In a world becoming more digitalised each day, its critical for the CFO to understand and take advantage of the potential that a Cloud platform can offer in terms of the storage, management and processing of the company’s data, as well as the infrastructure necessary for this purpose.
This is a very important decision that has a direct impact on the company’s competitiveness.
Not having this type of on-demand solution available means in many cases, ‘ceding an advantage’ to those who have decided to adopt any of the available ‘cloud’ models, be they public, private or hybrid, where the CFO must be an active part in choosing the model that best suits the organisation's needs.
In itself, we could say that the ‘Cloud’ works as a kind of ‘brain’ of the company, processing and storing large volumes of data in real time, which allows the CFO and the rest of the organisation to have permanent access to the information, facilitating its analysis and, therefore, decision-making.
In this way, the CFO can turn his or her largely reactive role into a proactive one, based on the ability to assess information in real time and foresee what may happen in the short term.
It is no longer a simple option to evaluate, but rather a strategic necessity to consider and implement, where, for example, ERP tools allow the CFO to monitor the company's financial performance, regardless of location or time.
The same applies to TMS (Treasury Management Systems) Cloud solutions like Embat, in order to automate and optimise treasury management and thus be able to know in real time the availability of your cash. This is a very relevant aspect, in a world where agility and flexibility are key, not only for the survival of the organisation, but also to boost its growth.
One of the main advantages of the Cloud model is to be able to ‘convert’ an investment in physical assets (CAPEX) into an operating expense (OPEX), assuming only the cost for what is consumed, and thus being able to accompany the evolution of the company, with the possibility of increasing or reducing storage needs, as necessary over time.
This scalability provides a unique flexibility that can be realised almost instantaneously, depending on the needs. In this way, it allows optimisation of usage and minimisation of costs in periods of low demand, which is important for the CFO.
A relevant issue to consider is everything related to information security, where the Cloud option allows, by contracting trusted services, to keep information protected with the highest security standards and comply with current regulations, without the need to make large investments in equipment and personnel specialised in cybersecurity.
At the same time, another advantage once the company is working in the Cloud is that it can take advantage of different types of advanced tools and technologies for data analysis, such as artificial intelligence itself, allowing it to identify trends and new business opportunities in a fully predictive way.
In another sense, it is important to highlight that the size of a company does not limit the use of the Cloud, in the sense that it is the Cloud that adapts to the needs of a company, and not the other way around.
However, the success of its use lies largely in adopting a transversal approach within the organisation, where the CFO must work together with the CIO (Chief Information Officer) and the other heads of the organisation's areas, with the intention of aligning the migration strategy, custody and management of the data.
Although the change may generate some initial resistance, proper internal communication about the advantages offered by the Cloud can facilitate the rapid acceptance of its use.
Therefore, it can be said that adopting a ‘Cloud philosophy’ is no longer a technical decision, but a strategic one, which allows the CFO's role to be not only limited to being the ‘guardian of the finances’, but rather to become an internal reference, promoting and leading innovation within the organisation.
