which could often lead to inter-departmental clashes and wasteful spending. Many...

“If our data is going to be attacked—by robots, by botnets from people who are marshaling lots of computers to attack our applications on the cloud—it’s got to be our robots vs. their robots. That's what we are doing: using our own bots to detect these threats and remediate these threats automatically, without human intervention.” — Larry Ellison, Chairman and Chief Technology Officer, Oracle Ellison made this comment during the announcement of Oracle Autonomous Database Cloud, but the words apply equally to finance (and other lines of business) as they do to IT security. Cyber thieves use computers and applications to attack other computers and applications. The FBI says that ransomware—where thieves lock up systems and demand a ransom to unlock them—is the fastest-growing malware threat. Malware developers are churning out sophisticated applications and then advertising on the “dark web” for hired guns to distribute them. The developers take a cut of the ransom for every attack. Clearly, those using technology for good need to up their security game. Human intelligence alone can’t win the war on cyber security.  Good Bots vs. Bad Bots: the New Data-Security Reality Right now, most organizations respond reactively once an accidental exposure or data theft has happened. They devise and apply software patches or create additional workarounds after the damaging event. This strategy is failing to stop breaches that are hurting businesses and causing them to lose money, productivity, and trust. Anomaly detection, driven by machine learning, is a more effective strategy because it is proactive and sheds light on unusual activity that could be a threat before it becomes a crime. It’s also been bolstered by advances in autonomous machine learning in both hardware and software. Servers and applications can now “learn” new anomalies and add that knowledge as ongoing detection work happens autonomously. Humans don’t need to intervene in the process, so they can devote more time to understanding and responding to high-priority alerts of unusual activity. Oracle has broken new ground in cloud security with the Autonomous Database Cloud. It’s a database that continuously patches, tunes, backs up, and upgrades itself without manual intervention—all while systems are up and running. It’s part of the new reality of solving cyber-security challenges. Humans are still an important part of the security equation, but automation elevates that role to be more strategic and proactive rather than rote and reactive. In fact, human intelligence amplifies machine intelligence because people continually learn what threatening behavior looks like and so can better judge how to respond. Intelligent Applications Can Fight Cyber Crime, Too The same autonomous and intelligent capabilities can be embedded into cloud applications. This, too, is where human intelligence amplifies machine intelligence. Finance is a good example. Applications like Oracle Risk Management Cloud make cloud ERP implementations more secure by monitoring and preventing suspicious access. Risk Management Cloud also provides valuable contextual knowledge about risk that helps streamline and fortify decision-making about certification and compliance. This intelligent assistance can be particularly valuable for decentralized companies that have operations in multiple markets, and thus highly variable compliance requirements. For example, the European Union’s new General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) applies to any business that directs services to the European Union or handles the personal data of individuals located in the European Union. The world’s largest 500 companies are tracking to spend $7.8 billion on GDPR compliance. Having context about when GDPR is applicable and when it is not could help those companies adopt more targeted protocols so they don’t overspend to achieve compliance. European telecommunications customer Orange was able to significantly increase automation and is working on reducing the number of employees that need access to the ERP system through process streamlining and professionalization of requester teams. Didier Chabrerie, CCO, says, “It’s a very exciting time, a few years ago there was nothing on the market. Everyone was saying data, data, data but there was no way to leverage it. Now, with ML, we have tools in finance to make us more efficient and improve our reporting process.” At the same time, automation itself can help protect data at the application level simply by reducing or eliminating a human touch point. When processing is always standardized and running in the background through automation, there is simply less opportunity for purposeful or accidental sharing or exposure of data. Research by McKinsey & Company Global Institute concluded that the following finance functions are strong candidates to be fully or highly automated: general accounting operations, cash disbursement, revenue management, financial controls and external reporting.  Finance as a line of business can be integral in helping organizations get ahead of the next security threat. Not only is finance the steward of highly valuable planning and performance data, but finance professionals handle many activities that are attractive to criminals who want to take advantage. Getting Ahead of the Next Security Threat The best thing technology and finance leaders can do is to leverage the power of humans and machines—making their data and systems more secure by adding intelligent assistance and automation to their cloud databases and applications. Thieves are using the most sophisticated technology they can get their hands on to attack servers and applications, so businesses and organizations need to do the same. When it comes to winning the ongoing battle for cyber security, getting ahead of threats is the key to prevention, and autonomous machine learning makes that possible. Learn more about Oracle Risk Management Cloud.  

“If our data is going to be attacked—by robots, by botnets from people who are marshaling lots of computers to attack our applications on the cloud—it’s got to be our robots vs. their robots. That's...

The CACUBO Annual Meeting gets into full swing next week, and one of the hot topics is expected to be how to manage student financial aid. It’s no secret that a university education makes a huge difference in earning power over a lifetime. Yet college in the United States costs more than ever, and students must cobble together funding from loans, scholarships, grants, family and other sources just to make it through the first year.    This is a precarious model for students—and for the institutions that depend upon tuition fees for revenue. When the money dries up, the student is virtually guaranteed to drop out, taking any future tuition dollars with them. Institutions of higher education have a business stake in ensuring their students succeed. A student-centric approach to managing financial aid can give universities visibility into which students are most at risk, helping to prevent drop-out before it happens. Student success isn’t only dependent upon finances, however. Today’s students arrive on campus with expectations of a user-friendly, mobile experience. Not only do they want to manage their course loads, schedules and finance from their mobile devices, they want to be able to text or chat with somebody if they have a question or need help. Can your campus provide a digital student lifestyle? Meeting these expectations and supporting student success requires bold strategies and the innovative use of technology. In a webcast with University Business, two leaders in higher education will share their experience in campus transformation: Tonjia S. Coverdale, Ph.D., Vice President, Information Technology and CIO, Central State University (Ohio) Steve Hahn, Vice Provost for Enrollment Management, University of Wisconsin-Madison Coverdale and Hahn discuss how cloud applications have formed the foundation of their student success programs. They’ll discuss their journey to the cloud and share some key strategies to ensure successful adoption. You’ll also hear about Oracle cloud solutions for higher education, and how the cloud helps you recruit applicants, engage students with a mobile experience, and use your data more effectively to make faster, better decisions. Following a recent analyst summit, Ovum wrote of Oracle’s higher education solutions: “One of the major takeaways from the summit is that Oracle is building Student Cloud not as a solely transactional, institution-centric ‘student information system’ but as a true ‘student system’ that proactively manages the full student lifecycle with robust insight, transaction, and engagement capabilities. While this might seem like semantics, such messaging ruptures traditional systems' boundaries to indicate how one platform can support much of the student lifecycle, from recruiting to advising support to alumni relations. Many schools are increasingly recognizing the value of a one platform approach, rather than having to manage the integration of (and different data from) separate point solutions; as a result, Oracle is building its student system to offer best-of-breed capabilities without the weaknesses of the latter approach.” Join University Business, Central State University (Ohio), University of Wisconsin-Madison and Oracle to learn more about supporting student success—from recruitment to graduation and beyond. Register now for the webcast.

The CACUBO Annual Meeting gets into full swing next week, and one of the hot topics is expected to be how to manage student financial aid. It’s no secret that a university education makes a huge...

