Data Integration Challenges

However, the path to leveraging ERP data in cloud analytics platforms like Databricks or Snowflake is often complicated by several prevalent issues that can hinder the realization of advanced financial analytics.

A primary obstacle is the frequent lack of comprehensive, out-of-the-box connectors within Databricks or Snowflake for a wide array of specific ERP systems, particularly for their detailed financial modules. This often necessitates custom scripting and API management, increasing the burden on IT and ERP support teams.

Additionally, financial intelligence rarely resides solely within the ERP. It typically requires a consolidated view, incorporating data from Customer Relationship Management (CRM) systems like Salesforce, specialized accounting software like QuickBooks, and various proprietary databases. The disparate nature of these systems and their data models makes achieving a unified financial perspective complex.

The dynamic nature of financial markets and business operations also necessitates access to current data. FP&A teams require information that reflects the latest transactions and financial state to ensure the relevance and accuracy of their analysis. Delivering this from traditional ERP architectures to cloud platforms in near real-time poses a considerable technical challenge.

The example of a financial firm, while focused on Microsoft Fabric, illustrates a relevant principle: effectively integrating siloed financial data significantly enhances analytical capabilities and business agility. This underscores the importance of overcoming data integration hurdles.

Addressing ERP Integration with CData

Data integration solutions from providers like CData are emerging to address these challenges, offering a streamlined approach to connect ERP systems with platforms such as Databricks and Snowflake. Its capabilities include:

• Broad system connectivity: CData provides an extensive suite of connectors designed for direct, real-time access to a multitude of data sources, including a wide range of ERPs, CRMs, and accounting systems. These tools facilitate easier access to specific financial data structures required by FP&A within Databricks or Snowflake.
• Change data capture (CDC) for timeliness: CData incorporates CDC capabilities that allow changes in source systems, such as an ERP, to be efficiently identified and replicated to Databricks or Snowflake, enabling FP&A to work with up-to-date information.
• Semantic data harmonization: Beyond data movement, these solutions can aid in correlating data from diverse financial systems, enabling a more unified and coherent view for analysis within the target analytics platform.
• Emphasis on security and governance: Recognizing the sensitivity of financial information, CData’s solutions incorporate enterprise-grade security and governance features that protect data during transit and storage.
• Predictable pricing models: To assist with budget management, CData utilizes a predictable pricing structure, which can help organizations avoid unexpected costs often associated with data integration and transfer.

Technical Architecture Overview

CData solutions can be integrated into Databricks or Snowflake architectures in several ways.

Tools such as CData Sync or CData Arc are designed for replicating data from ERPs and other sources into Databricks Delta Lake or Snowflake tables. This method supports the development of centralized financial data warehouses or lakehouses optimized for analytics. Connection setup typically involves selecting the source and destination and configuring secure data transfer schedules.

For scenarios requiring direct queries to source systems without data replication, CData’s JDBC drivers enable Databricks Spark engine or Snowflake compute resources to interact with ERP data in real-time, offering flexibility for specific analytical tasks.

Finally, by addressing the data integration bottleneck, organizations can better empower their FP&A teams, potentially leading to improved insights, faster decision-making, and a more robust financial strategy.

What This Means for ERP Insiders

Enhanced operational efficiency for ERP teams. Modern integration tools like CData’s solutions significantly boost efficiency by providing pre-built, standardized connectors for numerous ERP and financial applications. This approach reduces the need for extensive, time-consuming custom coding and scripting traditionally associated with data integration projects. Consequently, ERP teams can deploy data pipelines faster, allocate resources more effectively, and reduce the ongoing maintenance burden.

Improved data utility and decision-making for FP&A. Supplying finance teams with near real-time, consolidated data from the ERP and interconnected systems is essential for high-quality financial analysis. This comprehensive and timely data allows FP&A professionals to move beyond static reporting to perform more accurate forecasting, dynamic resource allocation, proactive risk identification and mitigation, and develop more precise revenue projections, ultimately leading to more informed and agile strategic business decisions.

Upholding stringent security and compliance standards. The integration of sensitive financial data from ERP systems into analytics platforms necessitates a robust security framework. This involves implementing comprehensive security measures such as end-to-end encryption, granular access controls based on user roles and permissions, and detailed audit trails to track data access and modifications. Adherence to these protocols ensures compliance with industry regulations and mitigates risks associated with data breaches or non-compliance.

