Finance in the Cloud—Myth or Today's Reality?

AuthorToby Hatch,Craig Barrow
Published date01 July 2015
Date01 July 2015
DOIhttp://doi.org/10.1002/jcaf.22057
5
© 2015 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.
Published online in Wiley Online Library (wileyonlinelibrary.com).
DOI 10.1002/jcaf.22057
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Finance in the Cloud—Myth or
Today’s Reality?
Craig Barrow and Toby Hatch
WHY MOVE TO THE
CLOUD?
There are many
potential benefits to
be gained by mov-
ing Finance to the
cloud—some are
more for small to
midsized companies;
other benefits are
widely experienced.
For example, small
to midsized organi-
zations often don’t
have the funds or
information technol-
ogy (IT) resources to
implement some of
the critical systems they need to
compete with their larger com-
petitors. Being able to access
these systems in the cloud, as
needed, at a low cost can dras-
tically help them be more com-
petitive. As they grow, the cloud
application and infrastructure
can change to accommodate
their needs. Larger companies
often spend up to 80% of their
IT budgets on low-value work
(like implementing software,
maintenance, and upgrading
software) instead of working
on innovations that would help
their companies get ahead.
Using infrastructure, platforms,
and applications in the cloud
means many of these low-value
activities are no longer man-
aged by your IT team, so
they can focus on high-value
activities.
In most cases, all compa-
nies may expect:
• Reduced up-front costs—
often, pay as you go.
• Quick implementation
times—days/weeks, not
months or years.
• Scalability—
as your needs
change, you can
scale up or down
easily.
• Flexibility—often
device agnostic.
• Automatic
updates—often
with flexibility on
when you accept
them.
• Access to data—
through multiple
devices, as you
need it.
• Highly
individual ized
experiences—you
purchase what
you need, when you need
it, and often company
branding can be included.
• Access to favorite and
much-needed financial
tools and applications,
without “owning” them.
• More time to work on
growing your business and
innovation.
According to a 2014
KPMG Cloud Survey Report
(KPMG & Forbes Insights,
2014), more than 500 C-level
So what’s holding your organization back from
implementing financial cloud applications? You,
or others on your team, may be hung up on some
long-standing myths about cloud computing. This
article will address some of the more prevalent
myths and fears and bring some “reality therapy”
to this process. It will also try to provide a better
understanding of the variety of cloud options avail-
able to bring some clarity to the analysis and deci-
sion process associated with implementing finan-
cial cloud applications. This process will include
both a checklist of the essential risk-mitigating
questions to ask, and a quiz to determine how
“cloud ready” your Finance organization is today.
© 2015 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

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