1. Where Finance and IT Meet
Prof.dr. Eddy Vaassen RA

2. Strategic technology
• Gartner defines a strategic technology as
one that has the potential for significant
impact on the enterprise in the next three
years
• Factors that denote significant impact
include a high potential for disruption to IT
or the business, the need for major
investments, or the risk of being late to
adopt

3. Strategic IT trends
• Micro analysis
• IT organization
• IT control

4. Strategic IT trends 2008-2013 (Gartner)
2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013
1. Green IT 1. Virtualization 1. Cloud 1. Cloud 1. Media tablets 1. Mobile device
Computing Computing and beyond battles
2. Unified 2. Cloud 2. Advanced 2. Mobile 2. Mobile-centric 2. Mobile
communications Computing analytics applications and applications and applications and
media tablets interfaces HTML5
3. Business 3. Servers 3. Client 3. Social 3. Contextual 3. Personal
Process beyond blades computing communication and social user cloud
Modeling and collaboration experience
4. Metadata 4. Web-Oriented 4. IT for green 4. Video 4. Internet of 4. Enterprise
management Architectures Things app stores
5. Virtualization 5. Enterprise 5. Reshaping 5. Next 5. App stores 5. Internet of
2.0 mashups the data center generation and market Things
analytics places
6. Mashups and 6. Specialized 6. Social 6. Social 6. Next 6. Hybrid IT and
composite apps systems computing analytics generation Cloud
analytics Computing
7. Web platform 7. Social 7. Security by 7. Context- 7. Big Data 7. Strategic Big
and WOA software and activity aware Data
networking monitoring computing
8. Computing 8. Unified 8. Flash 8. Storage class 8. In-Memory 8. Actionable
Fabric communications memory memory Computing analytics
9. Real World 9. Business 9. Virtualization 9. Ubiquitous 9. Extreme low 9. In-Memory
Web Intelligence for availability computing energy servers Computing
10. Social 10. Green IT 10. Mobile 10. Fabric-based 10. Cloud 10. Integrated
software applications infrastructure Computing ecosystems
and computers

5. Top 10 IT predictions
• Macro analysis
• C-suite
• Interactive control systems

6. Cloud Computing or a variant is
pervasive
• The term ‘Cloud Computing’ was
considered trending for the first time in
2009
• But before there were variants or related
concepts, including ASP, Utility Computing,
Web Oriented Architectures, and web
platform
• There will be variants such as client
computing and hybrid IT

15. Blade server
• A blade server is a server chassis housing multiple thin,
modular electronic circuit boards, known as server blades.
Each blade is a server in its own right, often dedicated to a
single application
• The blades are literally servers on a card,
containing processors, memory, integrated network
controllers, an optional Fiber Channel host bus adaptor
(HBA) and other input/output (IO) ports

16. Computing fabric
• Usually this refers to a consolidated high-
performance computing system consisting of
loosely coupled storage, networking and parallel
processing functions linked by high bandwidth
interconnects
• In the context of data centers it means a move
from having distinct boxes for handling storage,
network and processing towards a fabric where
these functions are much more intertwined or
even integrated

17. Big Data
• Big Data is moving from a focus on individual projects
to an influence on enterprises' strategic information
architecture
• Dealing with data volume, variety, velocity and
complexity is forcing changes to many traditional
approaches
• This realization is leading organizations to abandon
the concept of a single enterprise data warehouse
containing all information needed for decisions
• Instead they are moving towards multiple systems,
including content management, data warehouses,
data marts and specialized file systems tied together
with data services and metadata, which will become
the logical enterprise data warehouse

18. In-memory computing
• In-memory computing is the storage of information in
the main random access memory (RAM) of dedicated
servers rather than in complicated relational
databases operating on comparatively slow disk drives
• In-memory computing helps business customers,
including retailers, banks and utilities, to quickly
detect patterns, analyze massive data volumes on the
fly, and perform their operations quickly
• The drop in memory prices in the present market is a
major factor contributing to the increasing popularity
of in-memory computing technology
• This has made in-memory computing economical
among a wide variety of applications

19. Finance and IT
• Meet in between the mentioned IT trends and
the IT predictions
• It’s not about the technology, but about what
we can do with that technology
• E.g.,
– Accounting: XBRL, data mining, Big Data, analytics
– Auditing: continuous auditing
– Internal control: process mining
– Finance: social media data as market information

20. The language of IT
• Complaints by financials: the IT people
don’t speak my language
• Complaints by IT personnel: the financials
don’t speak my language
• So, Finance has to learn to speak IT and
IT has to learn to speak Finance ..... To a
certain degree
• A mix of cross-learning and specialization
may be a bettter solution

21. So, where do finance and IT
meet?
CFO CIO
Head of
Information
Admini- Controller Head of IT
Manager
stration

22. Three models
1. Cross-learning:
a. Increase IT knowledge of the Controller
b. Increase finance knowledge of the Information
Manager
2. Specialization:
a. Keep knowledge in silos
b. Coordinate at the C-level
3. A mix of cross-learning and specialization:
a. Create a common knowledge base
b. Specialize from a certain level

23. Increase IT knowledge of the
Controller
CFO CIO
Head of
Information
Admini- Controller Head of IT
Manager
stration

24. Increase finance knowledge of the
Information Manager
CFO CIO
Head of
Information
Admini- Controller Head of IT
Manager
stration

25. Coordinate at the C-level
CFO CIO
Head of
Information
Admini- Controller Head of IT
Manager
stration

26. Takeaways
• Towards heterogeneous systems within integrated
ecosystems
• IT will deliver what the business needs
• Finance talks on behalf of the business
• Finance needs a common body of knowledge with IT
(on top of its common body of knowledge with the
business)
• No technology knowledge, just IT potential and
terminology
• Information manager at first sight is the intermediary,
but he is just the person who knows just a little bit of
everything, but in no field knows enough
• The financial (controller) needs substantially more IT
knowledge in an age of dramatic IT proliferation