The post How Advanced Data Integration Bridges ERP Systems with Modern Analytics appeared first on ERP Today.

Built natively into Salesforce Financial Services Cloud, Agentforce represents a strategic bet on “digital labor”—an intelligent layer of AI automation embedded directly into customer-facing workflows. Whether it’s preparing an investment review, reversing a fee, guiding a borrower through loan discovery, or escalating complex cases, Agentforce operates in the background to ensure that humans can focus on what matters: meaningful client engagement.

The timing is no accident. According to McKinsey, the financial services industry is facing a looming talent shortfall, with over 100,000 financial advisor roles projected to go unfilled by 2034 and half of the insurance workforce expected to retire within 15 years. Meanwhile, customer expectations are surging: Salesforce’s own research found that only 21% of consumers are satisfied with personalization from their financial providers, while 35% say they feel treated “like a number.”

That’s the friction Agentforce is designed to remove.

“AI shouldn’t replace the human connection—it should scale it,” said Eran Agrios, SVP and GM of Financial Services at Salesforce. “With Agentforce, financial institutions can tap into digital labor built on a deeply unified platform to help their human teams boost productivity, efficiency, and revenue while still delivering the trusted, personalized experiences their clients expect.”

Agentforce comes with pre-built templates for various financial services roles:

• Financial Advisor & Banker Agents automate meeting prep and post-call wrap-ups by surfacing portfolio insights, life event triggers, and action items—all drawn from unified CRM, transactional, and behavioral data.
• Banking and Insurance Service Agents handle high-volume service tasks like fee reversals, card cancellations, and insurance coverage queries. These agents streamline the repetitive and free up human reps for complex resolution.
• Digital Loan Officer Agents guide borrowers through loan discovery 24/7, analyzing income and credit score data to suggest relevant loan products—all while escalating exceptions to human officers for final review.

Each agent comes with embedded compliance guardrails: audit trails, approval workflows, and legal disclosures are baked into every digital interaction. No code is required to deploy, customize, or extend agents—opening the door for rapid configuration across unique workflows and jurisdictions.

Leading institutions are already validating the model. CaixaBank, Spain’s largest bank, plans to use Agentforce to personalize banking at scale for over 20 million customers. “Agentforce will enable us to provide faster and more accurate responses to customer inquiries,” the bank shared. “It will also enhance the employee experience by providing personalized advice.”

Other early adopters have also seen measurable gains.

• Nexo reports a 20% increase in chat deflection and 10,000 additional chats resolved autonomously in Q1.
• Cumberland Mutual is expanding Agentforce to claims and procurement.
• Absa Relationship Banking achieved an 88% faster resolution rate on fraud inquiries.
• Groupe Hueber Assurances is scaling personalized client support while cutting administrative overhead.

Together, these results show how digital labor isn’t just a technology play—it’s a strategic move to restore trust and efficiency to the frontlines of financial services.

What this means for ERP Insiders

Rethink workforce planning with embedded digital labor. Enterprise tech leaders must anticipate that digital labor will fill the gap left by retiring professionals and surging service demands. With Agentforce, Salesforce delivers AI agents embedded directly in financial service workflows—not as bolt-ons, but as native team extensions. For ERP strategists, this is a signal: augmenting the human workforce with AI is no longer aspirational—it’s operational.

Integrate AI without compromising compliance. Compliance is non-negotiable in regulated industries. Agentforce ensures every digital task follows built-in regulatory logic—approvals, audit trails, and disclosures included. Unlike general-purpose copilots, Salesforce’s compliance-first architecture makes it safe to scale AI across finance, HR, and customer-facing use cases. This embedded compliance model will become the gold standard as AI pervades ERP stacks.

Drive measurable ROI through pre-built extensibility. Agentforce proves that pre-built AI doesn’t have to mean rigid. With Salesforce’s no-code configurability, firms can customize agents to reflect proprietary processes while still launching fast. ERP leaders should prioritize platforms that offer both speed-to-deployment and extensibility—because in a market demanding agility and precision, speed without control is just risk repackaged.