With the arrival of process automation, cognitive tools, and blockchain, finance organizations are facing the potential for major transformation. In this second of a three-part blog series, Deloitte looks at how cognitive is shaping the future of finance. By Girija Krishnamurthy and David Carney, Deloitte Consulting LLP  Part 2: How Cognitive is Disrupting Finance In our last blog we talked about how disruptive automation tools like smart bots and data visualization are helping finance become more efficient and strategic. Those are just a few of the many disruptive forces that are rapidly transforming finance into something that earlier generations of accountants and CFOs would barely recognize. Another group of tools and technologies, which we group together under the umbrella term “cognitive,” includes artificial intelligence, machine learning, and predictive analytics, many of which mimic (to varying degrees) how the human brain thinks. Cognitive solutions can help companies get smarter and more efficient over time—just like humans do, only faster and more accurately. Far from esoteric, these solutions can have very practical uses. For instance, artificial intelligence and machine learning software can help organizations spot non-paying and late-paying customers pro-actively by tracking their behavior over time and flagging repeat offenders. And they can help on the payments processing side by using machine learning to recognize priority invoices, discard duplicate payments, and uncover fraudulent purchasing patterns. Cognitive also encompasses the field of predictive analytics, which harnesses a variety of statistical techniques to help finance organizations effectively navigate an uncertain future. For example, we work with a company that ships packages across the globe. Managers are constantly watching out for bad weather that could bottleneck shipments and frustrate customers, threatening revenue. The company is now using predictive analytics through an AI platform that uses weather data to plot alternative shipping routes before a storm hits. As a result, the company can sidestep bad weather and give customers more accurate delivery times. Bringing Business and Finance Together With advanced cloud-based analytics, finance can erase the line traditionally separating transactional and performance management systems. It enables both sides of finance—operational and strategic—to come together on a common system, helping financial planning and analysis teams efficiently zero in on factors that are driving (or hurting) growth and profitability. For example, we work with an organization where managers need to understand the profitability of each product on a frequent, near real-time basis. Getting that analysis in the past was a tall order because they were preoccupied (not surprisingly) with transaction-oriented tasks like paying bills, collecting revenue, and closing the books on time. Now, after deploying advanced analytics in the cloud, the CFO can quickly and easily get to the data that can help them add value to the organization as a strategic partner—such as profitability by product and customer. Predictive analytics solutions let you look at as many variables impacting the business as you want. Grocery chains, for instance, are using their predictive powers to trace the movement of perishable foods around the globe and decrease spoilage. Increasingly we’re seeing finance collaborate with other parts of the business on these innovative projects, which frequently integrate cloud-based analytics with tracking mechanisms and sensors connected to the Internet of Things (IoT). Pharmaceutical companies are using a combination of analytics and IoT to track drugs to their source, efficiently identifying and removing bad batches from the supply chain. Conquering Tough Chores Instantly Cognitive solutions have the potential to help CFOs conquer one of their toughest chores: producing quarter-end earnings reports for Wall Street. Remember, modern CFOs are not just glorified book balancers. Increasingly, they are the face of the company when it comes to explaining all things financial to investors, analysts, journalists, and regulators. It's a role that requires fast access to relevant facts and trends—and cognitive technologies can help.   Recently we showed a Fortune 50 telecom company an effective cognitive tool running on Oracle Cloud. In just minutes, the tool sifts through volumes of P&L statements going back a decade or even longer. Using machine-learning tools and natural language processing and generation technologies, the tool creates a report in plain English summarizing revenue and growth drivers over the entire period. It’s a job that may likely have taken an army of financial analysts months to do. The vast majority of this work is automated with the help of natural-language chatbots—yet another cognitive tool that is transforming how finance works. We predict that, not long from now, the tedium of emailing IT to write SQL queries to unearth data and insights will be a thing of the past. You’ll simply ask your chatbot of choice to get the answers you need. Imagine what you could do with the time savings. There are a few wrinkles to iron out with chatbots, notably surrounding security. After all, you don’t want just anyone walking into your office and chatting up your company secrets. But we're confident these challenges will be solved and that chatbots will soon become a taken-for-granted feature of the modern finance organization. Tune in to the joint Oracle and Deloitte Digital Finance webcast series to learn more about how automation, cognitive, and blockchain are disrupting finance. Girija Krishnamurthy is a principal with Deloitte Consulting LLP and leads the Digital Finance area of Deloitte’s Technology practice. Girija brings over 17 years of deep finance transformation and implementation experience for clients spanning North America, EMEA and Asia Pacific. She holds an undergraduate degree in Engineering and an MBA in Finance and Information Systems. David Carney is strategy & operations principal with Deloitte Consulting LLP. With over 25 years of professional experience, David has advised senior executive teams and boards of directors, typically of large, global clients, on issues of improving shareholder returns.  He is a trusted advisor to many Fortune 500 CFOs and other finance executives.  With a strong background in mergers & acquisitions, he has led many consulting projects involving some of the world’s largest, most complex life sciences, high tech and telecommunications integrations and divestitures. David also leads Deloitte Consulting’s Finance practice, advancing the Chief Financial Officer (CFO) agenda and advising the Finance function to increase contributions to company performance. As used in this document, “Deloitte” means Deloitte Consulting LLP, a subsidiary of Deloitte LLP. Please see www.deloitte.com/us/about for a detailed description of our legal structure. Certain services may not be available to attest clients under the rules and regulations of public accounting.

With the arrival of process automation, cognitive tools, and blockchain, finance organizations are facing the potential for major transformation. In this second of a three-part blog series, Deloitte...

By Brian Sullivan, Managing Director, Accenture Oracle Business Group The bots are coming! The bots are coming! No, that’s not a line out of science fiction thriller. I’m talking about a technology called intelligent process automation, also known as IPA. And while there’s nothing scary about it, one thing is certain: intelligent bots are coming to a finance organization near you—and quite possibly your own. Intelligent bots are relatively new to the finance world. If you asked a CFO about IPA as recently as a couple years ago, you may have been greeted with a blank stare—or maybe an assumption you were talking about a type of beer. No longer. IPA is swiftly becoming an integral part of modern finance organizations, and increasingly a competitive necessity. IPA is the next chapter in process automation—the evolution of a technology that started a few years ago with “robotic process automation,” or RPA. Simply put, RPA is about creating a code or program that performs functions formerly done by humans. A simple example might be comparing two sets of transactions. The software bot goes out and analyzes column A and B, extracts selected data, puts it into a spreadsheet, attaches the doc to an email and sends it out to a distribution group. Following a set of business rules defined by humans, bots now handle everything from processing purchase orders and invoices to distributing management reports. Sure, people can do that too—and have for decades—but bots will happily do it at a fraction of the time and cost, while eliminating human error in the process. What’s not to love about that? Adding Smarts RPA is a great start, but IPA takes bots to a new level, empowering them to learn and improve over time—and promising a dramatic transformation of the finance function along the way. Smart bots can recognize patterns in financial transactions and learn to “write new rules” based on these patterns. Because the bot rewrites the code on its own, humans are spared the trouble of dealing with every routine exception. For example, an intelligent bot could discover mismatched reconciliations that follow common patterns, such as twice-entered transactions differing only in a plus or minus sign. A well-designed IPA system can give you the option of quickly reviewing its proposed fix or just allowing the bot to handle it on its own, saving even more time and money. This is the essence of what makes bots “intelligent”: they are programmed to be self-programming. Other types of intelligent bots include “chatbots” that let you ask natural-language questions like, “Show me the latest Q1 sales forecast for Asia-Pacific.” Get ready: Alexa and Siri are coming to a finance organization near you. To be clear, IPA won’t make humans obsolete. Far from it. People are just as important to the success of process automation as the bots themselves—both as creators of the bots and as “trainers” who continuously improve their performance. And remember, humans are the ultimate beneficiaries of the work shouldered by bots, which allow people to shed all kinds of monotonous chores and take on more valuable activities like strategic planning and business innovation. Sharing the Workload How do finance staffers feel about sharing their workload with robots? Well, you might expect a certain degree of apprehension or even mistrust, at least at first. Change is hard, and no one wants to lose their job to a bot. But there are good reasons to love IPA. For one thing, it can help many employees restore their work-life balance. Here’s a real-life example. At a Fortune 1000 retail company, one employee spent part of every Sunday logging in from home, pulling data from multiple sources, formatting it in a spreadsheet, and creating a PDF before sending it out. Now, with IPA, the whole process is fully automated, and the employee got her Sundays back. And that’s just one small step. Imagine how many evenings a similar employee could be home with his or her family if the mad scramble of closing the books at the end of every month could be eliminated. That’s now within the realm of possibility with IPA. By adding more intelligence and autonomy to bots, finance organizations can ultimately enable real-time closes with virtually no human involvement. Your books will balance themselves automatically, every minute of every day. That’s the “nirvana” that IPA can one day achieve. Easing the Change Despite IPA’s clear value proposition, it’s still not uncommon for people to get worried whenever you “move their cheese.” That’s why finance should adopt strategies to ease the transition and dispel worries about losing jobs or changing familiar work routines. Accenture works with organizations to help generate excitement around adopting IPA and keep staff engaged during the rollout. Companies that think in advance about smart communications campaigns can help reassure and motivate employees by blending the promise of removing spreadsheet drudgery with the prospect of career growth. Effective change management programs can also help retrain and re-skill employees to take on new roles and responsibilities. Remember, you’ll need these employees to help test and manage any new IPA system you decide to implement. We also encourage organizations to develop a plan to update their bots as their applications evolve and as new automation opportunities arise. Think of your bots as needing “care and attention” much like human resources. If you don’t maintain and develop your bots, you could lose the ability to update them—or even know what they’re doing. Starting Small Change management is just one part of a comprehensive plan to harness the power of intelligent bots. Before making an investment, many organizations can benefit by conducting one or more proof-of-concepts. This allows you to refine your automation initiative and prioritize projects with specific business outcomes and paybacks in mind. Plus, you’ll avoid the costly mistake of “building for the sake of building.” Fortunately, cloud providers such as Oracle now offer cloud subscription services for a variety of automation technologies, making it easy to start small by testing the solution before pursuing a larger investment. I’ve seen many of our clients start with a small proof-of-concept before rolling out bots across the organization. The results have been impressive. For example, after deploying bots to automate invoicing, journal processing and reconciliations, one financial services client was able to triple processing speeds, saving the equivalent of more than a dozen full-time employees. This savings allowed employees to work on higher-value activities while their traditional activities were completed with lower error rates in less time. At the end of the day, the vast majority of finance staff are happy to exchange boring, repetitive tasks for more thoughtful and satisfying work. Instead of spending the day matching invoices, staffers can take on more interesting projects like forecasting, performance analysis, and strategic planning—that is, tasks that really help the business grow, innovate, and profit. What’s not to love about that? See the latest finance innovations in action. Register for Oracle OpenWorld 2018. Brian Sullivan is a Global Managing Director within Accenture’s Oracle practice, focusing on growth and strategy activities relating to services tied to Oracle’s set of SaaS applications. He has spent his career advising and delivering complex solutions around finance and supply chain process areas by deploying enabling technologies from Oracle and by driving additional value through industry and functional extensions. 

