Advania UK has announced a brace of senior leadership appointments, with Sabrina Harris joining the business as chief financial officer (CFO) and Tara Allison taking the role of chief marketing officer (CMO).

The company – part of the Northern European IT services provider, Advania Group – said the move strengthens its leadership bench as it continues to expand its position in the UK market.

Sabrina Harris joins the business from telecoms giant BT, where she served in several senior finance roles, most recently heading up commercial finance across global teams and complex customer contracts.

Advania said she will add deep experience in driving profitability, strengthening financial governance, as well as expertise in supporting large-scale transformation in technology-led environments.

"Advania has clear momentum and a strong platform to build on,” Harris commented. “I look forward to working closely with the business to strengthen performance and support the next phase of development."

Tara Allison arrives with more than 25 years’ experience in B2B technology marketing, adding expertise in building brands and delivering commercial impact. Previously, she led Trend Micro’s marketing activities across the UK and Ireland, aligning brand, demand generation, and sales to deliver sustained growth across the region.

"Advania has a compelling proposition and a clear role to play for customers navigating complex technology decisions,” Allison said of her appointment.

“I’m excited to help bring that to life in the market and build greater visibility and engagement."

Building on strong UK momentum

Since its entry into the UK back in 2021, Advania has grown to become one of the prominent IT service providers in the country, expanding its portfolio of services through the acquisitions of Servium and CCS Media.

The firm said its latest leadership appointments reflect its commitment to maintaining momentum across the region, with a key focus on performance, visibility, and long-term customer relationships.

"We have built a strong position in the UK in a short period of time,” explained Advania CEO Hege Støre, in an announcement. “These appointments are about building on that foundation.

“Sabrina brings the financial leadership needed to support disciplined growth and performance, while Tara will play a key role in strengthening how we show up in the market and how we connect with customers."

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Finance leaders have a poor opinion of the performance of CISOs, believing that they can't always communicate clearly and aren't fully aligned with business needs.

A new survey of 300 CISOs, directors of cybersecurity, CFOs, and finance leaders by threat-hunting firm Expel found less than half (46%) of security leaders think their finance counterparts are highly aligned with the security team’s priorities.

Finance leaders, though, are less convinced, with only 35% believing that their security counterparts are highly aligned with the finance team’s priorities.

These conflicting perceptions on both sides of the divide further exacerbate existing issues with alignment, the study noted.

Crucially, there's a similar pattern when it comes to risk tolerance and budget expectations. While 71% of surveyed security leaders say that security and finance teams are fully or very aligned, finance decision-makers are much less positive, with only 58% saying the same.

"While most finance decision-makers see security as business-critical, they demonstrate a lower level of assurance in some of their security teams’ abilities," the researchers said.

Only half of surveyed finance leaders said they were very confident that their security team can communicate business impact clearly or protect the organization from major cyber events, while only four-in-ten express full confidence in security’s ability to align with business strategy.

Security decision-makers, meanwhile, are suspicious that they're perceived negatively by finance, with 36% saying they're seen as a cost center and 35% as no more than an operational necessity.

"The real issue isn't that finance sees security as a cost center — it's that too many security leaders haven't learned to articulate value in terms finance understands," said Greg Notch, Expel chief security officer.

"Security leaders should spend their time showing how that cost translates to business protection. Finance teams make cost-benefit decisions all day long. They're not afraid of costs; they're afraid of costs they can't quantify or understand."

How cyber leaders can shake up communication

When reporting results to finance, surveyed security leaders typically prioritize metrics like business impact of actual security incidents at 18%, cost of control versus potential losses at 17%, security program maturity level at 16%, and risk reduction score at 15%.

However, researchers found these metrics don't align with what finance actually requires for making strategic decisions. In fact, program maturity level versus industry benchmarks is the second least popular metric among finance leaders.

"Instead of falling back on maturity metrics, leaders need to communicate in the language of risk, especially when justifying security spend," advised Notch.

The calculation, he said, means taking the percentage - or percentage range - of likelihood that the organization will experience a breach, and the cost of that breach.

From there, you can determine that an investment that costs $x will likely lower your percentage likelihood of breach by x%.

"Cybersecurity teams have to understand the KPIs that matter to the business and how their operations ladder up into those," he said.

"It’s all about cybersecurity teams being able to communicate how their impact is contributing to those KPIs in the language of the business — which is all about dollars and cents."

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Chief financial officers (CFOs) are targeting increased investment in areas such as AI in the year ahead as enterprises look to supercharge workforce productivity.

