The Service Economy Impact on Finance [Webinar]

On July 27th, I sat down (virtually in a webinar) with Fred Studer, the Chief Marketing Office (CMO) of FinancialForce to answer a series of questions on the service economy and its impact on finance. Fred is not your typical CMO. After initially starting his career in accounting, he saw the potential of marketing and eventually accepted senior leadership positions at Oracle, JD Edwards and Microsoft. This led to a dynamic, interactive discussion where we dive into some of the big issues facing organizations in the new economy.

Within this webinar, Fred and I tackle 6-questions about Finance and the “new” service economy.

How would you define the “new services economy”? What are the key characteristics?
What are the key trends driving the shift to this business model?
What do service-driven growth strategies look like? What are CFOs doing to forge new revenue streams?
- What does this look like internally and what new skills does it require for employees?
- What kinds of metrics and KPIs do CFOs at a successful service driven companies track, and how does this compare to traditional, ‘brick and mortar’ reporting metrics?
What are some of the pain points that arise for finance through growth in the new services economy?
Let’s discuss the role of finance. How is the role changing to support services-based business models?
Customers are demanding “everything as a service”. What is finance’s role in shifting to a more customer-centric mindset? What role does technology play here?
- ERP has been around forever and has many success stories…why is this proven architectural model flawed when it comes to the services economy?
- It seems strange to refer to a customer platform as the system of record for a financial management suite…how is this well suited for today’s services economy?
What does the future look like in terms of operational and technology infrastructure?