By Brian Sullivan, Managing Director, Accenture Oracle Business Group The bots are coming! The bots are coming! No, that’s not a line out of science fiction thriller. I’m talking about a technology...

Switching enterprise software systems can be a massive undertaking. A company with thousands of employees is likely to have thousands of machines to update, with dozens or hundreds of different hardware configurations. An enterprise IT department would have to coordinate these upgrades with simultaneous upgrades to company servers, which would not only update the systems but also would likely need to manage company-wide access permissions and role authorities. Attempting technology transitions at the enterprise scale is so daunting a challenge that it’s rarely initiated without a very clear understanding of the costs and benefits involved. The upside to a shift from on-premises to cloud ERP systems, however, can be so compelling that it often becomes a question of when to make the change, rather than why. Oracle CEO Mark Hurd is one of the industry’s leading proponents of cloud-based systems. He’s spoken frequently on the high costs of maintaining on-premises ERP systems and other mission-critical systems, and has offered compelling data in support of his arguments. At Recode Decode last year, he mentioned that “IT in the enterprise can be 10, 12, 14, [or] 15 percent of all the expenses that our customers spend.” And in a LinkedIn Influencer article he published earlier this year, Hurd pointed out that “80 percent of IT spending goes to traditional IT activities—stuff like upgrading applications, integrating mismatched components that were never designed to work together into Rube Goldberg contraptions—and tuning, testing, monitoring, patching, and other maintenance. Let’s say another 5 percent is spent on cybersecurity applications and adapting to new compliance requirements.” These are sobering numbers, and any CFO worth their salt would look to trim those expenses. Any CTO or CIO with an eye for innovation would want to deploy more of their organization’s IT budgets towards developing for the future rather than shoring up the past. Maintaining yesterday’s technology can also be a major drag on enterprise productivity. In an interview with Forbes, Mark Hurd noted that, “Some of the applications themselves are twenty years old… think about that, applications built twenty years ago trying to deal with the problems of today.” Simply transitioning from one on-premises ERP system to another might not necessarily overcome the switching costs of abandoning software in which an enterprise’s IT staff has built up years of expertise, a range of customizations, and many unique add-on functionalities. This is where a cloud ERP system’s advantages can quickly become apparent. A study conducted by Nucleus Research found that cloud deployments provided 3.2 times the return on investment as on-premises applications, and total costs of ownership were 52 percent lower. Making the shift to cloud ERP can also incur significantly fewer switching costs than many enterprise executives might think. In one example, Blue Shield of California budgeted $600,000 to manage the transition from its legacy on-premises ERP system to a cloud-based ERP solution. It wound up spending almost nothing despite transitioning roughly 6,800 employees. A more distributed company (with locations in more than one state) that has several times as many employees would potentially save millions of dollars in transition management costs by switching to a cloud ERP solution. Is your organization thinking of making the switch to cloud ERP? Beyond the cost and the learning curve, what other considerations might an enterprise have when it’s time to upgrade or switch an ERP system? Get the latest on Oracle ERP Cloud and Oracle EPM Cloud. Register for Oracle OpenWorld.

Switching enterprise software systems can be a massive undertaking. A company with thousands of employees is likely to have thousands of machines to update, with dozens or hundreds of different...

This is the time of year when college campuses across the United States come alive with activity. Students swarm the grounds, faculty impart their knowledge—and university and college business officers wrestle with ever-shrinking budgets. For decades, U.S. institutions have been faced with cutbacks in public funding. To succeed in this environment of constant belt-tightening, business officers need to develop revenue models that cast the widest net possible—whether it’s corporate partnerships, adult learning or workplace training. All of this complicates the job of finance teams that are tasked with planning, budgeting and forecasting revenue. Strapped for both staff and cash, finance teams must run numbers full of uncertainties with tools that were never designed to take these new business models into account. Rather than relying on spreadsheets, which are time-consuming and error-prone, finance leaders at colleges and universities are looking for better, more cost-effective tools to help them plan and manage all sources of funding. Many of them are turning to enterprise performance management (EPM) in the cloud. These cloud systems include strategic modeling, profitability and cost management, and industry-specific functionality for new income sources such as continuing education and sponsored research. Join Us at the NACUBO Planning and Budgeting Forum At next week’s NACUBO Planning and Budgeting Forum, you’ll get a chance to see these systems in action—as well as hear from expert speakers on topics like financial reserves, integrated benchmarking, performance metrics, capital planning, maximizing resources for student success, and more. You’ll learn: Approaches for using planning and budgeting as an agent for institutional change Innovative planning and budgeting methods being practiced at colleges and universities Strategies to address higher education resource management Drop by the Oracle table to learn more about Oracle EPM Cloud and its education-specific capabilities for planning and budgeting. If your institution is already using Hyperion, we’ve made it easier than ever to move to the cloud and uptake new capabilities. Register now to attend, Sept. 24-25 in Louisville, Kentucky. Attend the CACUBO Annual Meeting If you can’t make it to Louisville next week, you’ll have another chance to connect in Chicago, Sept. 30-Oct. 2 when the Central Association of College and University Business Officers (CACUBO) hosts its Annual Meeting. Held each fall, CACUBO is one of the premier higher education events in the region. It offers college and university business officers a setting for networking, as well as presentations and seminars to share information on important professional development topics. There will also be cloud providers on hand who can answer your questions about the latest technologies to support new business models. On Sunday, Sept. 30 at 11:30 AM, Oracle’s Dan Stockwell will host a session on “How to Meet Today’s Requirements for Student-Centric Financial Aid.” Dan will discuss how an intelligent, student-centric financial aid system can help eliminate processing backlogs, free institutions to deliver academics in any model, and give students real-time visibility into their finances via mobile devices. Oracle will also sponsor the “First Time Attendee Luncheon” on Sunday, Sept. 30. Please drop by booth #5 for more information. Register now for the CACUBO Annual Meeting and the NACUBO Planning & Budgeting Forum.