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A Big Opportunity for SMBs

According to Sage, this development is a direct response to the evolving needs of SMBs. The company’s “Small Business, Big Opportunity” report indicates that 85% of SMBs now view technology as critical to operational success. The upgraded Sage 50 aims to meet this demand by offering:

• Faster reporting via natural language AI searches
• AI-powered data extraction to automate purchase transactions and reduce errors
• Enhanced security features, including AI-driven fraud detection

Access to these new cloud-connected features, including Sage Copilot, will be managed through the unified Sage account login, promising a more secure and seamless user experience.

“Sage 50 has been the backbone of small business accounting for decades, and these new enhancements ensure it will remain a trusted tool for years to come,” said Neal Watkins, EVP, Accounting & HR, Sage. “We know many of our customers rely on it, and we’re committed to making it even better by integrating AI and automation to save them time, reduce manual work, and improve cash flow.”

Reaping Benefits with AI

The AI-powered Sage Copilot will proactively monitor financial data, offering actionable recommendations. For SMB users, this translates into tangible benefits like:

• Generating custom reports instantly
• Identifying trends
• Spotting anomalies
• Reducing administrative overhead

Commenting on the practical implications of this enhanced solution, David Harvey, Co-Founder of Seabass Vinyl and an early adopter, said: “We’re really excited about what Sage Copilot can do, especially in saving time on admin that takes us away from bigger priorities. Having those proactive insights will be a huge help as we scale.”

What This Means for ERP Insiders

Sage is doubling down on its focus on UK-based SMBs. The AI integration in Sage 50 augments a familiar system that UK-based businesses use. Key use cases directly address SMB pain points: automating tedious purchase data entry, simplifying report generation (a common bottleneck), and bolstering security without requiring deep IT expertise. For ERP consultants serving this segment, it highlights a trend of embedding AI to solve particular, practical challenges rather than offering broad, undefined AI capabilities. This approach eases adoption for traditionally less tech-forward SMBs.

AI democratization and SMB tech reliance. AI is no longer an enterprise-only play. Sage’s move exemplifies the democratization of AI, making sophisticated tools accessible within existing, trusted software. For ERP professionals, this means even smaller clients will increasingly expect AI-driven efficiencies in any new or upgraded system. The market demands intelligent automation that delivers clear ROI, particularly regarding time savings and error reduction.

With Sage 50, users are evolving with a known quantity. This approach minimizes disruption and leverages existing customer trust. This strategy suggests that for established software vendors, incrementally adding AI value to core products can be more successful than a rip-and-replace approach, especially when dealing with change-averse SMBs. The focus should be on how AI assists and augments human capabilities, making processes faster and decisions smarter, thus freeing up valuable owner/operator time for strategic tasks rather than administrative churn.

The post Sage 50’s AI-Powered Copilot to Boost UK SMB Efficiency appeared first on ERP Today.

Combining Tech with Experience

The collaboration combines SAP’s advanced cloud technology with EY’s domain experience to provide businesses with data infrastructure embedded with AI capabilities. For SAP professionals, this development signals a significant evolution in how finance and related operations are delivered and managed in the cloud era.

“Through this collaboration with EY, we are excited to combine SAP’s leading cloud suite, enriched with Business AI capabilities, and EY teams’ deep domain and industry experience to help deliver better insights and drive better outcomes for customers,” said Thomas Saueressig, Member of the Executive Board of SAP SE, Customer Services & Delivery.

The heart of this offering is the combination of SAP S/4HANA Cloud and EY’s on-the-ground experience in finance and industry specifics. The partnership, therefore, provides a service layer to technology, with the former including elements like AI capabilities and a robust data infrastructure.

“The world’s most innovative companies with bold growth and transformation plans are often weighed down by non-core tasks, diverting valuable executive time and resources,” stated Raj Sharma, EY Global Managing Partner – Growth and Innovation.

He added, “The Integrated Finance Managed Services solution can provide companies with a new model, helping businesses operate more efficiently and enabling leaders to focus on what matters most. We believe this solution can fundamentally change how clients think about their enterprise functions.”

A Success Story

IntraBio Inc., a biopharmaceutical company, is an excellent example of how this offering helps industries. By offloading its finance, HR, and accounting heavy lifting to EY’s Integrated Finance Managed Services, IntraBio could hyper-focus on its core mission of developing life-saving treatments. The result? The company received FDA approval for its first product, followed by a successful market launch. That’s a tangible outcome directly linked to shedding operational burden.

