Acronyms are both a bellwether and a result of technology advances, and within the world of business applications, the latest buzzword is SMAC (social, mobile, analytics and cloud). According to Phil Gomm, a director with consulting firm Capgemini and interviewed by The Financial Brand, “It’s all about convergence, with SMAC being the door to the future. That refers to acknowledging that social media is now entrenched, recognizing that the mobile device is in our hands and always switched on, having the analytics to interpret Big Data enabling sensible business decisions that become a competitive differentiator, and all based on cloud-hosted technology.”
This convergence of technology has found a natural home in finance departments, where analysts thirsty for data to crunch have been able to tap into the Internet to gain “unprecedented insight and collaborative potential,” says Karen dela Torre, vice president of the ERP Applications Business Group with Oracle Corp., a provider of enterprise solutions that tap into all of the SMAC technologies. As dela Torre sees it, these developments have put the CFO front and center within their companies as “chief technology advisors.” She cites a recent global study conducted by Oracle and consulting firm Accenture that states, among other things, that nearly three-quarters of finance executives surveyed believe SMAC technologies will change how finance is structured and run. And more than two-thirds of respondents say the CFO can be a strong evangelist for the transformational potential of technology.
In a recent Business Finance article, dela Torre notes:
While there is inevitably some form of risk attached to any investment, the convergence of cloud, mobile and Big Data has made the business case for implementing new IT tools stronger than ever, as has market demand for quicker and more flexible services. CFOs can help their C-level counterparts capitalize on these opportunities by highlighting how leading technologies can enable them to optimize back office tasks so they can focus more energy on developing new relevant offerings to secure a strong industry position.
Read more about the technology tipping point at Business Finance.