This is the time of year when college campuses across the United States come alive with activity. Students swarm the grounds, faculty impart their knowledge—and university and college...

When discussing the case for artificial intelligence, Oracle CEO Mark Hurd argues that “the way to ensure that it gets the kind of business and social results we’re all looking for is to embed machine learning into existing applications.” Automation is being integrated in a similar fashion within current enterprise financial applications to increase efficiency, reduce error and keep data secure. Oracle ERP Cloud and Oracle EPM Cloud are already utilizing automation to their benefit, and new applications of automation are becoming essential to today’s businesses. Automation Empowers Employees & Customers The financial close process can be intense, requiring extensive planning and organization across teams. Oracle EPM Cloud automates the simpler tasks and triggers dependent processes to keep processes flowing. Automatically tracking task status and events frees up time for accounting staff to stay focused on more complex assignments, directing human brain power where it can achieve the most. For more routine tasks, Oracle Account Reconciliation Cloud can automate subroutines during the reconciliation process to improve staff efficiencies. This tool also empowers customers, offering custom rule sets for the thousands of reconciliations many organizations process throughout the year. Automation Reduces Errors Blending capabilities from AI and automation, Oracle Financials Cloud integrates optical character recognition (OCR) into invoice entry. Automating this process step can reduce both manual errors and processing costs. Further automation can validate and pay invoices completely independently, flagging those needing human intervention and sending them to appropriate personnel. Automation Protects Data Autonomous Cloud services are changing the game in several fields, but one of the most compelling to executives is cybersecurity. Oracle’s new Autonomous Database automatically protects itself with the latest patches and security updates while self-tuning and self-repairing. The impact of immediate access to patches shouldn’t be understated–it could mean the difference between your customers’ data staying protected or your company joining the 89% of organizations that have experienced a data breach. Minimizing patch implementation lag time is a vital component of cybersecurity strategy, and cloud services are using automated capabilities to close the gap faster than ever before. These process innovations showcase how automation and AI can be used as additional tools available through enterprise financial applications rather than to replace humans entirely. The continued dependence on human managers and oversight exhibited by automation implementations provides a strong case for how these tools are augmenting workflow processes across industries while freeing employees to tackle larger problems and initiatives. For financial applications, the future is integration. Learn more about how Oracle ERP Cloud is saving time and cost with automation.

When discussing the case for artificial intelligence, Oracle CEO Mark Hurd argues that “the way to ensure that it gets the kind of business and social results we’re all looking for is to embed machine...

A recent survey indicates that finance leaders in the field of higher education are dissatisfied with campus technology. The survey of chief business officers and senior financial officers across the United States shows less than half (49%) agree their institution makes efficient use of technology. This trend needs to change if campuses hope to attract and retain more students. Enrollments are predicted to begin a long decline in 2018, and that spells bad news for revenue. For most U.S. colleges and universities, enrollment is their number one source of funding. To make up for the shortfall, institutions of higher learning are turning to new sources of funding. Some are partnering with corporations. Some are looking overseas. Still others are turning to continuing education, expanding their existing programs and launching new ones to attract adult learners. Each of these strategies requires innovative marketing and recruitment tactics, enabled by the latest technologies. Today’s students—especially Millennials raised in a mobile world—expect the same kind of digital experience from their schools as they get from popular consumer brands like SnapChat, Instagram and YouTube. If you want to offer a digital campus that attracts and retains students, your institution should focus on these key areas: 1. Personalize the Student Experience Students arrive on campus with high expectations, and it’s up to your institution’s faculty and staff to deliver the personalized, connected experience they demand. You’ll need to manage student relationships across channels and devices to meet enrollment goals. If not, students become discouraged and may even leave, taking their tuition money with them. Personalized content and interactions can help students succeed. 2. Promote Student Success The days of “sink or swim” are over. Today, institutions must focus not only on getting students in the door, but on helping and supporting them throughout their student journey—improving retention, completion, and job placements. Intervene in time to make a difference and keep students on track to achieving their goals. 3. Manage Student Finances Finances are a key determinant of whether a student graduates; when the money dries up, drop-out is virtually guaranteed. The right technology can give institutions greater insight into students’ financial health and increase the opportunities for early intervention. 4. Foster Institutional Excellence This is where finance teams can potentially make the biggest difference. A strong operational structure is key to meeting your institutional goals. You need to simplify processes, standardize systems, and prudently steward resources. By gaining meaningful insight into these systems and resources, you can increase transparency, improve traceability, and allocate funding to invest in a modern campus. 5. Empower Lifelong Learning Today’s students want a personalized learning experience wherever they go. Your institution needs the ability to curate the right curriculum and services for each student—providing (and gaining) insight into individual and aggregated learning paths and best practices. All of this might sound daunting, but in fact, attracting and retaining students can be as easy as this video. Technology for Student Success In a webcast with The Chronicle of Higher Education, a distinguished panel—including representatives of UC Davis and Pierce College Puyallup—will discuss how technology can enhance academic advising and student-learning outcomes. The panel also looks at how cutting-edge technologies, like chatbots and machine learning, can benefit student success. Webcast attendees will learn: How to get faculty and students on board with using new tools What it takes to evaluate whether a new tool is working successfully How to adapt technology to meet the specific needs of your students Join the discussion to understand how the latest technologies can help students thrive, leading to greater success for your institution. Register now for the webcast. 

A recent survey indicates that finance leaders in the field of higher education are dissatisfied with campus technology. The survey of chief business officers and senior financial officers across the...

By Arun Khehar, SVP Applications ECEMEA, Oracle The physical and digital worlds will converge, co-mingle, and spring into action as businesses and government agencies demonstrate the latest in transformative technologies at GITEX, October 14–18, at the Dubai World Trade Center—the biggest technology exhibition in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA). As MENA governments and businesses take a bigger leadership position on transformative technologies, GITEX is attracting a larger global audience. Last year, more than 470,000 professionals attended, and each year attracts more attendees from outside the region. This year we expect to see a maturation of the physical-to-digital transformation taking place in the public and private sectors, with a big step toward tangible applications of blockchain, intelligent automation, digital simulation, predictive analytics, and other game-changing technologies. Specific GITEX sessions are planned around the themes of augmented/virtual reality, smart cities, Industry 4.0, and the Internet of Things (IoT). The cloud also will be a frequent topic of discussion, and our message for finance professionals will be simple: To use these advanced technologies, you need cloud systems as your digital core, a foundation on top of which you can build and expand. Without cloud-based ERP and EPM, it’s extremely challenging to leverage these new technologies. This, too, is a maturation. While on-premises ERP and other business applications might still technically “work” at the enterprise level, companies clinging to them are missing out on more valuable benefits—including higher ROI, lower costs, and the competitive advantages of always-up-to-date finance technology. Focus on Building a Cloud Foundation Moving to a complete cloud is essential to true digital transformation; every part of the business needs access to digital tools and capabilities for true transformation to happen. In recognition of this, Oracle offers cloud applications for every department/function—all connected to each other—so everyone in an organization is working from the same set of up-to-date information, as well as the most recent best practices. Finance functions, in particular, benefit from this integration because it improves accuracy in reporting. Something as simple as certifying the number of laptop computers an organization owns can be impossible if each department documents their assets separately in spreadsheets, but cloud-based procurement systems make it possible. It’s also a lot easier to add advanced technologies to finance, supply chain, HR, and other line-of-business applications with a complete cloud. DevOps teams, for example, could develop blockchain-based applications faster using Oracle platform services that are already integrated with Oracle applications. A Glimpse of the Future? Oracle will have a large presence at GITEX and will be demonstrating a variety of products and services. We’ll talk about how disruptive technologies are touching everyone, from business owners to executives to private citizens. We’ll also talk about our new Oracle Soar automated services, which make it easy to move from on-premises ERP to Oracle ERP Cloud. GITEX has been happening for more than 30 years and continues to offer a view into how technology is changing the world. This year there will be a lot of exciting demonstrations, and behind them all will be a necessary but silent enabler—cloud. Our goal will be to show how a complete cloud can bring futuristic technologies into organizations today, so companies reap the benefits faster and with less frustration. Can't make it to GITEX? Join us at Oracle OpenWorld in San Francisco.

