Companies and themes to follow in 2015 part 2: counting on financials
- Summary:
- Accounting gets a bad rap. It's dull, it's boring but it's also essential. He who owns the transaction owns the business and the CFO knows that.
Future of Reporting - Dave Kellogg and the gang at Host Analytics seem, more than some financial software vendors, to really get the CFO space. I could have sold tickets to the meeting he and I had at their Bay Area offices a few weeks ago. We had a fascinating conversation regarding the future of financial reporting, Wall Street briefing books, analytics and more. While I’m very bullish on this space overall, Dave was particularly on top of his game.
Future of Spreadsheets - Spreadsheets are going to be less and less loved over time if vendors like Tidemark, Adaptive Insights, Host Analytics and Anaplan continue their amazing growth. I fully expect one or more of these firms to either have an IPO or get acquired within the year. Every big ERP vendor has to be looking at these firms if only for their blue chip clientele. But...they still have to get over that spreadsheet inertia, even though in their heart of hearts. CFOs know the spreadsheet is a dangerous weapon.
Anaplan has a community of users and resellers that have created apps for others to use. Deloitte has created some tax and transfer pricing applications while Alvarez & Marsal have a retail application in this community. Communities, platform ecosystems and application stores are really starting to gain prominence in the commercial business application space.
On the other end of the spreadsheet world, companies like Incisive is trying to bring more power and accuracy to the much maligned and yet necessary software tool. If your firm doesn’t even know how many spreadsheets it uses, it should at least have software to make those tools work better.
Intacct Opens its Platform & Really Incorporates Chatter – Intacct’s had a pretty powerful platform but it’s been kept away from developers and channel partners. That’s changing. This year should see some new product extensions and vertical solutions from new channel partners. One area Intacct will likely deepen on its own will involve greater workflow, process and Salesforce Chatter integration. Others have been here before with middling success but Intacct is making the kind of noises that suggest they've watched and learned.
X Marks the Spot – There’s an ERP firm with Scandinavian roots setting up shop in the U.S. It’s XLedger and it has a fairly large number of cloud apps in their ERP solution set. Will 2015 be a breakout year for these folks? Hard to tell because the US has been a graveyard for many non-US vendors. Still, it's one I'll keep an eye on.
The Close Gets More Efficient – Believe it or not, there are still a ton of financial accounting activities that aren’t automated. It is for this reason that spreadsheets don’t go away. The closing process is one area that needs help. While SAP and UNIT4 have had these capabilities for a while, Blackline, a company I just started to cover, has an impressive client list and some nice utility applications to take the risks, errors and pain away. Will finance pros also get some help with express package billing audit software soon, too? Let’s hope so.
2015 – A Year for RevRec – Revenue recognition was a major development focus for firms like Workday, Intacct and RevStream during 2014. NetSuite was earlier in the game. Now that the products have been created, the implementation should be a boon to both vendors and knowledgeable implementers. They're an absolute must for businesses that are transitioning to services based models.
Xero gets even more U.S. focused – Xero doubled down on their U.S. presence in 2014. Will this translate to even more sales in 2015? This firm’s been red hot but the guy it hired to lead the US operation with a background at both PayPal and Intuit only lasted six months. He has yet to be replaced.
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