Analyst Perspectives

I have been using the term “data pantry” (somewhat tongue in cheek) to describe a curated, governed and readily accessible collection of enterprise data that business users can draw on to support the use of core business software. This includes ERP, CRM and supply chain management software, as well as essential business processes such as analytics, forecasting and planning. This form of data...

Prophix One is a finance and accounting platform that provides enterprises a single point of entry and common authentication for financial applications. It uses in-memory cube technology to enable enterprises to handle complex planning tasks built on very large datasets to eliminate barriers to integrated business planning. The platform and its dedicated data store support the use of artificial...

The reason why artificial intelligence (AI) has been the focus of endless keynote speeches, product roadmap announcements by ERP providers and development efforts across all categories of business software is that AI-embedded systems promise (and will ultimately deliver) software that more closely molds its operation to the needs of a specific enterprise and individual user. The technology is...

Requirements for sustainability reporting have been undergoing a political shift over the past year, including modifications to the EU’s reporting requirements. The difference between European and North American attitudes to sustainability as a priority, which were significant 15 years ago, began to converge toward the end of the ‘teens but now appear to be diverging. In the U.S. in particular,...

Spectacular accounting frauds happen with enough regularity to beg the question, how did the auditors miss that? In the wake of the 2008 financial crisis, the U.S. established the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board (PCAOB or “peekaboo”) with the aim of protecting investors and lenders by overseeing the audits of public companies to ensure the reports and opinions are accurate, independent...

Managing corporate income taxes effectively is important since these represent the second or third biggest expense for many enterprises. However attractive minimizing them might be, following all applicable tax laws and regulations is equally as important because failure to pay what the laws require can result in significant monetary fines and, potentially, reputational risk. Since there can be...

The Chief Financial Officer of a midsize enterprise faces a different set of challenges than their counterparts in larger or smaller enterprises. Midsize enterprises have grown to the point of requiring capabilities similar to larger businesses but typically lack the staff or financial resources afforded to bigger ones. The past decade of IT innovation—especially the expansion of cloud...

Tokenization is an emerging topic for business software providers. Tokenization is the process of representing something valuable or complex with a simple computer-readable substitute to enhance security or improve the efficiency and usability of a system. Tokens are already widely used in commerce. It’s now common for sensitive data used in a transaction, such as a bank account number or credit...

The recent Oracle AI World event did not unveil much that was stunning “new” news for its business applications, because much of what has been evolving was presented already and has been in front of analysts for some months. What was on display, though, was steady progress to its advancing capabilities coming out every quarter. The company has focused on the development of agents and an agentic...

Oracle NetSuite’s presentations and announcements at its recent user group meeting, SuiteWorld, focused on an initiative called NetSuite Next, a set of artificial intelligence (AI), generative AI (GenAI) and agentic AI capabilities that will be an inherent part of the NetSuite suite of applications starting in 2026. The company’s objective is to facilitate customers’ transition to this AI-centric...

We live in a time of uncertainty, not unpredictability. Planning charts the course of an enterprise through a sea of uncertainties, making fact-based predictions of potential outcomes to inform decision-making by executives and managers. Companies do a lot of planning—some formal but much of it informal. People in companies plan sales, they plan how to produce products and deliver services. They...

FloQast offers close management, reconciliation and accounting workflow automation software that streamlines processes and achieves reliable accuracy with less effort while providing real-time visibility into financial operations. The word “hack” originally referred to an ordinary horse, and later to a third-rate writer. More recently, it has come to mean—in a business context—a clever strategy...

ISG Software Research is expanding our ISG Buyers Guide™ coverage to include the topic of sustainability. Our buyers guide will focus on sustainability exclusively rather than the full spectrum of environmental, social and governance topics. One reason is that gathering, managing, analyzing and reporting environmental data under the various frameworks and statutes presents enterprises with...

Sage recently held its Future user conference in Atlanta. Our ISG Buyers Guide for Midsize ERP Financial Management (2024) rated Sage Intacct as one of the top three providers, reflecting its strong performance in both product capabilities and customer experience. The event showcased its advances and roadmap aimed at embedding artificial intelligence (AI), generative AI (GenAI) and agentic AI in...

Oracle’s recent industry analyst summit demonstrated significant progress in embedding artificial intelligence in its business applications—including those for finance, HR and supply chain management. This amplifies the already broad and deep functionality developed over decades. Oracle also continues to expand and extend its collaborative efforts with financial institutions, a form of...

OneStream offers a platform designed to serve the needs of accounting and financial planning and analysis (FP&A) organizations. The software handles financial close and consolidation, planning and budgeting, analysis and reporting.

The six costliest words in managing a finance department are, “We’ve always done it this way.” The record-to-report (R2R) cycle describes the process of finalizing and summarizing the financial activities of a business for a specific accounting period—typically a month, quarter or fiscal year. It is important to note that R2R exclusively covers the activities between recording (keeping the books)...

We live in a time of uncertainty, not unpredictability. Especially when a business finds itself on an undefined journey with an unclear destination—whether caused by internal events or the world at large—having plans to deal with a range of outcomes increases the odds of success. Or, at least enduring the least amount of damage. Managing an organization in uncertain times is always hard, but...

Managing corporate income taxes is a challenge for chief financial officers and their tax department professionals. Tax codes are often complex, so tax accounting as well as the data required for tax provisions and tax compliance are different enough from statutory accounting to create significant workloads for the tax department. The provision for income tax expense and, for public companies,...

ISG Research recently announced the results of its Business Planning Buyers Guide for 2025. We rated Board Exemplary and a leader in customer experience and in reliability. Board recently launched two external data offerings that significantly strengthen the capabilities of its planning software. Its Board Foresight is designed to support more effective and potentially more accurate forecasting...