As I read through Steve Player’s most recent blog in his series, that looks at the potential impact of cloud computing on business planning, budgeting, and forecasting, I was struck by his reference to planners doing too much “dumb stuff” and not enough value-added activities. This raises the question, does cloud computing offer real potential for finance teams to free up the time they need to become even more efficient and productive – and ultimately add more value?
We’ve seen how technology has improved leaps and bounds over the last few years, automating of many aspects of the planning, budgeting, and forecasting process, making them faster, more accurate, and more efficient. But with new technology advances, such as the use of in-memory technology by SAP Business Planning and Consolidation, powered by SAP HANA, and more recently the emergence of on-demand planning solutions like SAP EPM OnDemand, there appears to be a new opportunity for finance teams to further improve their planning processes.
At the end of the day, it’s up to the finance team or organization to decide what’s best for them and their business. The use of these technologies has the potential to give teams more time to focus on added-value activities like management and strategy versus administrative tasks. For organizations already sold on the use of innovative technologies, the adoption of cloud solutions may be an easy one; but for others, it may require a cultural leap and a whole new way of approaching the strategic use of planning systems.
What do you think? Could cloud computing help you reduce administrative tasks in the planning process and free up some of your teams’ valuable time for more value-added activities?
This blog post was originally published on the CFOKnowledge Blog.
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