By Arun Khehar, SVP Applications ECEMEA, Oracle The physical and digital worlds will converge, co-mingle, and spring into action as businesses and government agencies demonstrate the latest in...

With the arrival of process automation, cognitive tools, and blockchain, finance organizations are facing the potential for major transformation. In the first of a 3-part series, Deloitte looks at the impact of process automation. Part 1: How Automation Is Disrupting Finance By Girija Krishnamurthy and David Carney, Deloitte Consulting LLP  The rumblings of disruption are rolling through the world of finance. And it’s about time. More than ever, disruptive technologies are needed to help finance combat a barrage of new challenges, from exploding data volumes to accelerating business cycles to an unprecedented talent crunch. In this first of a three-part blog series, let’s look at one of the biggest disruptors facing finance today: Automation. Finance is embracing its new best friend, the bot. Many of the organizations we work with have heard of robotic process automation – or RPA – and every day more of them deploy software bots to boost efficiency and control costs. Right now, we have several clients developing smart bot solutions running in the cloud to turn their payment processing into a touchless end-to-end routine. And that’s just one out of a multitude of processes that finance manages. Intelligent Automation It turns out many financial process can be automated. A good example is the close, consolidation and reporting process, the bane of a controller’s existence. Recently we asked one of the world’s leading professionals in the process – a professor at a Top 20 U.S. University – to compile a list the different activities a typical organization performs during its monthly close. Then we asked him which ones could be automated – and which ones may likely require hands-on work. A week later he came back with a startling answer. Of the literally thousands of activities involved in book closings, there were essentially none that couldn’t be automated. Although he admitted a few dozen might be difficult to automate, there were no “show stoppers.” This suggests that we are nearing the day when bot-driven automation could power a completely hands-off “continuous close” process, the equivalent of Nirvana in finance. A big push in our practice at Deloitte is showing clients how they can automate the close, consolidation and reporting process; and to a large extent, bots are the answer. In fact, Deloitte predicts that the vast majority of financial transactions will be completely touchless by 2025. Taming a Torrent of Data Finance is swamped in data and the vast majority of it is going to waste. In fact, my team recently discovered an astonishing fact: Of all the data that exists in the world, less than half of one percent is actually being used. That’s a staggeringly low number, suggesting that there is enormous potential for putting more data to work – and extracting value from it. But many organizations have been slow to harness the torrent of data. The problem is the maddeningly complex mixture of data sources and formats. Fortunately, Oracle is helping to simplify matters with automated cloud-based platforms and tools that filter out the “background noise” and expose the really valuable data hidden in the mix. Data visualization tools, for example, can provide quick-and-easy graphic interpretations of complicated data sets. CFOs typically love data visualization because it helps them cut to the chase on many topics, saving time. It’s not surprising that data visualization tools are becoming commonplace in finance and are now a standard part of Oracle cloud services.    All of this is great news for finance – and for the rest of the business too. Organizations can use the efficiency savings from automation to double down on financial planning and analysis and sponsor other projects aimed at helping the business grow and profit. I see this as part of the “big pivot” finance organizations are making as they move from being mostly operational in structure to overwhelmingly strategic. Ready, Set, Pivot To make the pivot, finance will likely need to employ a much different mix of talent. The new finance workforce will still need number-crunching proficiency, also known as STEM skills for science, technology, engineering and math. But finance increasingly will need more people who also have a knack for building “empathetic” business relationships. We call the blend of these talents “STEMpathy”—and currently, there’s a real shortage of people possessing that valuable hybrid skillset. Finance will also need to cultivate a new generation of staffers versed in the cloud-based technology tools that are swiftly becoming ubiquitous across organizations. In other words, automation will compel finance to rethink everything about its workforce as it adapts to new ways of working (hand-in-hand with bots) and new types of workplaces (increasingly virtual and distributed). Recruiting methods will need to change to attract this new breed of finance staffer. Recently I saw a job requisition for a data scientist posted by a Fortune 50 telecom and compared it to a posting for an identical job by a nimble Silicon Valley startup. The jobs were the same but the descriptions made them sound like totally different positions: one cutting-edge and exciting (the startup); the other…well, not so much. Is automation changing how your finance organization works? I’d love to hear from you. And be sure to watch this space for my next blog, which will explore how cognitive solutions like artificial intelligence, machine learning, and analytics are influencing the evolution of finance. Tune in to the joint Oracle and Deloitte Digital Finance webcast series to learn more about how automation, cognitive, and blockchain are disrupting finance. Girija Krishnamurthy is a principal with Deloitte Consulting LLP and leads the Digital Finance area of Deloitte’s Technology practice. Girija brings over 17 years of deep finance transformation and implementation experience for clients spanning North America, EMEA and Asia Pacific. She holds an undergraduate degree in Engineering and an MBA in Finance and Information Systems. David Carney is strategy & operations principal with Deloitte Consulting LLP. With over 25 years of professional experience, David has advised senior executive teams and boards of directors, typically of large, global clients, on issues of improving shareholder returns.  He is a trusted advisor to many Fortune 500 CFOs and other finance executives.  With a strong background in mergers & acquisitions, he has led many consulting projects involving some of the world’s largest, most complex life sciences, high tech and telecommunications integrations and divestitures. David also leads Deloitte Consulting’s Finance practice, advancing the Chief Financial Officer (CFO) agenda and advising the Finance function to increase contributions to company performance. As used in this document, “Deloitte” means Deloitte Consulting LLP, a subsidiary of Deloitte LLP. Please see www.deloitte.com/us/about for a detailed description of our legal structure. Certain services may not be available to attest clients under the rules and regulations of public accounting.

With the arrival of process automation, cognitive tools, and blockchain, finance organizations are facing the potential for major transformation. In the first of a 3-part series, Deloitte looks at the...

