MANCHESTER, NH — (Marketwire) — 09/07/12 — , Inc., a division of UNIT4 (EURONEXT AMSTERDAM: UNIT4), the world-s leading provider of business software for fast-changing organizations, today released findings from a new survey on the changing opinions and priorities of leading financial and technology software leaders worldwide that counters conventional thinking about what financial executives want. Following are key findings from the “Coda Financials Mind Meld” survey:
Despite market hype around the growing importance and use of social collaboration tools in the enterprise, 38 percent of respondents said they did not think social media/collaboration would benefit financial operations at all. A little more than half (57 percent) believe this technology will influence best practices and improved processes, while 27 percent believe it will lead to improved decision making.
The heavily promoted statistics on an overwhelming preference for tablets does not appear to hold true for users of financial software. When asked to select from a list of top financial software priorities, where better, more accessible mobile access/usage was offered as an option for meeting those priorities, 81 percent of the polled execs instead chose financial/operational analysis as their top priority. Better tax/regulatory reporting capabilities and better mobile accessibility/devices/capabilities came in a distant second and third place. Similarly, when asked to pick their device of choice for performing their job, 59 percent chose laptops, and 29 percent chose the desktop PC, compared to only 12 percent who selected tablets.
Despite the fact that a full 90 percent of those polled predicted revenue growth at or above their current performances, an aggressive 68 percent predicted no headcount growth within their departments, indicating continued cooling of the job market. “This underscores a trend that we-ve been seeing for the past few years — that companies are trying to accomplish more with fewer resources,” said Steve Pugh, CEO of UNIT4 CODA. “Many CFOs have turned to technology solutions to help drive efficiencies throughout their finance operations.”
UNIT4 CODA is known throughout the software industry for its sophisticated abilities to deliver efficiencies and support the financial reporting needs for major business changes, for example, those accompanying such activities as mergers and acquisitions, business reorganizations, regulatory and tax changes, etc. Many Coda Financials customers are in a unique position to see business trends at a macro level, since they are often involved some of the industry-s most demanding environments.
“The survey answers may be surprising to the larger population, but not to seasoned financial executives,” said Robert Perry, Finance Manager, Kramer LTD. “We might get around to preferring tablets — eventually — as our device of choice, but we are not experimenters or aggressive risk takers by nature and need proof that something works (and works well) before we jump in. As for social media, the financial management world is more about substantive data collaboration, than it is about the social collaboration elements that benefit areas such as sales and marketing. So I am not particularly surprised that my financial brethren aren-t seeing the strong applicability of social media yet either.”
The five question poll taps into a global network of 2,850 Coda Financials customer companies, which represent both mid-sized and large organizations. The goal of UNIT4-s “Coda Financials Mind Meld,” is to question the validity of prevailing thinking. The new survey data reports findings from more than 100 high-level financial (73 percent) and technology (27 percent) executives in the financial services, telecommunications, retail, travel & leisure and public sectors in the U.S., UK, France, Germany, Benelux, and Asia.
An infographic illustrating the UNIT4 -Coda Financials Mind Meld- survey findings is available with this release.
UNIT4 CODA, Inc. is part of UNIT4, a $550 million global business software company aimed at helping dynamic organizations to embrace change simply, quickly and cost effectively. Coda Financials is financial management software designed to integrate with industry- and company-specific applications. Coda Financials provides real-time financial visibility and control across people, processes and systems. By acting as the financial information backbone for companies with fast-changing and mixed application environments, it offers a “no compromise” approach to financial modeling, process controls and application choice. For more information on UNIT4 CODA, visit . Follow us on and or visit .
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Margaret Bonilla
Birnbach Communications
603-548-0693
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