In This Issue
- Opener: 5 Tips for Smarter IT Spending
- What’s in Your Tech Stack? With Steve Mitchell, CFO, Redgate Software
- Product & Company News: Anaplan, Paystand, Oracle and More
- People News: FloQast, Dayforce, Avalara and More
- FATEdex: Our Exclusive Public Company Tracker
- Upcoming Events/Subscribe & Share
Editor’s Note—Tech is hard. We get it. To help, StrategicCFO360 and The CFO Leadership Council are launching a new effort—starting with this free newsletter—to help finance pros make more confident technology choices and help software providers understand and more successfully serve their needs.
On October 28-30, we’ll hold our inaugural Finance and Accounting Tech Expo at the Javits Convention Center in New York City. Join us!
We could use your help, too: If you have feedback, ideas or product, people and company news to share with the community, email us at vince@CFOLC.com—Vince Ryan, editor
5 Tips For Smarter IT Spending
CFOs are willing to part with their organization’s technology dollars, but they are also keen to avoid products that fail to produce the promised returns. To learn how CFOs should approach finding the best solutions and the most trustworthy vendors, as well as the mistakes to avoid, we spoke with Alok Ajmera, CEO of Ontario-based Prophix Software. While organizations face challenges in finding good vendor fits, Ajmera says, in the cloud at least, “the economic power remains with the end user.”
Here’s the advice he offers CFOs:
Think past the immediate. “Buyers need to become a little more sophisticated. They focus on one pain point—budgeting is a disaster, the close process is terrible, cash forecasting is challenging. But if you invest time, energy and money, you want to buy a solution that can grow with you. More CFOs are thinking about the ecosystem strategically; they want to solve the acute pain, but they also want to continuously add value.”
Clean up the data first. “You can have a complex, sophisticated vision for what you want out of a budgeting and planning system, but if the data is not mature and scattered across dozens of systems with no way to collect and harmonize it, that’s a problem. [Implementation] projects can then run incredibly long, and the buyer risks never getting to value. As buyers move to modern architectures, they are overhauling their core systems and cleaning up their data, but [data management] is still not as sharp as it needs to be if companies want to benefit from all the cool, data-driven technology available.”
Check that value received > price. “The cloud pitch from vendors is, ‘Just sign up. And if you don't like it, drop it.’ When buying on-premises systems, 90 percent of the lifetime cash was already spent. In the cloud, for some solutions, you can just as easily cancel as buy the service. But for a complex, massive piece of software, you need to prepare a year or two ahead if you want optionality at renewal time. If the value received for your ABC ERP solution is no longer greater than the price paid, start the journey.”
Read the reviews. “If a vendor has a history of treating customers poorly or ratcheting up the price, you can find out in advance. You can go online for unfiltered feedback on how customers are treated after they sign the contract. Do your due diligence. Does the software have the capabilities to solve my problem today? Does it have the capability to solve my problem tomorrow? But also, who am I partnering with, and is this a partnership or a vendor relationship?”
Don’t buy hype. “AI technology will be incredibly disruptive for the office of the CFO. But AI is also at peak hype cycle. Everyone wants to talk about it, whether they have something materially AI generated or not. The truth is most of the AI being generated is not through B2B application vendors. We stand on the shoulders of giants—the Microsofts and Amazons of the world. These deeply rooted technology companies are the ones doing all the research and work on AI. We’re saying, ‘OK, OpenAI, you've created something that has no purpose. Can I create a purpose for it? Can I take that tool and wrap something around it to add value?’ Should a CFO buy business software today based exclusively on AI? No. They should ask which vendor has the most robust AI roadmap. That will help future-proof their investment.”
In our first issue, we used the incorrect last name for Eventus Advisory Group CFO Glenn Hopper. We apologize for the error. — Editor
From our partner:
Drive Business Success with the CFO's Ultimate KPI Checklist! Unlock the secrets to leveraging KPIs effectively in your business with this comprehensive ebook. Packed with customizable templates, process maps, and expert advice from industry guru Bernie Smith, this resource is your key to achieving consistently excellent performance in 2024 and beyond. Download Now!
|