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Who wears the data chief crown at your organization? There’s something of a debate about who rightfully owns that title. Some advocate for the CIO, while others side with the CTO. Yet, an emerging trend among mid-market enterprises, especially those with limited IT resources, highlights a different contender: the CFO.
That’s right. You—the CFO—are your midmarket company’s unexpected new data chief. You are now at the forefront—extracting, understanding, and applying data-driven insights to sculpt business strategies and drive decision-making. It may be a new role, but there are established tools, processes, and structures ready to help you thrive in this new world of data.
CFOs are typically seen as the guardians of financial data. Their traditional role revolves around balance sheets, profit and loss statements, and economic forecasting. However, non-financial data is playing a greater role for CFOs, as they are now charged with managing data from multiple sources across the organization. This requires collaboration and access to data at a level not previously experienced. As a result, the CFO’s role is no longer confined to numbers on a ledger. Armed with a thorough understanding of financial data and overarching business strategies, you are perfectly poised to bridge the gap between data analytics and strategic business decisions.
Small to mid-sized enterprises (SMEs) often operate within a constrained IT landscape. Unlike larger enterprises, you might not have the luxury of a dedicated CIO or a vast data strategy team. As a result, your organization needs to optimize costs while ensuring efficient data management and analysis. And this is where Microsoft’s suite of powerful, cost-effective technologies comes into play.
We’ve collected a list of Microsoft technologies that make ideal data analysis companions for modern CFOs. Each offers security, integration within and outside the Microsoft platform, scalability, and cost-effective pricing plans.
Power BI stands out with its interactive visualizations paired with self-service business intelligence features. CFOs can harness its capabilities to craft insightful reports and dashboards, offering a panoramic, real-time view of a company’s health. For SMEs, where every resource counts, such real-time insights are invaluable in building strategic alignments. And talk about cost effectiveness—there’s even a free version of Power BI.
The Azure Data Platform provides businesses with scalable, adaptable, and cost-efficient solutions tailored for data management and analytics. Companies can amalgamate vast data volumes from disparate sources, ensuring they always have a consistent and unified data source for actionable business intelligence. In addition to the integration and security features noted above, Azure Data Platform offers CFOs:
Microsoft Azure Data Lake Storage (ADLS) is primarily a large-scale data lake solution for big data analytics. Here’s why ADLS is particularly advantageous for you, the CFO:
Azure Synapse (formerly Azure SQL Data Warehouse) is an analytics service that brings together enterprise data warehousing and big data analytics. It provides a unified environment for data ingestion, preparation, and management. Here’s what makes it an ideal tool for the CFO data chief:
Excel’s omnipresence and widespread familiarity make it an indispensable data analysis. Its integration potential with other Microsoft products only accentuates its value, providing a seamless progression to more advanced data tools.
We’ve listed several Microsoft technologies here and understand you may feel uncertain about choosing the right ones for your organization—and you’re not alone. Microsoft Fabric is a service that brings all of these technologies (save for Excel) under one AI-powered blanket. Fabric acts like a central hub that connects your tools and data in smart, sensible ways. Velosio can help you determine if Fabric is the right option for your business.
Determining the rightful data chief may remain under debate for the time being. But one thing is indisputable: an SME’s CFO is not just a financial chief but a data visionary. By strategically leveraging Microsoft’s suite of technologies, CFOs are demonstrating that successful data management and analytics aren’t limited to enterprises with a large IT team. Success is fundamentally about harnessing and applying the available tools and resources.
Velosio works with the CFOs (and the CIOs and CTOs if you invite them!) of midmarket organizations like yours, helping you optimize Microsoft technology in the most cost-effective and efficient ways. Let’s start a conversation about how we can support you in your role as data chief.