Findings from Deloitte’s Q4 CFO Survey show more than half (59%) of firms have changed their tune on the potential performance improvements unlocked by the technology, marking a sharp increase on the same period in 2024.

As a result, an overwhelming majority (96%) of finance leaders told the consultancy they expect to see a rise in technology spending over the next five years.

Running parallel to this investment surge is an anticipated boost to productivity and business performance, with AI playing a key role in fueling this growth.

Richard Houston, senior partner and chief executive at Deloitte UK, said the optimistic outlook among CFOs comes at a critical period for enterprise AI adoption rates.

“CFOs are significantly more positive about improving performance through deploying AI and remain upbeat about technology investment over the medium term,” he said.

“We know technology was a big driver of US GDP in 2025 and we see real potential in the year ahead for AI to boost UK business performance and fuel growth.”

AI adoption continued at pace throughout 2025 as enterprises flocked to agentic AI. Key business functions such as IT, software development, HR, and customer support have become notable focus areas for enterprises looking to drive AI-related productivity gains.

Analysis from Gartner in November, for example, found the technology will “touch all IT work” by 2030 as enterprises look to ramp up automation across IT teams.

Return on investment (ROI), a recurring pain point for IT leaders during the early days of the generative AI “boom”, has also improved. Research from SAP in October, for example, found enterprise spending on AI projects is expected to continue growing in the year ahead.

Enterprise skills focus needs sharpened

While a sense of optimism prevails among CFOs and other C-suite executives, Houston warned that many enterprises need to sharpen their focus on skills development and upskilling to capitalize on the technology.

“To realize the full value from AI, we must combine human skills with technology and upskill people, so nobody is left behind,” he said.

Upskilling emerged as one of the main talking points across 2025 with regard to AI, largely due to warnings that the technology could render some roles – and by default, workers – obsolete.

As ITPro reported in November, research from Gartner warned workers across an array of industries could be left behind as businesses ramp up AI integration, prompting calls for greater investment in employee training.

The consultancy said that from 2028 onwards, around 32 million roles a year will be “reconfigured, redesigned, or fused” as a result of AI, meaning worker skillsets will need to evolve to keep up with the pace of change.

CFOs leading the AI charge

The Deloitte survey marks the latest in a string of studies highlighting the crucial role CFOs now play in AI investment and adoption rates.

While integration and roll-outs remain a domain reserved for CIOs and CTOs, finance leaders are now frequently calling the shots on spending at their respective organizations.

This is a new trend, however, with CFOs having traditionally cautioned restraint on lavish spending plans. Research from Salesforce in August last year revealed CFOs had “fundamentally shifted their approach” to the technology over the course of 2025.

Nearly three-quarters (70%) told the CRM giant they had a “conservative” AI strategy in 2020. Five years later, the arrival of generative and agentic AI solutions means only 4% still hold that same position.

A key factor behind this change in outlook, Salesforce noted, is that CFOs have come to view AI as a lucrative revenue and productivity driver, prompting one-third to adopt an "aggressive approach” to AI adoption and investment.

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Chief financial officers (CFOs) are now betting big on AI, despite taking a cautious approach during the early days of the generative AI ‘boom’.

A new study from Salesforce shows CFOs have “fundamentally shifted their approach” to AI, now viewing it as a business-critical technology and a key revenue driver.

Nearly three-quarters (70%) of CFOs reported having a “conservative” AI strategy in 2020, but the emergence of generative and agentic AI tools mean just 4% are pursuing a cautious approach.

In contrast, a third of respondents told Salesforce they have now adopted an “aggressive approach” to the technology, ramping up adoption and integration across an array of business functions.

A key factor behind this change, Salesforce noted, lies in positive returns on investment (ROI). Concerns about whether the technology would deliver bang for its buck were a frequent talking point across 2023 and 2024.

Research from the CRM giant last year showed 65% of CFOs faced huge pressure to deliver a return on tech investments. However, with the arrival of AI agents, there’s been a marked change in tune.

Nearly two-thirds (61%) of CFOs said AI agents have changed how they evaluate ROI and are now measuring success based on other metrics such as productivity and efficiency, as opposed to simple financial rewards.

One respondent told Salesforce measuring ROI on “older technology often depends on immediate, measurable results”. With agentic AI, this is more of a slow burn situation where returns "accrue over the long term”.

“Traditional technology investments mainly focus on immediate financial returns that can be easily visible,” another respondent said. “But AI benefits are a mix of long and short term duration. KPIs are focused based on business outcomes.”