This partnership underscores a broader movement in the SAP ecosystem—the increasing reliance on specialized partners to deliver implementations and ongoing, outcome-based services. It highlights the growing importance of cloud expertise, data governance know-how, and the ability to leverage AI for automation and insight.

The EY and SAP partnership gives a glimpse into the future of finance operations powered by intelligent technology and expert services. In this future, SAP professionals will be less consumed by routine tasks and more empowered to be strategic growth drivers.

What This Means for ERP Insiders

Integrated managed services are set to become the cavalry charge for SAP users. If your organization’s days are still bogged down in the trenches of manual processes, reconciliation nightmares, and keeping the lights on in a complex, on-premises world, the integrated managed services offered by SAP and EY can free up valuable time and resources to focus on strategies that truly drive business value. For SAP finance professionals, this trend towards managed services embedded with advanced technology like AI highlights a significant shift in how integrated technology and services operate.

Shift your focus upstream. This offering means companies are looking to offload the operational burden of running core finance and related SAP processes. For SAP users, this is a clear signal to develop skills in higher-value activities like financial planning & analysis, strategic business partnering, and leveraging the real-time data from SAP S/4HANA for insightful decision-making, rather than getting stuck in transactional details.

Managed services require different expertise. While the day-to-day system administration might be handled by the managed service provider, companies will still need SAP professionals who can effectively interact with the service provider, understand the underlying SAP S/4HANA Cloud capabilities, manage configurations, and ensure the service meets business requirements and compliance standards. Thus, for SAPinsiders, your role evolves from doing to managing and optimizing the service delivery.

The post EY and SAP Launch Integrated Finance Managed Service Built on S/4HANA Cloud appeared first on ERP Today.

“AI is unquestionably the largest development innovation that we see,” Miranda said. “It impacts everything—from how we market and service our customers to how we build our products and run internal operations.” 

Miranda’s keynote underscored Oracle’s strategy of embedding AI capabilities across its entire cloud technology stack. He noted that Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI) is now the preferred platform for training and deploying many of the world’s most advanced AI models. “Every major foundation model has chosen OCI because it is the fastest, most secure, most scalable, and top-performing capability on the market,” he said. 

He cited real-world examples of AI adoption among Oracle customers, including BNP Paribas, Foot Locker, and AT&T, who are deploying AI across functions such as customer service, network monitoring, product protection, and revenue optimization. “Organizations that adopt new technology thrive. Those that resist or hesitate under the guise of risk struggle through transformation,” Miranda added. 

A Future-proof Foundation 

A key message of the keynote was that businesses must unify their data and apply AI strategically to stay competitive. Oracle’s “complete stack” approach—spanning infrastructure, data platforms, AI services, and applications—enables this transformation with flexibility and scale. “Whether your workload starts with cloud infrastructure or AI services, Oracle offers the flexibility and choice to integrate with your existing environment,” said Miranda. 

Oracle is not only investing in core technologies, but also enhancing its industry-specific applications with embedded AI, helping customers achieve automation, insight, and operational efficiency. 

TD Bank Shares its Transformation Journey 

Joining Miranda on stage was Rod Johnson, Oracle’s Executive Vice President, North America Applications, who spoke with Morgan McKenney, a senior executive from TD Bank about the bank’s multi-year transformation journey with Oracle Cloud. “My team supports finance, risk, and treasury functions of the bank. We’ve made huge investments in data foundations and cloud transformation to enable regulatory reporting and real-time insights,” McKenney said. 

She highlighted the bank’s move to Oracle’s next-generation cloud infrastructure as a turning point. “We started on Gen 1 cloud, but Gen 2 has been amazing—secure, stable operations that enable efficiency and innovation,” she said. TD Bank is now focused on unlocking new business value and preparing for a future shaped by AI. 

McKenney expressed excitement about Oracle’s embedded AI capabilities, calling them “out of the box and ready to deploy” for finance and compliance teams. “Every dollar of value I give back to our business helps them deliver better customer experiences. That’s really what we’re in business for,” she added. 

