A major shift is taking place in how organisations select their financial management applications, with a migration to cloud applications happening faster than expected, according to Gartner, Inc. A recent Gartner survey of senior finance executives found that by 2020, 36 per cent of organisations will use the cloud to support more than half of their transactional systems of record.
Gartner surveyed 439 global senior financial executives (including 410 who had implemented cloud strategic and financial corporate performance management solutions) from January through March 2017 to explore their technology perspective, influence of IT, needs and priorities in technology investment.
According to the survey:
- Organisations of all sizes are moving to cloud solutions, such as core financial applications, for transactional systems of record.
- Cloud momentum is consistently higher across financial business applications year over year.
- Business analytics and enterprise business applications continue as top investment initiatives for senior financial executives.
According to the survey, smaller and midsize organisations are adopting cloud more rapidly than larger organisations, with 44.6 per cent of smaller organisations, 37.7 per cent of midsize organisations and 40.4 per cent of large organisations planning to move to the cloud over the next three years.
“We’ve found that most clients asking about these financial business application markets are solely interested in the cloud option,” said John Van Decker, research vice president at Gartner. “Many organisations that currently run on-premises solutions want to move to newer solutions that put more control in the hands of the end user, and reduce the effort required when compared with on-premises upgrades.”
Gartner has found that the human capital management and procure-to-pay markets have already been migrating their business applications to the cloud, while the office of finance has been slower to move. However, things are changing for the finance organisation. CFOs are usually more conservative about moving their data to the cloud, however, given the current change in the market there will be a steady migration over the next five to 10 years.
Cloud solutions are still developing and do not have uniform capability to meet the needs of all verticals, company size and local markets, and clients will need to do their due diligence when evaluating cloud solutions in these markets.
“The Gartner survey showed that 93 per cent of businesses see the cloud being utilised for half of enterprise transactions in the future,” said Mr Van Decker. “The cloud has definitely changed the game for financial management business applications. Vendors have responded with new and rearchitected platforms in the cloud, and most have de-emphasized their on-premises solutions, in favour of cloud implementations, which are more profitable for the vendors, while reducing the effort of local IT support.”
Gartner clients can dive deeper into the survey results in “Survey Analysis, Once in the Cloud, Where Does Finance IT Go?” To address the momentum and market shift to the cloud, Gartner has published three Magic Quadrants covering financial management and performance management applications, primarily by the office of finance. Gartner clients can learn more in:
“Magic Quadrant for Cloud Financial Corporate Performance Management Solutions”
“Magic Quadrant for Cloud Strategic Corporate Performance Management Solutions”
“Magic Quadrant for Cloud Core Financial Management Suites for Midsize, Large and Global Enterprises”
Additional information on trends in the financial services industry will be provided during Industry Day at Gartner Symposium/ITxpo 2017. Follow news and updates from the events on Twitter using #GartnerSYM.
About Gartner
Gartner, Inc. (NYSE: IT) is the world’s leading research and advisory company. The company helps business leaders across all major functions in every industry and enterprise size with the objective insights they need to make the right decisions. Gartner’s comprehensive suite of services delivers strategic advice and proven best practices to help clients succeed in their mission-critical priorities. Gartner is headquartered in Stamford, Connecticut, USA, and has more than 13,000 associates serving clients in 11,000 enterprises in 100 countries. For more information, visit gartner.com.