Robin Washington, president and chief operational and financial officer at Salesforce, said the introduction of the technology has prompted a “decisive and strategic shift for CFOs”.

“With AI agents, we're not merely transforming business models; we're fundamentally reshaping the entire scope of the CFO function,” Washington said.

“This demands a new mindset as we expand beyond financial stewards to also become architects of agentic enterprise value.”

What are CFOs excited about?

CFOs now view AI agents as a key revenue driver and a means to streamline operations, according to Salesforce. On average, financial officers are dedicating 25% of their total AI budgets on agents, underlining the huge appetite for the technology.

The logic behind this heightened investment lies in the long-term saving and broader revenue gains, the survey found. Nearly three-quarters (74%) of CFOs said they believe AI agents will cut costs and increase revenue by up to 20%.

There are concerns, however. Privacy risks associated with the technology were earmarked as a leading issue, cited by 66% of respondents.

“Other technology does not typically involve the ethical risks AI does, if AI goes wrong, the reputational cost affects ROI in ways regular tools never would,” one respondent told Salesforce.

Similarly, with enterprises facing challenging macroeconomic conditions, the long time to ROI was also a notable worry, cited by 56% of respondents.

Regardless, 61% said that AI agents, or “digital labor” as Salesforce dubs it, will be crucial in navigating challenging conditions and remaining competitive in the current economic environment.

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SAS has announced the appointment of experienced industry leader Matt Parson as executive vice president and chief financial officer (CFO).

As CFO, Parson will lead the company’s global financial strategy, as well as help shape operational priorities geared towards scalable growth, market expansion, and long-term value creation.

Parson succeeds long-serving CFO David Davis, who is retiring after nearly 40 years of service and leadership at the company.

In an announcement, SAS CEO Jim Goodnight said Parson’s extensive expertise and industry experience will offer a strong springboard for the firm’s future expansion plans.

“Matt joins us at a pivotal time,” he explained. “From auditing at Big Four firms to steering the finances of global tech companies, Matt brings a blend of technical expertise, strategic insight, and leadership acumen that will benefit SAS as we continue evolving our operations and growth strategy for the future.”

A seasoned executive, Parson arrives with two decades’ experience in transforming high-growth technology companies.

Most recently, he served in dual roles of CFO and COO at cybersecurity vendor ExtraHop, where he helped lead financial and operational strategy through a period of strong growth.

Previously, he also spent twelve years at Red Hat, contributing to the company’s international expansion as it scaled from $200 million to almost $3 billion in annual revenue, and later served as CFO at CloudBees and Paymentus, guiding the latter through its successful IPO.

In his new role as CFO at SAS, Parson will leverage his experience to lead the company’s financial strategy, including forecasting, planning, capital management, as well as investor engagement.

“I’m honored to join SAS as it builds momentum for the future,” said Parson.

“The company’s reputation for innovation and customer impact is well-earned, and I look forward to partnering with the leadership team to build on that momentum and support the next phase of growth.”

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HPE has announced the imminent departure of its chief financial officer (CFO), Tarek Robbiati, who is set to become CEO of RingCentral. 

The cloud and infrastructure giant will replace Robbiati – when he officially departs on 25 August – with Jeremy Cox, senior vice president, corporate controller, and chief tax officer, as HPE’s interim CFO.

Robbiati joined HPE in 2018 after spending just over two-and-a-half years as CFO at Sprint. His CV also includes ten years at Accenture and just under two years as VP of corporate finance at Orange.

Antonio Neri, president and CEO of Hewlett Packard Enterprise, paid tribute to Robbiati, who joined HPE shortly after Neri became CEO, wishing him success as CEO of RingCentral.

HPE has undergone significant changes during Robbiati’s tenure. Neri highlighted the organization's transition to an edge-to-cloud company, adding: “We are in a strong position to capitalize on significant market opportunities at the edge, in hybrid cloud and with AI.”

As well as a shift in portfolio to higher-growth and higher-market segments, HPE also launched its hybrid cloud service, GreenLake, shortly before Robbiati's arrival.

“We transformed an iconic company to a platform-based model, fueled by a software and services-rich portfolio,” said Robbiati, reflecting on his nearly five-year stint at the company.

HPE recently reported revenues of $7 billion, up 4% year-on-year, and an increase in its annualized revenue run-rate to $1.1 billion, up 35% from the previous year. It estimated Q3 2023 revenue to be $6.7 billion to $7.2 billion and fiscal 2023 revenue growth to be 4 – 6%.