Oracle’s Transformation Into a Services Partner 

Closing his keynote, Miranda positioned Oracle not just as a technology provider, but as a transformation partner. “We are evolving into a services company. Our goal is to guide customers through this monumental technology shift with best-in-class tools, infrastructure, and expert advice,” he said. 

The message was clear: AI is no longer a futuristic concept—it’s a present-day business imperative, and Oracle is prepared to lead the way. 

What This Means for ERP Insiders 

AI is now a business imperative—not a future consideration. Oracle’s keynote message that AI is the most transformative innovation of our time aligns with broader industry momentum. Forecasts predict that global spending on AI-centric systems will reach $300 billion by 2026, reflecting a compound annual growth rate of 27%. Oracle’s examples from BNP Paribas, Foot Locker, and AT&T show that AI is no longer confined to experimentation—it’s delivering measurable results across customer engagement, operations, and product development. For business technology leaders, the smartest way to begin is by applying AI to use cases with clear and immediate ROI, such as customer service automation, financial forecasting, and network monitoring, before scaling efforts enterprise-wide. 

Cloud infrastructure choice determines AI readiness and scalability. Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI) is rapidly becoming a top choice for enterprises deploying AI at scale, thanks to its high performance, security, and support for advanced workloads. As businesses shift toward more composable architectures, the ability to integrate with best-in-class AI models—whether from OpenAI today or new entrants tomorrow—becomes critical. When evaluating cloud providers, decision-makers should go beyond pricing and consider whether the platform supports evolving AI models, vector databases, and multimodal workloads. OCI’s open, secure, and high-performance environment offers a future-proof foundation for AI-driven innovation. 

Data modernization is essential for regulatory and competitive resilience. TD Bank’s transformation highlights how modern data infrastructure is enabling real-time compliance and strategic agility—an increasingly vital capability in regulated industries. A 2025 Deloitte survey found that 72% of global CFOs plan to increase investment in data governance and compliance automation in the next two years. With regulatory bodies shifting toward continuous, near-real-time reporting, organizations must act quickly to modernize their cloud-based data architecture. Standardized reporting frameworks, integrated data sources, and secure access control are not just enablers of compliance—they are prerequisites for unlocking AI’s full potential across finance, risk, and operations. 

The post Oracle CloudWorld NYC 2025: AI Takes Center Stage appeared first on ERP Today.

Krishan Sharma, NetSuite Practice Lead at CloudPaths, highlights the core pain points he consistently observes with new SuitePaths customers: “Financial reporting and compliance is one of the key challenges. Finance teams are also grappling with getting the right reports and revenue forecasts that are accurate and on time.”  

He also points to the difficulties posed by frequently changing accounting standards, complex taxation rules, the critical function of Forecasting, Planning, and Analysis (FP&A), and the omnipresent threat of cyber breaches. 

• Managing mergers, subsidiary consolidations, localization, tax reporting, and revenue recognition and compliance.  

• Cash Flow 

• A/R and A/P Management 

• Quickly ramping up the liquidity by implementing cost containment  

• Effective timing of planned capital investments 

• Analysis of operations efficiencies from costing and effectiveness 

• Financial Reporting and Compliance 

• Facts based Data presentation for Auditing has always been a challenge. Ensuring proper documentation, recording and reporting for audits. 

• Regulatory framework changes & new accounting standards. 

• Ensuring compliance to new accounting standards 

• Taxation and Market Uncertainties 

• Changing Technological landscape: 

•  Multiple systems (Best of breed of everything — ADP, Expensify, Salesforce, NetSuite etc.) 

• Custom homegrown solutions still in place 

• Ever increasing consolidated Reporting needs for every department, from multiple of these systems. 

• Innovative products, especially on the service side and how they bundle, leading to complex revenue management rules, etc. 

Advantage Design 

So, how does NetSuite address these deep-seated issues? Sharma points to NetSuite’s fundamental design advantage. He states, “Unlike many legacy systems retrofitted for the cloud, NetSuite has been built by developers as a cloud product, and that’s why it can accommodate many modern-day challenges into the product.”  

This cloud native architecture, coupled with a centralized database, provides a powerful foundation for integrated finance processes. It enables features like direct drill-down from reports to underlying transactions and built-in forecasting capabilities. Netsuite’s agility and twice-yearly releases ensure the platform stays current with new features and compliance requirements. 

