Flexibility: key to the business case

In an opinion article published elsewhere on AccountingWEB, I argued that those who emphasise the Cloud's potential cost savings are missing the point. What they should be talking about is flexibility. Here's a short digest:

Cost has been argued as the major driver for businesses to move away from traditional on-premises software and consider web-based applications. However, when it comes to selecting accounting applications, cost is one of the selection criteria, but other considerations, such functionality, ease-of-integration, ease-of-use and resilience, are also critical .

We can all agree that web-based applications offer cost savings bu removing the need for upfront capital expenditure on software and the hardware to run it, as well as ongoing maintenance contracts and upgrade costs. But web-based applications offer more than that - the opportunity to streamline their accounting, have access to wider range of functionality and offer greater flexibility to staff.

Anything that can be done in the finance system in the office can now be done at home or on the road, or anywhere that there’s an internet connection – in some cases even using an internet-enabled mobile device. This flexibility is one of the most compelling reasons for the adoption of web-based applications. It means downtime through travel (even commuting) can be reduced, and the finance team can work with colleagues even when they’re away from the office.

For accountants in practice too, using web-based applications means that they can work more efficiently, collaborating with clients and working through data without even having to leave their office – even a daily 30-minute journey each way to a client’s site equates to around 30 lost working days over a year.

Research that Aqilla conducted in association at ICAEW IT faculty workshops in May and June bears this out: three quarters (76%) of respondents see the flexibility of web-based applications as a key benefit, with more than half impressed by the ability to share information more effectively across the whole business. Less than one third (30%) considered value for money as a reason to consider the web-based approach.

There are those people who are sceptical about using web-based applications, but the research also shows that 82% of UK finance professionals already use some sort of web-based applications in the workplace, with 41% using online business banking and more than a third (34%) using HMRC’s online returns function .

What other experiences and evidence can members of this group bring forward to support or contradict this argument? Stimulated by HMRC's increasing emphasis on web-based interactions, I think the take-up of web-based applications is set to grow dramatically in 2010.