His interim replacement, Jeremy Cox, is an HPE veteran who’s been with the company for over 18 years. He’ll serve as CFO while while the board of directors search for a permanent replacement.

Vlad Shmunis, RingCentral’s founder and current CEO, will transition to executive chairman when Robbiati takes the helm on 28 August. Robbiati has been a member of the RingCentral board of directors since December 2022. RingCentral’s president and chief operating officer (COO), Mo Katibeh, will also step down, but plans to remain a special advisor.

Cloud communications platform provider 8x8 has announced the appointment of Kevin Kraus as its new chief financial officer (CFO) on a permanent basis, having served in the role on an interim basis since November 2022.

Prior to his interim spell, Kraus held the position of senior vice president of finance, overseeing the company’s financial planning and analysis, as well as procurement functions. 

He brings a wealth of financial expertise to the role, as well as a strong track record of strategic growth. 

In his new role as CFO, 8x8 said Kraus will lead its global finance and accounting organizations, overseeing financial planning and operations. 

“Kevin’s promotion to the CFO role is well deserved, and his experience driving both operational efficiency and profitable growth makes him a perfect fit for the role,” said Samuel Wilson, CEO at 8x8. 

“His strategic insight, coupled with his deep financial acumen, will be invaluable as we continue to evolve our business.”

Kraus first joined 8x8 back in 2019, having previously served as vice president of finance for cyber security software provider Imperva. 

Prior to that, he was senior director of finance for network visibility and traffic monitoring technology specialist Gigamon between 2015 and 2017. 

During that time, the seasoned veteran accumulated a wealth of experience across financial planning and analysis, procurement, facilities management, SEC reporting and investor relations, sales compensation operations, as well as M&A integration.

Kraus’s appointment as 8x8 CFO comes as the firm continues to expand its experience communications as a service (XCaaS) integrated cloud contact center and unified communications platform. 

The company said it is focused on investing in its ecosystem of technology and service partners to expand the portfolio of AI/ML solutions available on the platform, with Kraus’ appointment to help position the business well for further strategic growth and investment in innovation. 

“I'm incredibly excited to continue leading the finance and accounting organization for 8x8 as chief financial officer,” Kraus said. 

“We have a clear vision and a strong commitment to innovation and customer success. I look forward to contributing to the company’s continued growth and helping it achieve its strategic goals.”

Arm has appointed former Splunk employee Jason Child as its new chief financial officer (CFO), as the company prepares itself for a public listing.

The company said yesterday that Child has over 30 years of experience in leadership at high-growth companies and scaling global finance functions. The new CFO will join Arm from 2 November, 2022 onwards and lead its global finance and IT organisations, reporting to CEO Rene Haas.

Child is set to replace Arm’s current CFO Inder Singh, who will remain at the company in an advisory role and help with the transition through November, before heading off to a new opportunity.

The new CFO most recently served as senior vice president and CFO at Splunk from 2019. Before Splunk, he had held several CFO positions including at Groupon, where he helped the company go public in 2011, as well as at Amazon International. He has also served as a member of the board of directors of Coupang, an e-commerce company, since April 2022.

“Jason is an experienced leader in global finance and technology,” said Haas. “His extensive experience in financial management at public companies and IPO execution will be invaluable in preparation for a potential public listing. I look forward to working with him as part of the Arm leadership team as we continue to define the future of computing, built on Arm.”

Additionally, the semiconductor company also announced two new board members, Karen Dykstra, former chief financial and administrative officer of AOL, and Jeff Sine, co-founder and partner of global merchant bank Raine Group. Dykstra is also a director on the boards of VMware and Gartner while Sine was previously a managing director at Morgan Stanley.

Arm was originally going to be taken over by Nvidia before the deal was cancelled earlier this year due to regulatory concerns, and has been mulling an IPO ever since.

Masayoshi Son, CEO of Softbank, the conglomerate that owns Arm, said in June that it was most likely to list the semiconductor company on Nasdaq, although underlined that no decision had been made, as reported by Reuters.

"Most of Arm's clients are based in Silicon Valley and ... stock markets in the U.S. would love to have Arm," said the CEO.

This was followed in September by reports that UK prime minister Liz Truss was planning on launching a last-minute attempt to convince the Japanese conglomerate to list Arm in London. The government was seeking high-level talks with SoftBank executives, which had previously ended following Boris Johnson’s resignation.