While NetSuite offers a comprehensive suite, CloudPaths distinguishes its SuitePaths practice by implementing and optimizing for specific business needs and maximizing value quickly. Sharma describes CloudPaths’ philosophy: “Our model is designed to empower our clients. We go beyond simple configurations and also provide real consulting. In areas where customers are not doing well, we would advise and show them how they can change those processes for better outcomes.”  

This consultative approach, backed by the team’s collective hundreds of NetSuite implementations across various industries, allows CloudPaths to guide clients towards best practices, often leveraging NetSuite’s standard, out-of-the-box features rather than resorting to costly customizations. 

Consulting firms these days need to have certified staff with best practices knowledge of the industry in general and of NetSuite product implementation as well. 

Lower TOC by modeling our services shows that SuitePaths costs less than our competitors in the long run. 

 Tangible Benefits 

CloudPaths has also tackled specific, complex finance requirements within NetSuite. Sharma gives the example of developing a “Pay When Paid” bundle for a client in the media industry to handle intricate vendor payment scenarios tied directly to customer collections.  

“We also specialize in implementing NetSuite’s Advanced Revenue Management (ARM) module, navigating its complexities to ensure accurate revenue recognition based on fair value rules,” Sharma adds, “All while strategically avoiding customizations where possible to maintain upgradeability and ease of integration for future growth like mergers and acquisitions.” It is important to highlight that revenue management is a key component of business complexity. Service companies in specific are struggling at times due to innovative pricing and revenue recognition scenarios. Fair Value concept in conjunction with the discounted amounts adds a layer of additional complexity. 

CloudPaths assists its customers:  

• Achieve ROI: SuitePaths minimizes NetSuite implementation costs. 

• Timely Closure of Periods: -We have clients who close their accounting periods on the 1st day of each month. The exception-reporting design that we have with most of our clients is an early warning system and helps fix the issues every day. 

• Improved Efficiencies: Helping staff be efficient with processes such as invoicing, cash flow, bank reconciliation, financial reporting and audit specific data extraction etc. 

 Beyond initial implementation, CloudPaths assists companies transitioning from older systems like Oracle E-Business Suite or JD Edwards. Sharma emphasizes addressing the “resistance to change” during these projects with expert guidance, ample training, and demonstrating how the new system will make users’ lives easier—perhaps by cutting down period-close time or improving data accuracy. “We also advise on strategic data migration, seeing it as an opportunity to cleanse data and get users excited about the benefits,” Sharma says. 

A well-implemented NetSuite finance solution can yield many advantages for a user. Sharma gives some examples of these benefits, which include:  

• Consistent improvement in key performance indicators, such as reducing the days to close 

• Increased accuracy and timeliness of financial reporting 

• Enhanced forecasting and budgeting capabilities 

• Streamlined cash flow management through better AP/AR processes 

• More efficient bank reconciliation 

AI and the Future 

Looking ahead, CloudPaths is actively preparing for the impact of technologies like AI and Machine Learning in finance within NetSuite. According to Sharma, as NetSuite introduces features like predictive forecasting, CloudPaths is training its SuitePaths staff to leverage these tools effectively. “We see AI enhancing FP&A by providing deeper insights from historical and external data and improving transactional processing efficiency through anomaly detection, freeing up finance teams for more strategic work,” he concludes. 

What This Means for ERP Insiders 

Use expert guidance to improve processes. NetSuite provides a powerful, cloud-native ERP platform ideal for modern finance. Complementing this, CloudPaths offers real consulting, helping businesses align processes with NetSuite best practices and leveraging their deep industry and technical expertise from hundreds of implementations to drive efficiency and compliance.  Currently, CloudPaths has several discounts and payment incentives being offered for new SuitePaths practice customers that sign up before May 30, 2025.  

Navigate complexity with native solutions. CloudPaths’ specialization in implementing complex NetSuite modules like Advanced Revenue Management and strategically developing niche solutions prioritizes using native NetSuite features to ensure long-term system health and ease of upgrades. This approach ensures that businesses realize fast time to value and sustained success. 

Smoother transitions and improve user adoption with the right implementation partner. CloudPaths actively addresses transition challenges like user resistance and data migration through dedicated guidance, training, and making users active stakeholders in the process, ensuring a successful move to NetSuite.

