FinancialForce.com corporate RSS

When it's time to leave the comfort of QuickBooks

Wed, 15 Feb 2012 16:38:53 +0000

Dennis Howlett raises some interesting points in his latest CloudPro blog. He says:
“The prime reason that Sage and QuickBooks users are so difficult to dislodge is that users become familiar with things they use, even when they know they are clunky. In order to overcome the stickiness, the SaaS provider has to go many steps beyond what the on-premise provider offers.” He later says: “The only way that users will readily switch is if they see that something new will obviously add value to what they are doing, reduce pain and be a joy to use. All three ingredients are needed; two out of three is not enough.”

This is something we’re only too aware of. Overcoming migration inertia among prospects is tough. The question is at what point in a company’s growth does a system start to hamper them because it can’t do what is required? Through working with customers that have moved away from systems like QuickBooks, we have developed our own list of obvious migration points, where a perfectly good system is no longer adequate.

Generally, companies need to consider a new way of doing things when they reach the next phase of maturity where transaction volumes have grown and the organization has become more complex with multi-site operations, trading abroad, additional subsidiaries perhaps. Accounting complexity is often a catalyst for change as the growing organization has an obligation to implement financial controls and report in accordance with international standards.

Certainly all our customers that have moved from QuickBooks were looking for increased automation and workflow to manage increasing workloads. Pandora has spoken publicly about its rapid growth and how FinancialForce.com supported it when it went Public in June last year. We’re well aware that preparing the ground for going public is a key milestone for a business and one that is necessitating system evaluation. This is an intensive process where companies can see for the first time that they’re really hitting the limits of their entry-level software and that it is becoming costly and time-consuming to manage.

There is a new way of doing things and by showing organizations that we can help them perform tasks that they couldn’t before easily and scaleably, the tipping point is coming. QuickBooks is a great entry-level system but there comes a time when it just won’t cut it anymore. Customers that have moved from entry level bookkeeping to FinancialForce Accounting are finding that the cloud makes the jump to a full blown accounting system easier and they’re deriving huge value from the enterprise level tools available such as workflow, social, unified reporting that might be difficult to consume otherwise. I have covered the issues in brief here but there’s a lot more I could include. We’re working on a more in-depth paper that covers this topic for growing businesses which we’ll publish soon.

FinancialForce.com Expands International Sales Efforts as Cloud Computing Gains Traction

Thu, 09 Feb 2012 08:00:00 +0000

FinancialForce.com, the cloud applications company, today announced that it has appointed former Netsuite Sales Director, Neil Harvey, as Regional Sales Director, EMEA and APAC, in response to growing demand for cloud applications in the UK and countries outside the US.

Neil is responsible for driving sales in the rapidly expanding professional services and financial application markets that FinancialForce.com serves.

“The cloud computing model is gaining major acceptance all over the world now and adoption outside the US is gaining momentum,” said Jeremy Roche, president and CEO of FinancialForce.com. “As such, we are expanding rapidly in all facets of our business. We have customers in over 20 countries and Neil will provide the sales team with the strong leadership it needs to capitalise on and further drive our momentum in these growing markets.”

Neil has more than 20 years of experience in sales, most recently as Regional Sales Director at Netsuite. He has also held sales leadership positions at PortWise, Magic Solutions and Veritas.

“It’s an exciting time of expansion for cloud computing as businesses have begun to realize its strategic value,” commented Neil Harvey. “FinancialForce Accounting and Professional Services Automation are the perfect complements to Salesforce CRM. With the growth in Services Resource Planning (SRP), FinancialForce.com is the only vendor to deliver a single platform solution to this business challenge. FinancialForce.com boasts an impressive team and reputation and I’m looking forward to working with them.”

Photography of Neil is available to download

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To learn more please visit www.FinancialForce.com.

Media Contact:
Emma Keates
PR Manager, FinancialForce.com
ekeates@financialforce.com
+44 (0)1423 537977

FinancialForce.com Named CRM Watchlist Winner

Mon, 06 Feb 2012 13:00:00 +0000

FinancialForce.com, the cloud applications company, today announced it has been named ‘Broad Brush Winner’ by CRM thought leader Paul Greenberg on the prestigious 2012 CRM Watchlist.

Greenberg is the author of the best-selling ‘CRM at the Speed of Light: Social CRM Strategies, Tools, and Techniques for Engaging Your Customers’ and is considered a thought leader in CRM. He says: “There is no doubt about this one. FinancialForce.com has been a, if not the leader for back office financial applications for a long time…These guys have nailed a position as a Broad Brush winner because they provide the contemporary ancillary services that CRM practitioners need to make their offering stronger.”

The CRM Watchlist is highly regarded within the industry and is comprised of companies that Greenberg believes “we all should be paying serious attention to, regardless of size or revenue, because one way or the other they are going to make a difference in a customer-centric world - at least from the standpoint of technology and innovation in that area."

This prestigious industry award comes on the heels of several significant accolades for FinancialForce.com in the last year, including being named a Red Herring Global 100 winner; earning a place in the Red Herring Top 100 North America; receiving a THINKstrategies Best of SaaS Showplace (BoSS) Award; being recognized as the Best Cloud Offering in the EuroCloud Awards; and being selected as finalists in the SIIA CODiE Awards.

