What's new in research? Emerging technologies.

• Position: Financial Executives Research Foundation - Software-as-a-service - Report

Financial Executives Research Foundation continues to focus on the practical needs of senior financial executives, including how to work more effectively using the latest technologies. FERF works closely with FEI's Committee on Finance & Information Technology (CFIT) to identify emerging technologies and their practical applications.

Last year, CFIT identified software-as-a-service (SaaS) as an important emerging technology. SaaS refers to the delivery and use of software through a network. In practical terms, SaaS refers to renting rather than purchasing software. A common application of SaaS is the use of an outside provider to process payroll.

FERF and Saugatuck Technology surveyed FEI members to find out how senior financial executives were using SaaS and what their concerns were related to its use.

The survey results, SaaS and Core Finance Effectiveness--distributed to members in February--revealed that financial executives see broad-based value in the use of SaaS and view it as a cost-effective means of getting finance out of software and systems management.

Says Steve Yeffa, the chief financial officer of Cartridge World: "We went down the SaaS path to preserve capital for our growing company." SaaS, he adds, "brought speed and consistency to our financials and allowed our company to be SarbOx- [The Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002] compliant."

The report provides an action plan for implementing SaaS. For a listing of SaaS vendors, see the cover story "SaaS Sets the State for Cloud Computing," in the June 2008 issue of Financial Executive.

Another technology-related research report is Trends in Income Tax Reporting...