The post How CloudPaths & NetSuite Help Finance Teams Master the Cloud appeared first on ERP Today.

The first part of Unit4’s “The Back Office in 2025” study, conducted by Vanson Bourne, reveals the extent of the challenge. M&A activity is pervasive, with 81% of surveyed firms involved in acquiring (58%) or being acquired (48%) in the last five years. Despite this prevalence, integration lags significantly, with 86% of IT and finance leaders frustrated by longer-than-expected M&A processes. While the average integration time is eight months, one in five firms takes over a year. 

This friction prevents firms from quickly capitalizing on deals. “Every professional services firm is laser-focused on growth and extracting value wherever possible, which means M&A is a strategic weapon in building more robust business models,” stated Bryce Wolf, Director of Strategic Growth, Unit4. “Unfortunately, IT and finance systems are hindering their ability to assimilate acquisitions quickly to realize value. It is essential that Professional Services firms address this limitation by modernizing their core back-office systems to remain competitive into the future.” 

The study quantifies the top M&A hurdles. Key business concerns include “inconsistencies with financial data” (cited by 47% of respondents), “personnel changes and redundancies” (41%), and “stakeholder misalignment” (40%). Leading technical challenges involve effectively allocating “IT talent and resources” (44%), dealing with “incompatible finance systems” (43%), and overcoming a “lack of standardization of back-office processes” (42%). 

These integration difficulties carry substantial risks. Respondents identified major potential impacts including “Increased cybersecurity risk” (44%), “Brand reputation damage” (37%), “Slower decision-making” (36%), and “Increased employee turnover” (36%). 

Modernizing systems is presented as the solution. Respondents believe demonstrating “real-time financial insights” (cited by 45%), “streamlined and automated operational processes” (43%), and “operational scalability” (41%) significantly enhances a firm’s valuation during M&A. 

To streamline integrations, firms prioritized “A focus on clear and transparent communication” (41%), implementing “Scalable & flexible cloud-based IT/business solutions” (39%), using “Streamlined financial tools and systems” (39%), and automating key processes (38%). The research concludes that focusing on data consolidation, system integration, and process automation is critical for navigating M&A successfully. 

What This Means for ERP Insiders 

Outdated back-office systems are a major M&A roadblock. The research clearly shows that incompatible finance systems (cited by 43% as a challenge) and a lack of process standardization (42%) significantly delay M&A integration (86% experience delays) and hinder value realization. Modernizing these core systems is not just an efficiency play; it’s crucial for successful M&A execution and achieving strategic growth objectives 

Integration challenges directly impact business risk and performance. Delays and system incompatibilities aren’t just IT headaches. They translate directly into increased cybersecurity risks (44%), potential brand damage (37%), slower decision-making (36%), and higher employee turnover (36%). Investing in smoother technical integration is investing in mitigating these significant business risks. 

Prioritize scalability, automation, and real-time data for M&A readiness. To both streamline integration and enhance firm valuation, focus technology efforts on achieving scalable cloud solutions (39% see as key for smooth transition), automating processes (38% prioritize), and enabling real-time financial insights (45% see as enhancing valuation). These capabilities are essential for quickly consolidating data, integrating operations, and demonstrating value during M&A. 

The post Unit4 Research Finds M&A Growth Hindered by Finance Systems appeared first on ERP Today.

The Challenge

A large Financial Services organisation needed to enable their finance department to gain understanding on whether they were delivering a good quality service in a timely manner to its internal stakeholders and external partners. The team were struggling to even confirm which deliverables were overdue or no longer necessary. In some cases, status reports were often two weeks (or more) out of date when presented.

The Solution

The business recognised these challenges were the result of organic process growth and acquired companies being bolted onto the department instead of onboarding into a standardised service delivery model. Additionally, they appreciated the need to move from unstructured email communication channels to a standardise workflow based approach, which would introduce simple, intuitive processes that would only be easily accessible to the business users.

The Benefits

• Complete removal of archaic manual processes (query emails and tracking spreadsheets)
• A significantly enhanced user experience through the provision of upfront knowledge
• A fit-for-purpose approvals process and automated decisioning
• Reduction of re-work now that all information is captured in once place
• Improvement to visibility of information on the status of processing requests, now accessible to the management team
• Improvement of operational efficiency and reduction of cycle times
• Reinforced support for organisational change
• Provided operational teams with transparency on business processes

The post Building custom applications for a FTSE 100 financial services organisation appeared first on ERP Today.