By Joseph Prunty, Area Vice President, Modern Finance Solutions, Oracle Remember the old idiom “bankers’ hours”? Short workdays and numerous holidays gave rise to the phrase, back when banks operated at a slower pace and in a more predictable business landscape. That world is unrecognizable today, as technology, regulations, and changing customer expectations roil the banking world, forcing changes throughout the value chain. Disruptive technology continues to serve as both cause and solution in banking, powering new competitors—the fintechs—and helping established banks meet new challenges. Fintechs Bring New Realities for Banks Fintechs, unencumbered by legacy systems and practices, have quickly leveraged technology to capture market share from traditional banks. Meanwhile, leaders at long-established banks face the daunting task of replacing outdated IT and business models. As Oracle CEO Mark Hurd said at Oracle OpenWorld 2017, “Technology innovation and customer adoption is increasing faster than [banking] IT capabilities can keep up.” The stakes are high. In 2009, credit-card processor Square came out of nowhere and ultimately swiped 25 percent of market share from traditional card payment processors by offering a simple product that could connect to any mobile device. Leveraging the latest technology, Square built a system to process transactions at a lower cost than existing companies could, changing the rules of the business. As fintechs drive down prices, margins shrank at established competitors. Some estimates indicate that banks lose money on the majority of their customers. With traditional full-service banking, financial institutions can expect 20 percent of their customers to drive 150 percent of their net income before taxes. This means that, with the other 80 percent of their customers, banks either break even or lose money on every transaction. Additionally, banks must contend with the cost of meeting increased government regulations, while fintechs tend to fly under the regulatory radar—at least initially. To survive, banks need to focus on cutting costs and improving services to make that 20 percent more profitable, and lose less money on their unprofitable customers. Banks Must Become Customer-Centric Banks are beginning to recognize the need to update old IT systems and organizational structures. More importantly, they’re beginning to understand how the two are interrelated and can be leveraged to drive competitive advantage. Traditional banks tend to think and operate from an internal perspective, usually by lines of business. As a result, bank operations are not driven by customers. This is a problem in a world where people have been trained by mobility and apps to expect fast, personalized service. In the past, “banker’s hours” persisted because people didn’t have a choice. Today, they do. They have a banking need and want to satisfy it in the most cost-effective way possible—at a time (24/7) and via the channels that they prefer. Most important, the same customer might need multiple products and services—say a mortgage, business loan, checking and savings accounts, and college savings account. When the bank is organized by lines of business, it limits the visibility required to meet that customer’s needs. And as bankers worry about where to assign revenue and responsibility, they lose sight of delivering the service customers expect. Just as lines of business tend to be siloed, so too are the IT systems they rely on. This cripples the bank’s ability to exploit their most valuable competitive advantage over the fintechs: data about their large customer bases across all lines of business. The result is that banking customers don’t get the full-service experience that might keep them from defecting to a competitor. Banking Transformation Centers on Cloud A complete, connected suite of cloud systems offers the accessible, un-siloed technology that enables banks to transform. With all customer data in one comprehensive data set, banks can take advantage of algorithms and machine learning to identify and serve broad-based customer needs, even as line-of-business leaders retain access to the data to serve their specific needs. At the same time, a connected cloud helps banks meet competitive challenges by reducing IT costs and simplifying the deployment of digital services. Cloud solutions eliminate on-premises application license fees, along with implementation and upgrade costs. Upgrades are completed automatically, reducing disruption, along with the need for teams of expensive IT specialists and time-consuming, multi-million dollar upgrade projects. And since cloud systems are updated on a regular cadence by the service provider, the bank always has access to the latest, most innovative technologies. The cloud help banks address both back-office and customer-facing challenges. Internally, the cloud streamlines reporting, which reduces cost, speeds decision-making, and frees time for bankers to strategize on growing the business. For customer-facing needs, cloud simplifies the adoption of the latest technologies—including chatbots and digital-only products and services—that fintechs have used to woo today’s technologically capable customer base. Digital Banking Comes of Age The once-staid financial services industry is undergoing a dramatic change that requires it to be as nimble as the fastest-growing technology company. By operating on a complete, connected cloud, banks will be able to transform from a siloed business to a customer-centric organization—reducing costs even as they meet ever-changing government regulations and deliver ever-improving products and services. What does it take to be truly customer-centric? Watch our webcast with American Banker.  

By Joseph Prunty, Area Vice President, Modern Finance Solutions, Oracle Remember the old idiom “bankers’ hours”? Short workdays and numerous holidays gave rise to the phrase, back when banks operated at...

By Jennifer Toomey, Senior Director, Cloud Business Group, Oracle Technology is bringing new worlds of innovation to budgeting and planning. In an age where only the most agile survive, fumbling across multiple spreadsheets and updating expensive on-premises systems is no longer an option. Companies need to evolve and to do that, increasing numbers are turning to the cloud. In a recent APQC survey, finance respondents said that they spend nearly half of their time on transaction processing—lengthy, manual work such as paying bills, sending accurate invoices, and other routine jobs. Clearly, in a world where strategic planning and data-driven insights have never been more important, financial busy work is not the best use of employee time. Forward-thinking companies are finding cloud solves many of these problems. Flying Tiger Copenhagen for example, found that after moving to Oracle Planning and Budgeting Cloud, they saved 20 days per year by replacing spreadsheet collection and uploads with automated data entry and workflows—enabling business analysts and controllers to spend more time on the jobs that really matter. Furthermore, they were able to streamline budgeting and forecasting processes as they scaled up, as well as achieve tighter control of budgets across their 30 markets. Savings are also to be found in not having to maintain expensive legacy systems, with cloud applications being autonomously patched every month with the latest updates. No bulky hardware or IT investments are required, integration with Oracle ERP Cloud comes as standard, and migrating from existing systems is a breeze—all of which significantly lowers the barrier to entry. In short, cloud has become an essential tool for future-proofing businesses, keeping pace with competitors, and staying cost effective. How much could you save? Making a business case for innovation requires specific figures—and that’s why we’ve created our new Planning and Budgeting Calculator. By simply entering a few details about your business, you’ll be shown just how much Oracle Planning Cloud can benefit your bottom line. The tool will break down your savings across five areas: Improved workforce productivity Reduced risks—cost of unplanned expenses Improved decision-making profit margin Reduced working capital costs Improved analysis quality to drive revenue On top of this, you’ll be able to dive deeper with a personalized report. We’ll also give you access to a range of useful case studies, videos and articles, all of which can help support your case for transformation. Discover how much cloud can save you with our Planning and Budgeting Calculator. Calculate your benefits now.

By Jennifer Toomey, Senior Director, Cloud Business Group, Oracle Technology is bringing new worlds of innovation to budgeting and planning. In an age where only the most agile survive, fumbling across...

By Sarosh Khan, IBM Global Business Services Across every industry, finance and operations teams play central roles in the day-to-day running of the business. But the financial and operational systems in many companies are sitting in silos. This separation means that a company has two sets of data that it must reconcile in order to get a clear picture of the business. This, in turn, limits the ability of decision makers to identify and capitalize on opportunities for innovation and growth. Data silos can also prevent analysts from quickly gaining insights to anticipate business outcomes, such as the effect of a new sponsorship or revenue-driving program. So, what do you do when your isolated finance, operations and analytics solutions are major barriers to growing your revenue? Here are five reasons why you should adopt an integrated solution in the cloud. 1. Increase business agility Many organizations lack agility because they use on-premises enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems that have been highly customized to fit specific business needs. This heavy customization makes it a long, painful, and expensive process to upgrade to the latest version of the software. Users must often wait years for new capabilities, while their competitors leapfrog over them with more agile best practices. Today, forward-looking companies are subscribing to software-as-a-service (SaaS) models, adopting standardized systems built for the cloud. New capabilities are rolled out quickly by the cloud provider, so you can have the tools you need to keep up and stay competitive in a rapidly evolving business environment. 2. Enable automation Automating processes across separate, isolated systems is challenging, if not impossible, in many cases. Before adopting an integrated solution, one client—owner of some of North America’s leading sports franchises—had to manually transfer data between the ERP system and the customer relationship management (CRM), ticketing and point-of-sale systems. By adopting a SaaS solution with integrated finance, operations and analytics, your systems are connected in such a way that you can automate tasks that previously required manual labor, such as data transfer, extraction and reconciliation. You can also accelerate the processing of key tasks, such as invoices, purchase orders and journal entries. Thanks to automation in Oracle Cloud applications, my client no longer has to spend countless hours entering data, which previously included over 60,000 paper invoices each year. 3. Gain real-time insights When finance and operations are separated, business models aren’t typically aligned with financial plans and forecasts. It can also be difficult to procure timely reports. But with an integrated cloud, multidimensional analytics and reporting are available out of the box, in real time, as soon as transactions happen. Modern analytical tools can help you harness structured data in your ERP systems and unstructured data from other sources, such as emails, social media and market indices. Businesses can use these tools to build reports that factor in financial and operational variables. These enhanced analyst reports can help you gain deeper insights to inform corporate planning and better anticipate business outcomes. 4. Reduce maintenance costs It can be difficult and expensive to integrate systems that aren’t on the same platform. If you have a different reporting or analytics solution sitting outside your financial system, you have to employ people to maintain connections between them. On the flip side, integration can significantly reduce complexity and maintenance costs because all your data is in a single database, and more tasks can be automated. A connected, complete SaaS cloud can reduce your total cost of ownership (TCO) because you no longer need specialized middleware or expensive talent to manage your systems. As a result, your employees can spend more time on activities that provide value to your business. 5. Improve the user experience From the user perspective, a connected cloud is simply more convenient. You can see data consistently across your business. In fact, all the reasons I’ve highlighted for adopting a connected finance, operations and analytics cloud can help your employees work smarter and faster while focusing on their own expertise. Learn more Check out the IBM Cloud™ Impact Assessment for Oracle to see how IBM is helping businesses implement connected solutions in the cloud, paving the way for them to capitalize on groundbreaking technologies. IBM will also be attending and presenting at Oracle OpenWorld, October 22-25, 2018 in San Francisco. We invite you to connect with us at the event and attend our speaker sessions to learn more about integrating your finance, operations and analytics systems. Sarosh Khan is Associate Partner, IBM Global Business Services – Oracle ERP Cloud Leader, with more than 23 years of IT consulting experience in building and leading high performance consulting teams and managing large, complex, mission-critical programs. Mr. Khan in an expert in aligning strategic business goals with next-generation Oracle technology solutions to support business growth, profit/revenue gains, operational efficiencies, customer satisfaction, and strong competitive advantage. Connect with Sarosh on LinkedIn.

