By Freya Purnell
Financial managers within Australia’s mid-size to large companies are proving difficult to win over when it comes to the use of cloud solutions.
The survey of 150 organisations was commissioned by finance controls and automation software specialist, Blackline.
Only 37 per cent of financial managers agree or strongly agree hosted application can help them reduce costs, and are unconvinced they can lower the time needed to deploy new tools.
When asked whether they thought cloud-based applications could help reduce the costs and the time needed to deploy tools that allow faster analysis, budgeting, forecasting and risk management, 55 per cent of respondents were neutral or only somewhat agreed.
Todd Hunt, vice president and Asia-Pacific general manager, Blackline, said the lag in interest in cloud solutions could be due in part to a misunderstanding of the benefits the cloud can offer.
“Clearly more needs to be done to explain how cloud-based platforms can cut costs and reduce application deployment times,” said Hunt. “Finance managers risk missing out on the benefits being enjoyed by other parts of their organisations.”
When it comes to the need to provide accurate and timely information to senior managers and line of business heads, many finance managers believe more needs to be done.
Thirty-eight per cent reported their teams still spent between 26 and up to 50 per cent of their time collecting, entering and validating information; 34 per cent said the time required to compile data undermined its quality; and 31 per cent of respondents pointed to a lack of IT resources as a reason information requests could be difficult to fulfil.
The respondents also indicated they would be willing to change – with 66 per cent agreeing or strongly agreeing that their finance team would like to improve the flow of usability of information for lines of business and to improve the decision-making of senior management.
“While the benefits of streamlining systems and workflows is understood, limited IT and staff resources and a lack of understanding of the benefits of cloud computing are proving to be roadblocks,” Hunt said.
