Analyst Perspectives

At this stage of the development of Generative AI, there’s much we can see clearly (at least we think we can), but there’s even more likely to surprise us. As that great 20th-century philosopher and hall-of-fame catcher, Yogi Berra, famously said, “It’s tough to make predictions, especially about the future.” The breadth and speed of innovation today in all aspects of GenAI rivals that of the...

I am happy to share insights gleaned from our latest Buyers Guide, an assessment of how well software providers’ offerings meet buyers’ requirements. The Financial Consolidation and Close: ISG and Ventana Research Buyers Guide is the distillation of a year of market and product research by ISG and Ventana Research.

Until recently, dedicated consolidation software had been a sleepy category. First introduced in the 1980s as a tool designed to run on personal computers (freeing the accounting department from reliance on its IT department), offerings basically achieved feature and function parity by the next decade. The last major technology innovation—moving the software to the cloud—began in the mid-2000s....

Rebalancing supply chains to improve resiliency has been a focus of enterprises with even moderately complex and long supply chains for the past four years. One aspect of this rebalancing is that it almost always involves higher costs. Volume discounts and bargaining power are reduced when more suppliers are used, or an alternate supplier may have higher factor costs and therefore must charge...

Oracle held an industry analyst summit recently where the focus was on artificial intelligence (AI) and embedded AI. At the event, Oracle demonstrated progress in adding useful AI-enabled capabilities to its business applications, especially in finance and accounting, supply chain, HR and revenue management. To put this into context, across the software industry, AI is already at work in many...

Value-added tax is a consumption tax levied at every point in a supply chain—from production to final sale. It’s based on the difference between the cost of production and the selling price of a product or service, or the value added. Sales taxes are different in that they are generally collected only at the final point of sale to the ultimate consumer. Enterprises collect the value-added tax...

We’re quickly approaching the moment when it becomes clear that artificial intelligence (AI) and generative AI (GenAI) will not be free. As that happens, we will discover who’s willing to pay how much and for what. After nearly 18 months of unlimited use-case fantasizing, it should be obvious that not all the potential applications of AI can be realized over the next three to five years because...

The tax provision process is an essential part of the close process and a core responsibility of tax departments. This process estimates the amount of income tax an enterprise will have to pay tax authorities in the jurisdictions in which it operates. Tax accountants derive the number by adjusting the reported net income with a variety of permanent differences, such as expenses that are not...

If you search “for want of a nail” on your browser, you’ll discover the age-old wisdom that seemingly trivial things can have a far-reaching impact. It’s a parable for artificial intelligence used in business. Deconstruct the imagined big-picture impact of AI and there are thousands of minor tasks that soon will require little or no human involvement in the interstices of an end-to-end process....

There have been a multitude of potential use cases for artificial intelligence (AI) and generative AI (GenAI) dreamed up over the past 18 months. ISG-Ventana Research describes AI as the development of systems and software capable of automating tasks that have previously required human intelligence. It encompasses machine learning (ML), deep learning and GenAI to deliver capabilities including...

Sage Intacct recently held its annual user conference, and while there were plenty of product announcements and roadmap presentations, my focus here is on the artificial intelligence elements. AI–both predictive and generative–is the most important capability and differentiator in software aimed at finance and accounting departments. Ventana Research asserts that by 2027, almost all vendors of...

Smart manufacturing is a strategic operating approach that aligns advanced manufacturing technology with system and process design principles to promote adaptability. It is a digital, event-driven, collaborative orchestration of physical and digital processes designed to increase productivity, efficiency, adaptability and resilience. These systems use technologies to coordinate the planning and...

Artificial intelligence seems poised to change everything, although naturally a great deal of attention tends to be paid to the cool things it makes possible. AI can also make the humdrum less tedious and even transform the dullest of back-office operations into something more meaningful. For example, AI can take accounts receivable automation to the next level. 

Zoho recently held its annual analyst day to communicate its strategy, objectives and product roadmap. The privately held company, headquartered in Chennai, Tamil Nadu, India, has an unconventional approach to the software market. Its self-described corporate philosophy emphasizes making bold moves that challenge assumptions. Its design engineering approach stresses simplicity and cost while...

After a year of near-constant AI chatter, the broad strokes of how the technology will roll out in business over the next three to five years are coming into place. It’s almost trite but worth repeating that artificial intelligence will drive a substantial boost in productivity as it’s adopted. Rather than making large swathes of jobs obsolete, it will take the robotic work out of those job...

With a year of AI-everywhere-all-the-time chatter now in the rearview mirror, finance and accounting department executives appear to be in a state of apprehension and well-tuned skepticism about the impact this technology will have on their organization. There are solid reasons to believe that the next few years will be transformative, making it important for departments to adopt a fast-follower...

We live in an era of uncertainty, not unpredictability. Managing in uncertain times is always difficult, but tools are available to improve the odds for success by making it easier and faster to plan for contingencies and scenarios. Software makes it possible to manage ahead of any future event, connecting the tactical trees to the strategic forest. The purpose of planning is not just to create a...

Digitally transforming finance operations has been a priority since 2020. For purchasing and the procure-to-pay cycle, software can streamline processes, shorten process times, reduce unnecessary costs, provide greater visibility into cash flows, increase control and improve results. Digitizing operations helps attract and retain the best talent because professionals spend less time on...

Ventana Research recently announced its 2024 market agenda for Operations and Supply Chain, continuing the guidance we have offered for more than two decades to help enterprises across industries derive optimal value and improved outcomes from business technology.

Since a majority of today’s workforce wasn’t around in the 1990s, it’s worth noting that “business process reengineering” was all the rage. The purpose was to review, restructure and redesign core business processes to achieve substantial improvements in market and customer responsiveness, productivity, cycle times and quality. One reason for its popularity (beyond being a money spinner for...