By Sarosh Khan, IBM Global Business Services Across every industry, finance and operations teams play central roles in the day-to-day running of the business. But the financial and operational systems...

By Viktor Sahakian, Leader, Oracle Consulting Practice, Hitachi When it comes to adopting new technologies, manufacturers have always been a cautious bunch. This is still true today, even though new cloud solutions are knocking at the door of every manufacturer out there with promises of greater agility and lower costs. Downtime for big facilities can be costly, so manufacturers can’t be blamed for casting a wary eye on proposals to bring new solutions—cloud or otherwise—onto their shop floors. However, the truth is that cloud services are proven to provide companies—and manufacturers, in particular—a huge boost in productivity, as outlined in a research report Intelligent Finance: How CFOs Can Lead the Coming Productivity Boom. Authored by Dr. Michael Mandel, senior fellow at the Mack Institute for Innovation Management at the Wharton School, the study projects that cloud services are poised to boost U.S. GDP by $2 trillion over the next decade. I haven’t done the math, but I wholeheartedly agree with the thrust of the study. There’s no question in my mind that cloud will have a positive impact on the economy—and increasingly we’ll see that impact reach deep into the manufacturing sector. Getting Nimble The fundamental value of cloud is that it enables organizations to become increasingly nimble and respond more rapidly to changing market demands. The cloud solves what I call the “problem of time”; you no longer need months and months to launch new capabilities. Now you can stand up capacity on the fly and radically shorten time-to-market cycles. That makes for a big competitive edge in any industry. In addition, cloud forms the basis for a whole host of advanced technologies like machine learning, 3D printing, blockchain, IoT and more—all of which are in the early stages of transforming manufacturing.  Finally, the cloud facilitates deep and pervasive connections between people and data via modern dashboards, mobile access, and real-time reporting. If you’re not connected to your data, you’re not leveraging it effectively. Cloud services allows companies to connect the dots faster, driving greater agility. A Real-World Impact on ROI I’m seeing the impact of cloud services at many of the manufacturers we work with today. For example, we recently helped a steel-processing company that was experiencing lost output and productivity. Executives recognized that their production planning was sub-optimal, largely because they lacked the data needed to help them improve the production schedule. Hitachi Consulting created a process to automatically capture critical step-and-cycle time data and generate insights into the causes of production disruptions. This data allowed production planners to introduce standards to refine and optimize the production schedule. Over a five-year period, these changes are expected to deliver a $2.6 million return on investment. Start Small It may be true that manufacturers are averse to risk, but risks can be controlled with smart strategies to propel cloud adoption. A good approach is to start with small steps and identify specific use cases around cloud services. To avoid business disruption, we often advise manufacturers to start with “edge” applications (such as reporting or budgeting) before moving core business functions to the cloud. For example, you could move some of your non-mission-critical workloads to the cloud to demonstrate the benefits of cloud (such as fast implementation times, regular software updates, and ease of use). Alternatively, you might initially target an IoT project on a cloud platform to generate quantifiable results—without interfering with your vital manufacturing systems—and address specific challenges or uses cases that might be impacting your production line or quality. Once you demonstrate business value with these tightly focused, low-risk projects, you can then decide to scale them out. This is the perfect way to drive broader adoption of cloud services. Smart Manufacturing Hitachi’s approach to cloud transformation in manufacturing starts with developing quantifiable use cases designed to solve real business problems. Then we leverage Oracle Cloud to enable a Smart Manufacturing for Oracle solution that can help drive gains in operational efficiencies across production, maintenance, quality, scheduling and logistics using IoT, advanced analytics and machine learning. I see the impact of cloud services in the industry only getting stronger as adoption increases. But not every manufacturer will embrace cloud services at the same speed. This disparity will lead to competitive differentiation between industry leaders and laggards, as Dr. Mandel outlined in his report. The main reason for differing adoption rates will be the mindset of organizational leaders. Those willing to take a more aggressive approach to improving operations with cloud services – and accept a bit more risk – will likely separate themselves with greater levels of productivity and innovation. How is your manufacturing company leveraging cloud services to become more competitive? I’d love to hear from you. Viktor Sahakian leads Hitachi Consulting’s Oracle technology practice and has over 25 years of consulting experience with applications development, implementations and systems architecture. He has directed and provided project management and technical leadership on multiple global implementations and transformational projects. His current focus areas are cloud-based SaaS, PaaS and IaaS transformations as well as IoT-based solutions to help companies address business challenges. CFOs: Are you ready to lead the coming productivity boom? Download the research.  

By Viktor Sahakian, Leader, Oracle Consulting Practice, Hitachi When it comes to adopting new technologies, manufacturers have always been a cautious bunch. This is still true today, even though new...

In the past few years, project management has been in the throes of a revolution. Iteration cycles are shorter, project teams are more dispersed, and the pressure to deliver results is ever greater. At the same time, emerging technologies are creating new opportunities for project management organizations (PMOs) to manage this changing work, according to a recent study by ProjectManagement.com. The automation and data visualization provided by state-of-the-art project management systems give managers the tools they need to make informed decisions. But what if many of those decisions could be made by the software itself? That’s the promise of machine learning—a promise that will change the face of project teams, management, and projects themselves sooner than you may think. Here Come the Bots Today’s project management systems typically rely on manual input, such as timesheets and status updates, to inform a manager’s decisions around task assignment and resource allocation. More sophisticated systems, such as Oracle Project Portfolio Management Cloud, can pull additional data from other parts of the enterprise, such as finance, and present it with advanced visualizations. A few years from now, however, AI and machine learning may be making these decisions independently and objectively, without human input. Software robots (commonly referred to as “bots”) could build project plans, assign tasks, and allocate resources. These bots would be able to learn from any number of inputs within and outside of the organization to refine these decisions, resulting in ever-greater efficiency and speed. That does not mean we’ll do without project managers altogether. Instead, with bots making these tactical decisions, human project managers can take on a more strategic focus, keeping the organization’s project portfolio aligned to its strategic priorities. The project manager would also act as a coach to the team, monitoring broad trends, identifying unforeseen opportunities, and bringing innovative thinking to bear on the problems at hand. The Project Team Evolves… Project teams certainly aren’t what they used to be. In place of rigid, hierarchical structures, nimble self-organized teams are creating a dynamic project delivery environment. Team members may be spread across the country or the globe, collaborating via social tools and focusing on individual technical specialties rather than more general expertise. Bots are a natural fit for the increasingly pervasive work-at-will model, whether it be a pool of outside contractors, internal ad-hoc teams, or a combination of both. The system would be analogous to a ride-share service, in which potential team members make themselves available when (and where) they wish, and the system assigns tasks based on availability, expertise, and other criteria. The AI system would then ensure that these disparate elements come together as a cohesive whole, on time and on budget. When roadblocks arise, the management bot, much like a GPS system, could find alternate routes or report the issue to a human operator for resolution. …As Projects Also Evolve As bots become more sophisticated, the nature of projects themselves is likely to evolve alongside them. In fact, the foundational elements of this future work model are already in place. The influence of Agile has driven a more iterative approach; organizations are shortening planning windows and increasing the cadence of deliveries to meet demand. The result is a level of complexity and speed that might be difficult for a human to track—but for which a bot is perfectly suited. Intelligent automation could reduce the lag between identifying a need and implementing the solution. At the same time, it would maximize benefits and value. Large-scale, potentially disruptive packaged projects would give way to smaller, incremental deliveries that realize the promise of continuous improvement. Wanted: End-to-End ERP in the Cloud Machine learning requires high-quality data—lots of it. This is why project management bots will rely on connected ERP cloud systems to exchange information with every functional area of the enterprise. Finance, in particular, could benefit immensely from this next-generation automation. Bots would keep projects within budget and ROI parameters, while also delivering information about cost and revenue impact to the finance function in real time. In addition to the structured data provided by ERP system, bots could draw on big data from the Internet of Things (IoT), data as a service, and other unstructured sources to learn new ways of optimizing project cost and projected ROI. On-premises infrastructure and software simply don’t provide enough readily-available data to train the machines. The future of AI and machine learning is in the cloud. Where all of this will take us is still an open question. To ensure that your organization is future-ready, choose solutions that already offer predictive analytics and intelligent automation. Oracle, for example, has embedded machine learning into its finance, human resources, supply chain, and customer experience cloud applications. Read more about the future of project management in this research paper from ProjectManagement.com.

