A collaborative study conducted by Oracle and MIT Technology Review has found that a partnership between finance and HR will allow organizations to grow sustainably in an increasingly digital and cloud-based automated marketplace. Oracle, the global technology giant, and MIT Technology Review, an independent media company founded at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in 1899 came together for the study. 700 C-Suite executives, HR, Finance and IT managers were surveyed across North America, Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA) and Asia about the present state of their cloud transformation and to understand the impact of could automation on collaboration between different departments.
Following are the findings of the study
- The study shows that a “shared finance and HR cloud system is a critical component of successful cloud transformation initiatives. Among the benefits of integrating enterprise resource planning (ERP) and human capital management (HCM) systems is easier tracking and forecasting of employee costs for budgeting purposes.” Almost 90% say cloud migration costs were either lower than or in line with expectations
- Integrated HCM and ERP cloud systems reportedly bettered collaboration between departments, with 37% admitting that the way data is shared has improved since using the cloud. 35% of respondents plan to create a shared finance and HR function within a year
- Of the organizations have fully deployed the cloud, 46% said that “they have seen their ability to reshape or resize the organization improves significantly.” This is in tune with the 47% of C-suite respondents who feel the same.
- 31% of the respondents noted that they spend less time doing manual work as a direct result of moving to the cloud, and that “the automation of processes has freed up a time to work toward larger strategic priorities.”
- 42% say they are motivated by improvements in productivity and performance
- 46% of finance and HR professionals noted that a full cloud deployment has led to “significant improvement” in collaboration between the two departments, and another almost half the respondents expect the same within the next two years.
- 52% of the C-Suite executives say that the relationship between IT, HR and finance has improved better than their expectations following cloud implementation.
- 56% say that IT has “significantly improved” innovating after the deployment of cloud automation.
- 41% of C-level executives say the cloud enables them to reapportion their time to focus on revenue generation
- 43% of the organizations have plans to bring IT employees in the new roles of HR and finance in order to allow employees to take advantage of new technologies in the domain.
- 40% of the respondents want to improve their time management skills. Other areas of potential improvement are active learning, problem-solving.
Steve Cox, Group Vice President, ERP EPM Product Marketing, Oracle, says, “As finance and HR increasingly lead strategic organizational transformation, ROI comes not only with financial savings for the organization, but also from the new insights and visibility into the business HR and Finance gain with the cloud. People are at the heart of any company’s success and this is why we are seeing finance and HR executives lead cloud transformation initiatives. In addition, improved collaboration between departments enables organizations to manage the changes ahead and sets the blueprint for the rest of the organization’s cloud shift.”
With cloud automation unifying back office systems together, diverse functions and individual roles will begin to merge. As organizations become more connected than ever before, seemingly unrelated, or even contrasting functions will need to come together and evolve in order to thrive. The employee’s ability to adapt to change has emerged as a critical human factor that facilitates a successful cloud implementation in the study. The study helps in quantifying the advantages of cloud automation in terms of collaboration and innovation and provides interesting insights for organizations that are building the future of tomorrow, today.
Steve sums up rather aptly: “As organizations navigate technological changes, it’s critical for the C-suite to empower its employees to evolve their individual business acumen... The learnings from the move of finance and HR to the cloud will ultimately spread across the organization as, together, they conceptualize the shape of the next disruption.”