“This has been a break-out year for our organization, topped off by our being honored with several notable industry awards,” said Jeremy Roche, CEO, FinancialForce.com. “We are excited about our growth and look forward to another successful year in 2012.”

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About FinancialForce.com
FinancialForce.com is the cloud applications company. We focus 100% on building business applications for Force.com, the world’s leading cloud computing platform from salesforce.com. Our applications include Accounting, Billing, Professional Services Automation (PSA) and Services Resource Planning (SRP). We serve fast-growing organizations and dynamic enterprises, helping them to align Finance, Sales and Service in a way that enables profitable growth. We are backed by two of the biggest and best players in the business, UNIT4 and salesforce.com.
To learn more please visit www.FinancialForce.com, follow us on twitter @FinancialForce or visit our Facebook page http://www.facebook.com/FinancialForce

Media Contact:
Maria Bradley
Reidy Communications for FinancialForce.com
Email: maria@reidycommunications.com
(415) 509-0498

Social Accountants – an oxymoron?

Wed, 01 Feb 2012 09:59:44 +0000

I’m slow to pick up on this but I felt it worth highlighting in any case. In December, AccountingWEB reported on this survey of social media adoption within CPA firms. This is a topic of great interest to us at FinancialForce.com given how our customers are receiving Chatter and embracing the collaboration opportunities it delivers. What I did find surprising was that in this survey, the focus is on Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn – in other words external, public social networks – and the potential risks those tools present when sensitive information is at hand. There’s no discussion about the benefits of collaboration, which is driving the rapid adoption of enterprise social tools in other corporate functions. But what’s very encouraging is that the survey attracted responses from accountants in 18 countries and a 25% higher response rate than the 2010 survey. That accountants are paying more attention to “social” speaks volumes in itself. In an article I wrote recently for Accounting Today called ‘Why do I need a Facebook for Finance’, I said:

“Teamwork and collaboration are no longer goals, but requirements. On top of that, controllers and CFOs want to be more integral to the business: a trusted advisor to the lines of business rather than an isolated department. Today’s lean and agile companies need new ways to break down the walls between siloed departments and leverage the finance department’s skill sets.

…the espousal of cloud computing has set the technology groundwork for social accounting to succeed. Cloud-based applications, like those built on the proven Force.com platform, create a cost-effective, efficient way to centralize and share data, increase visibility into accounts and improve collaboration.”

The article provides some examples of what accounting and finance teams can do with social media tools. It’s tapped into a clear demand as I’ve been asked to write a follow-up piece giving tips for implementing social accounting. So stay tuned...

I think we will see collaboration and social apps become even more mainstream inside companies in the coming years. For a few years, business people had a hard time grasping why they would need Facebook or Twitter-like functions inside their companies, and I fault the industry for selling it that way. Social inside the enterprise is much more than how many “friends” you have. Tools like Chatter are encouraging collaboration inside companies in ways we haven’t seen before, and it is paying off in a big way.

FinancialForce.com customers are breaking down the barriers between sales and accounting, for instance, to help collect cash and reduce bad debt as a team, and essentially providing a better service to their customers. You can find some examples of this in the case studies of Blue Shield of California Foundation, Centerstance and Denmat that are on our site.

The promise of the ‘millennial’ generation

Thu, 19 Jan 2012 10:05:28 +0000

Technology has completely changed the way we socialize and the way we socialize and interact is influencing the way we develop and make use of technology.

It's clear that the way we communicate, socialize and manage our lives at home and in the office has changed unrecognizably from a decade ago. That makes it really exciting to look forward to the next decade. It's difficult for us to even conceive how we will live in 10 years' time? ‘Millennials’, a term I'll use for the new generation of technology savvy youngsters posied to join and affect the global workforce, have been born into this new digital world, and as such, their minds are digitally attuned. They just get it because they’ve grown up with it, and in 10 years’ time, they will make up a significant proportion (around 50%) of the population. The pace of cloud, social and mobile technology development will accelerate and innovation will proliferate.

Millennials only started joining the workforce in earnest over the last few years and have not yet had time to make their mark. What’s clear is that as they do, change will be rapid.

One of the most significant changes, driven by cloud and mobile technology innovation, our generation has seen is to the way we find, try and buy technology or apps, via app marketplaces. Salesforce reports almost 100 thousand AppExchange customers. With at least 1300 listed apps, it is clear that customers are already building out broad portfolios of apps on Salesforce.com’s cloud computing platform, Force.com (approximately 10 on average). We call this ‘free market ERP’ and it’s a complete departure from the ERP of the past. And salesforce.com just launched AppExchange Mobile to expand those apps onto the millions of mobile devices in the hands of business users.

In six years, the AppExchange has upset the closed world of on-premises based ERP and created a transparent marketplace where competition and collaboration drive innovation. Now, using Force.com-native apps available on the AppExchange, organizations can build a comprehensive, on-demand portfolio of applications that work together seamlessly. It means that organizations can better serve customers, differentiate themselves from competitors, and run a leaner, faster, more effective business. A no-brainer, but the pace of technological innovation has made it a reality only recently.

To millennials, who are used to instantly downloading an app to an iPhone, it’s become an expectation that innovative apps deploy easily and help people move their businesses forward. As the pace of technological change quickens and digitally-attuned millennials start to take the helm, imagine what will be possible in 10 years …