Recently, the SAP Mobility team created an iGuide all about the power of mobile finance, how you can get your own off the ground and running to change the game, as well as how to measure success. This is part 1 of a 2 part series providing you an overview of the iGuide.
You’re a CFO at an enterprise, doesn’t matter the size, and you hear this fact:
According to IDC, there will be 1.3 mobile workers by 2015
Now I’m just a curator/writer for one of the best corporate blogs out there (shameless plug), but I would make a safe guess that you don’t want to be the leader of the department left out of that number.
Why now for mobile finance?
Mobile finance applications are changing finance for the better and for all levels of employees. Why? Because mobile apps allow teams, not only finance, to be strategic, operational, and collaborative.
For the executive team, they have real-time access to their performance. Whether it’s performance metrics or opportunities they can capitalize on.
For your department managers, they can forecast, filter, and approve. Forecast by keeping an eye on everyone’s budgets and internal spending. Filter the industry news and relevant financial reports all from their tablet. Approve expense reports and payments, no longer requiring these typically busy individuals to be strapped to their desks all day.
For employees they now have convenience to information and submitting expense reports. Convenience to corporate information like a customer’s financial transactions makes their job nice. Giving them the ability to submit T&E while waiting in the airport makes them happy. So, in turn you should be in full support of providing T&E apps to them. Why? Because happy employees are productive employees.
Why Mobile Finance Is the Best Path
It’s no longer a “nice to have”, it has become a cog in the machine critical to success. Not only does it improve collaboration, mobile finance empowers the organization in four ways:
Alerts
- Compliance Risks
- Approvals
- Operational alerts
Existing Content Made Mobile
- Dashboards & Reports
- Explorable Data Sets
Next-Gen Mobile Analytics
- “Why”, “when”, and “what if” knowledge
- Flexible, ad hoc analysis
Prebuilt Apps
- Delivered out of the box and ready to use
Although it is the way to go, there are a few challenges you may encounter.
The Challenges in Mobile Finance
Before you get too excited, you should know there are a few challenges with taking your finance department from the cube to the device. So prior to diving into the mobile transformation, guide your team through an in-depth evaluation to determine which high priority functions are a must on a mobile device.
Security is a huge concern, but being taken very seriously by those building the platforms. In order to combat these challenges, a few best practices like encryption, access limitations, authentication, and so forth can really make a difference. Another way would be to buy a mobile device management system to help you with the data monitoring. However, as always my advice is to do your homework before buying.
Stay tuned for part two, Mobile Finance, Getting It Off the Ground and How to Measure Success.
Click here to read the full iGuide for deeper insights and a look at how mobile finance is impacting the enterprise.