Analyst Perspectives

The subscription and recurring revenue business models became a significant part of the economy this century with the advent of streaming services for entertainment and software as a service. They have grown in popularity because they enhance customer lifetime value by evolving what had previously been a one-time-sale relationship into a delivery of ongoing services, which can create a more loyal...

I recently attended Infor’s Velocity Summit, designed to showcase the latest versions of its CloudSuite ERP software. Also center stage were Infor’s advances in artificial intelligence and process mining as well as its environmental, social and governance application and supply chain optimization enhancements.

Agents are all the rage—and for a good reason. They are a way to automate work almost effortlessly so that repetitive and boring tasks get done with the least amount of effort on the part of the operator. In business, agents can be a boon for customer satisfaction and a way to improve worker productivity. They are alluring, with an almost unlimited number of potential use cases.

Artificial intelligence-enabled business applications have advanced considerably over the past year as software providers have added a steady stream of capabilities. This includes customer facing, financial, supply chain and workforce software. ISG Research asserts that by 2027, almost all providers of business applications will use some form of generative AI to enhance capabilities and...

Prophix launched its Prophix One platform earlier this year. CFOs of midsize enterprises should take a look at it because it supports a more effective approach to finance and accounting operations in growing companies. It facilitates the transition of organizations that can no longer make do with work-arounds of existing systems to those with formal, controlled core processes that can be...

Sage recently held an analyst summit to take a deeper dive into its product and technology roadmap, complementing sessions it held at its 2024 user group conference that I commented on earlier this year. ERP systems have been central to the operational and financial management of enterprises since they first appeared in the 1990s. They are so familiar that they have become part of the background...

ERP systems have been the central nervous system of enterprises for more than three decades, handling business-critical process management and recordkeeping. While their basic outlines are unchanged, today’s systems are far more capable in their functional depth, adaptability, usability and manageability. Especially for cloud-based systems, they are far easier to maintain. Decades of refinement...

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. OneStream recently held its annual user conference, Splash, in Las Vegas. In attending this meeting, my focus was on progress the company has made in the areas of...

Improving data management is at the forefront of my Office of Finance research practice because, when not managed well, it can have a profoundly negative impact on departmental efficiency, individual performance, organizational agility and sustainability. Conversely, straight-through processing (STP), a business process design and data management methodology, reduces process friction throughout...

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...

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....

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

Ventana Research recently announced its 2024 Market Agenda for the Office of Finance, continuing the guidance we have provided since 2004 on the practical use of technology for the finance and accounting department. Our insights and best practices aim to enable enterprises to operate with agility and resiliency, improving performance and delivering greater value as a strategic partner.