Where Finance and IT Meet

Prof.dr. Eddy Vaassen RA

Strategic technology

• Gartner defines a strategic technology as one that has the potential for significant impact on the enterprise in the next three years

• Factors that denote significant impact include a high potential for disruption to IT or the business, the need for major investments, or the risk of being late to adopt

Strategic IT trends

• Micro analysis• IT organization• IT control

Strategic IT trends 2008-2013 (Gartner)

2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013

9.Real World Web

10. Social software

8.Computing Fabric

7.Web platform and WOA

6.Mashups and composite apps

5.Virtualization 2.0

4.Metadata management

3.Business Process Modeling

2.Unified communications

1.Green IT

9.Business Intelligence

10. Green IT

8.Unified communications

7.Social software and networking

6.Specialized systems

5.Enterprise mashups

4.Web-Oriented Architectures

3.Servers beyond blades

2.Cloud Computing

1.Virtualization

9.Virtualization for availability

10. Mobile applications

8.Flash memory

7.Security by activity monitoring

6.Social computing

5.Reshaping the data center

4.IT for green

3.Client computing

2.Advanced analytics

1.Cloud Computing

9.Ubiquitous computing

10. Fabric-based infrastructure and computers

8.Storage class memory

7.Context-aware computing

6.Social analytics

5.Next generation analytics

4.Video

3.Social communication and collaboration

2.Mobile applications and media tablets

1.Cloud Computing

9.Extreme low energy servers

10. Cloud Computing

8.In-Memory Computing

7.Big Data

6.Next generation analytics

5.App stores and market places

4.Internet of Things

3.Contextual and social user experience

2.Mobile-centric applications and interfaces

1.Media tablets and beyond

9.In-Memory Computing

10. Integrated ecosystems

8.Actionable analytics

7.Strategic Big Data

6.Hybrid IT and Cloud Computing

5.Internet of Things

4.Enterprise app stores

3.Personal cloud

2.Mobile applications and HTML5

1.Mobile device battles

Top 10 IT predictions

• Macro analysis• C-suite• Interactive control systems

Cloud Computing or a variant is pervasive

• The term ‘Cloud Computing’ was considered trending for the first time in 2009

• But before there were variants or related concepts, including ASP, Utility Computing, Web Oriented Architectures, and web platform

• There will be variants such as client computing and hybrid IT

Blade server

• A blade server is a server chassis housing multiple thin, modular electronic circuit boards, known as server blades. Each blade is a server in its own right, often dedicated to a single application

• The blades are literally servers on a card, containing processors, memory, integrated network controllers, an optional Fiber Channel host bus adaptor (HBA) and other input/output (IO) ports

Computing fabric

• Usually this refers to a consolidated high-performance computing system consisting of loosely coupled storage, networking and parallel processing functions linked by high bandwidth interconnects

• In the context of data centers it means a move from having distinct boxes for handling storage, network and processing towards a fabric where these functions are much more intertwined or even integrated

Big Data

• Big Data is moving from a focus on individual projects to an influence on enterprises' strategic information architecture

• Dealing with data volume, variety, velocity and complexity is forcing changes to many traditional approaches

• This realization is leading organizations to abandon the concept of a single enterprise data warehouse containing all information needed for decisions

• Instead they are moving towards multiple systems, including content management, data warehouses, data marts and specialized file systems tied together with data services and metadata, which will become the logical enterprise data warehouse

In-memory computing

• In-memory computing is the storage of information in the main random access memory (RAM) of dedicated servers rather than in complicated relational databases operating on comparatively slow disk drives

• In-memory computing helps business customers, including retailers, banks and utilities, to quickly detect patterns, analyze massive data volumes on the fly, and perform their operations quickly

• The drop in memory prices in the present market is a major factor contributing to the increasing popularity of in-memory computing technology

• This has made in-memory computing economical among a wide variety of applications

Finance and IT

• Meet in between the mentioned IT trends and the IT predictions

• It’s not about the technology, but about what we can do with that technology

• E.g.,– Accounting: XBRL, data mining, Big Data,

analytics– Auditing: continuous auditing– Internal control: process mining– Finance: social media data as market information

The language of IT

• Complaints by financials: the IT people don’t speak my language

• Complaints by IT personnel: the financials don’t speak my language

• So, Finance has to learn to speak IT and IT has to learn to speak Finance ..... To a certain degree

• A mix of cross-learning and specialization may be a bettter solution

So, where do finance and IT meet?

CFO

Head of ITController

CIO

Head of Admini-stration

InformationManager

Three models

1. Cross-learning:a. Increase IT knowledge of the Controllerb. Increase finance knowledge of the Information

Manager

2. Specialization:a. Keep knowledge in silosb. Coordinate at the C-level

3. A mix of cross-learning and specialization:a. Create a common knowledge baseb. Specialize from a certain level

Increase IT knowledge of the Controller

CFO

Head of ITController

CIO

Head of Admini-stration

InformationManager

Increase finance knowledge of the Information Manager

CFO

Head of ITController

CIO

Head of Admini-stration

InformationManager

Coordinate at the C-level

CFO

Head of ITController

CIO

Head of Admini-stration

InformationManager

Takeaways

• Towards heterogeneous systems within integrated ecosystems

• IT will deliver what the business needs• Finance talks on behalf of the business• Finance needs a common body of knowledge with IT (on

top of its common body of knowledge with the business)• No technology knowledge, just IT potential and

terminology• Information manager at first sight is the intermediary, but

he is just the person who knows just a little bit of everything, but in no field knows enough

• The financial (controller) needs substantially more IT knowledge in an age of dramatic IT proliferation