In the past few years, project management has been in the throes of a revolution. Iteration cycles are shorter, project teams are more dispersed, and the pressure to deliver results is ever greater....

By Ana Galindo, Product Marketing Manager, SCM Cloud, Oracle Imagine a perfect purchasing world. In this world, employees are able to purchase the items and supplies they need in order to get their jobs done at the best-negotiated prices. Purchase orders would be automatically created and the finance team would be able to easily match an order with an invoice. Unfortunately, that is not always the case. What happens instead is that employees will purchase items through suppliers that are not even on contract—meaning businesses pay more for products that may already have lower negotiated prices, increasing costs to the business and impacting the bottom line. Ardent Partners, a research and advisory firm, attests to that. According to their recent 2018 CPO Rising Survey, only 59% of spend is on contract. It’s becoming increasingly hard for companies to ensure that employees are staying compliant and purchasing from approved suppliers within policy. In my previous roles, I know I would be guilty as charged. There were several times I would go “rogue” and place orders with outside vendors—not because I wanted to, but because the spend management tools provided to employees were always extremely complicated to use. When it comes down to it, spend management isn’t just about reducing company costs, but also ensuring a user-friendly internal customer experience as well. Quickly Adapting to Change When I arrived at Oracle, I was told I was required to use our self-service procurement cloud to order my monitors and standing desk. Just the thought of using another spend management application filled me with complete frustration. In the past I’ve had painful experiences with various spend management software (won’t name any names). I always had a hard time navigating through the software, I could never find the products that I needed, and of course the interface wasn’t intuitive. You can’t blame me for expecting the same complexities with this new application. However, I was pleasantly surprised when I first used Oracle Self Service Procurement Cloud, as it takes the employee shopping experience to another level. The fact is, the more intuitive and easy it is for employees to follow the rules, the more likely it is that they will. The first thing I noticed was the easy, user-friendly, interface. When looking at the main page, there is a “Top Categories” section, as well as a drop-down category menu that allows users to choose exactly the products they’re looking for. The software also has powerful search capabilities that allowed me to quickly locate the right products that I needed within seconds. If I was stuck between which items to order, I could compare and contrast products from different vendors. Also, I was able to “punchout” to the supplier’s e-commerce website, add items to my shopping cart, and then complete the transaction in Oracle Procurement Cloud. Advanced Features Enhance Your Procurement Once I was done looking for what I needed, with the click of a button I added the products to my shopping cart and seamlessly checked out. With the application’s advanced capabilities, I was able to choose a one-time delivery to a different office location. After submitting my order, my requisition was sent to my manager for approval. Requisitions within Self Service Procurement Cloud are always routed through workflows for approval before they are processed (these workflows are completely configurable to your organization’s policies). Within minutes after placing my order, I received an email stating that my requisition had been “approved.” What was most surprising was how quickly my manager was able to approve my requisition. Additionally, since the application runs on mobile devices, I was able to keep track of my requisitions’ status from the palm of my hand. Spend Management Made Easy Within a matter of days, I received several packages at my cubicle and the first thought that crossed my mind was, “Well…that was quick!” At my previous employer, it would take several weeks before I received my order, making it much more convenient for me to order from a huge online retailer (you know the one) and have it delivered the next day. Oracle Self Service Procurement Cloud solution put a positive buying experience well within my reach. Most importantly it provided a compliant, streamlined, frictionless buying experience. Want a closer look? Take a quick tour of Oracle Procurement Cloud. 

By Ana Galindo, Product Marketing Manager, SCM Cloud, Oracle Imagine a perfect purchasing world. In this world, employees are able to purchase the items and supplies they need in order to get their...

By Mike Baccala, Assurance Innovation Leader, and Ed Ponagai, Principal, Finance Consulting, PwC  At PwC, we’re strong believers that artificial intelligence is going to bring big benefits for finance departments and for the professionals who work in them. But we have no illusions that AI is a panacea for all that ails. Most finance leaders, and even many IT professionals, don’t understand how AI works, and so they find it difficult trust its recommendations. Business leaders need both understanding and trust before they can have responsible AI. Artificial intelligence can learn a lot of things from data, but some of those things might best be left forgotten. One widely reported story, for example, is the COMPAS risk assessment system. It algorithmically advised prosecutors and judges on the risk of recidivism of individual offenders—but was found to have learned racial biases from the historical data that were fed to it. In businesses, an AI application might make recommendations that improve working capital or that refine corporate strategy, but the treasurer or FP&A leader is going to want to understand how the machine came to its conclusion before taking any action. In a 2017 PwC survey, 76% of CEOs told us the potential for biases and lack of transparency are holding back AI. An AI algorithm makes probabilistic determinations in non-obvious ways. It falls to humans to understand why. Leaders, employees, consumers and regulators are all wary of relying on an AI that acts inexplicably. Thus, pressure is growing to open up “black boxes” and make AI explainable, transparent and provable. Why Responsible AI Is a Finance Pain Point Technology vendors are recognize the potential problems and are participating in collaborations such as the World Economic Forum’s Center for the Fourth Industrial Revolution, the IEEE Global Initiative on Ethics of Autonomous and Intelligent Systems, AI Now, The Partnership on AI, Future of Life, AI for Good, and DeepMind, among others. All are looking at how to maximize AI’s benefits for humanity and limit its risks. But, as we outline in our “2018 AI Predictions,” pressure for responsible AI won’t be on tech companies alone. The risks to the organization are broad and non-technical: from invasion of privacy and algorithmic bias, to brand reputation and the bottom line. No board would outsource those kinds of risks. As more companies embrace the imperative of responsible AI, the finance function will have to step up, even when an AI is put to work elsewhere in the organization. Responsible AI calls as much for a governance, risk and control solution as it does a technology solution. For example, companies can use a GRC solution such as Oracle Risk Management Cloud to assess potential abuse of their own algorithms—such as when bad actors try to create fake accounts. GRC software also provides audit trails—and internal auditors are experts in governance, risk and control processes. They can develop risk frameworks to codify how data might be “de-biased” or teach learning algorithms to steer clear of legal and ethical landmines. Or they can help train a secondary AI agent to parallel a primary AI, in order to classify and explain behavior as part of a control process. So, finance will provide the humans in the loop that could finally make AI responsible. Learn more about AI and other emerging technologies at Oracle’s upcoming finance event. Be the first to find out about special discounts, insider information, and event details by completing this short form.   

By Mike Baccala, Assurance Innovation Leader, and Ed Ponagai, Principal, Finance Consulting, PwC  At PwC, we’re strong believers that artificial intelligence is going to bring big benefits for finance...