TECHNOLOGY
The Future of Finance Lies in the Cloud At the beginning of 2020, 87% of public sector organisations surveyed by UKCloud expressed a desire to move traditional IT environments into the cloud. But, as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic, the rate of cloud adoption in the UK has grown significantly, as many companies not already in the cloud were compelled to make the switch due to enforced remote work. This is certainly indicative of many other industries, finance included. Pre-lockdown, the majority of finance and accounting teams still relied on on-premises software, but the move to remote-working meant many organisations had to quickly reconsider their technology needs and move some or all of their IT requirements to cloud-based platforms.
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But, in a recent survey by GrowCFO – an independent portal for finance leaders to network, learn and collaborate – it was found that there is confusion around what actually equates to a true cloud finance platform. This was apparent given some respondents replied with ‘cloud’ to known on-premises solutions, suggesting the difference between cloud-based and ‘onpremises with remote access’ is not fully understood. This is an important point because it has the potential to influence the technology choices made by organisations across the sector. In short, traditional on-premises financial software resides on IT systems owned by the user organisation, typically on hardware hosted within their building. After purchasing and installing the software,
they maintain, secure, and manage it themselves (or with the help of a specialist third party IT support business). Many of these systems also offer the option of connecting remotely, with users accessing software and data via a connection to their office-based network. Conversely, cloud software is almost entirely outsourced and delivered via a web browser or app as a service to each user, hence the description ‘Software-as-aService’ (SaaS). The software resides with the service provider who is also responsible for reliability, performance, the availability of enhancements and updates, as well as the security of their service or application. The location of the user is largely irrelevant - as long as they have a good, secure internet connection, a suitable laptop or tablet and