The Challenge

All service desks naturally receive a vast number of calls and emails. The majority of cases received can be resolved quickly, without needing access to a real-time agent.

The financial services organisation found that valuable time was being spent responding to basic queries that could be resolved by using carefully curated knowledge articles for frequently asked questions, and the answer could almost always be found through self-service. Freeing up agents’ time would help them resolve complex queries requiring meaningful communication much faster, and this was what the customer hoped to achieve.

The Benefits

• Person-to-person support chats were successfully reduced by 85%.
• They were able to maintain incident volumes to the Service Desk at pre-COVID-19 levels, despite going live during lockdown, which increased demand for remote working support by approx. 20%.
• They reduced their Request fulfilment tasks to the service desk by 25% by helping employees find and select the appropriate service offering, therefore ensuring the tickets landed with the right team first time.
• Through the introduction of Virtual Agent, the organisation can now measure 100% of all feedback via the tool and use this information to iteratively develop new and better levels of support.

The post Virtual Agent launch reduces agent interactions by 85% for top financial services firm appeared first on ERP Today.

The Client

Companies House is an executive agency of the UK government, sponsored by the Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy. The organisation incorporates, and dissolves limited companies, as well as registering company information and making it available to the public.

There are currently more than 3.5m limited companies registered in the UK, with 500,000 new companies incorporated each year. To manage this, Companies House employs around 1,000 people in Cardiff, Edinburgh, Belfast and London.

The Challenge

Companies House needed help from Inetum UK&I to apply the control of ITSM with the flexibility of DevOps to their Change and Problem processes by integrating Jira with ServiceNow. Jira is used to storyboard development iterations and track bugs, as well as managing daily development reports and tasks.

Inetum UK&I was brought in specifically to implement a new, best-practice REST integration between ServiceNow and Jira. The integration enables ServiceNow to automate the management of work queues in Jira and was necessary due to a need for more effective problem and change management tracking.

Although complex, Jira is a popular platform with developers. Companies House attempted the integration internally but ran into issues owing to a deprecated integration method (SOAP) and a recent version release from Atlassian. Companies House had worked with other ServiceNow partners before approaching Inetum UK&I.

“We engaged with Inetum UK&I to help us with our Jira and ServiceNow integration. By doing so, we have seen significantly improved communications and efficiency between our business and development teams.”

Leanne Peters

Companies House

The Solution

The integration proceeded with the following key implementations:

• With Jira to better align development teams with other teams within the business to become more streamlined, more unified and more efficient.
• A transaction table to track both inbound and outbound updates. This makes it easier to monitor updates and re-process tickets in Jira.
• Dynamic field mapping which enables the client to apply future updates without code changes. This gives them the tools to run without needing third-party expertise in the future.
• All functionality configured within ServiceNow with no Jira updates needed. All updates automatically go from Jira into ServiceNow. This removes the need for Jira development experts and, with all information now stored in one place, it means it can be managed by one team instead of two.

The Benefits

The project was completed in 10 working days and provided the following key benefits to the client:

• Time saved by the business teams who now no longer need to manually update Jira as ServiceNow represents a single point of management. Previously, tickets had to be raised manually on Jira.
• Improved efficiency and communication between business and development teams due to mirrored updates between Jira and ServiceNow.
• Reduced reliance on Jira development experts.
• On-going ability to apply future updates without third-party help.

“Inetum UK&I listened to and fully understood the business challenges we were facing. The integration they performed, between ServiceNow and Jira, was completed in 10 days and has saved our internal teams valuable time. The Inetum UK&I consultants are very professional. The integration they performed between ServiceNow and Jira means we are seeing increased business efficiencies. I feel a valuable relationship and trusted partnership growing between our organisations.”

Leanne Peters

Companies House

Why Inetum UK&I

Inetum UK&I delivers best practice implementations that solve our clients’ problems now and into the future. We focus on data-driven mappings rather than hard coding, giving clients the ongoing ability to run on their own, and improve DevOps practices, without needing additional help from specialists.

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