“It’s not surprising to see cloud ERP as the top choice for finance organizations because it is a maturing technology with clearly established benefits that offer an escape from the bloated ‘monolithic’ ERP systems of yesteryear,” said Mr. Garvey. “Advanced analytics, data storage and RPA are also all established technologies with well-proven use cases in finance.”
AI and blockchain, however, are not so well-established and for many finance organizations would pose bigger implementation problems and a less certain return on investment. Moreover, it is possible to get some exposure to the potential benefits of AI without investing directly.
“Many cloud ERP and advanced analytics offerings are increasingly offering embedded AI capabilities, and that neatly solves many challenges around integration and in-house expertise,” said Mr. Garvey. “There’s no doubting the potential of building your own AI, but is the finance organization capable of realizing that potential?”
Blockchain also has great transformative potential, but right now out-of-the-box use cases are also limited and not applicable to most of the work that the finance organization conducts. The size of the business in revenue correlates closely with its propensity to invest in AI, Blockchain or the Internet of Things (IoT).
“This is likely in part because of the sophistication of an organization’s IT infrastructure,” said Mr. Garvey. “Implementing AI, blockchain or IoT is unlikely to be simple, and there are lower hanging fruit for most finance organizations that want to drive meaningful gains with emerging technologies.”
Gartner clients can view the webinar replay: Panel Discussion: The Top 10 Finance Benchmark Metrics for 2021
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