​​Huawei CFO Meng Wanzhou has arrived in Shenzhen from Canada following a US court's decision to drop all criminal charges against her.

The executive, who is also the daughter of Huawei founder Ren Zhengfei, had been under house arrest in Vancouver for almost three years, following her arrest in December 2018.

In January 2019, Meng, along with Huawei, was charged with bank fraud, obstruction of justice, and theft of technology, after being accused of misleading HSBC about the tech giant’s dealings in Iran.

Nine days after her arrest, China arrested two Canadian citizens, in a move that was widely seen as political retaliation. Following Meng’s release over the weekend, businessman Michael Spavor and former diplomat Michael Kovrig were returned to Canada on Saturday after spending 33 months in Chinese prison. Upon their arrival in Calgary, they were greeted by Canadian president Justin Trudeau.

Meng touched ground in Shenzhen just hours after Spavor and Kovrig returned to Canada. The Huawei heiress was greeted by cheering crowds and messages of support beamed from the city’s skyscrapers, with her return being hailed as a diplomatic victory for China.

Under the terms of her release, Meng “has agreed to the accuracy of a four-page statement of facts that details the knowingly false statements she made to Financial Institution 1”, according to the US Department of Justice. Any other charges are to be dropped as long as she doesn’t commit any further crimes.

In a brief speech from the tarmac, Meng thanked Chinese president Xi Jinping: "As an ordinary Chinese citizen who had suffered this plight and been stranded abroad for three years, there was never a moment where I did not feel the care and warmth of the Party, the motherland and the people," she said.

"Chairman Xi cares about the safety of every Chinese citizen, and he also keeps my situation on his mind. I am deeply moved."

It’s important to note that Meng had enjoyed numerous privileges due to her high status and close ties to the Chinese government. Although her financial records aren’t publicly available, her father’s fortune is estimated to be worth $1.3 billion (£950 million).

Huawei was not immediately available to comment on the news.

Intel has warned that the industry’s prolonged semiconductor shortage is likely to continue until at least 2023 and lead to revenue losses for itself and rival chipmakers.

Although the ecosystem is back to shipping over a million PCs a day, strong and sustained demand for devices continues to stress the supply chain, Intel’s CEO Pat Gelsinger said during the firm’s Q2 earnings call.

The company reported a slight 2% year-on-year revenue rise for the second quarter of the year, from $18.2 billion to $18.5 billion. It forecasts a 5.4% revenue increase for Q3, as well as a modest full-year growth of 1% to $73.5 billion.

“While I expect the shortages to bottom out in the second half, it will take another one to two years before the industry is able to completely catch up with demand,” Gelsinger said, according to a transcript of the call published by Seeking Alpha.

He added that the firm’s recently embarked upon IDM 2.0 strategy combines internal manufacturing capacity with the use of third-party foundries, which positions the firm to weather the challenges and build a more resilient supply chain. This is a strategy that Intel announced in March following a tumultuous 2020.

The company’s positive Q2 revenue was mostly fueled by a 6% growth in the client computing group (CCG), the company’s largest division, to $10.1 billion.

This was offset by a 9% reduction in revenues for the firm’s data centre division to $6.5 billion. The fastest-growing division was Mobileeye, within Internet of Things, which surged 124% to $327 million for the quarter.

“We remain in a highly constrained environment where we are unable to fully supply customer demand,” Intel’s CEO George Davis said in the company’s earnings call, echoing Gelsinger’s sentiments.

“In CCG, we continue to see very strong demand for our client products and expect TAM [total addressable market] growth to continue. However, persistent industry-wide component in substrate shortages are expected to lower CCG revenues sequentially.

“We expect supply shortages to continue for several quarters, but appear to be particularly acute for clients in Q3. In data centre, we expect enterprise and government, and Cloud to show further recovery in Q3.”

Gelsinger’s and Davis’ remarks echo those made by several major executives in the industry, including most recently the CFO of Taiwanese manufacturing giant TSMC, Wendell Huang. He said he expects the ongoing chip shortage to continue to cripple the tech and automotive industries until at least next year.

In May, both Cisco’s CFO Scott Herren and Dell’s CEO Michael Dell said they expect the crisis to continue until at least the end of 2021, and for “a few years”, respectively.

Cisco’s CEO, Chuck Robbins, by contrast, said in April this year that he would expect the industry to need at least another six months to get through the short term of the crisis, and that the wider crisis is unlikely to be resolved until 2022.

The global semiconductor shortage crippling the tech and automotive industries is likely to continue into the next year, according to chip giant TSMC.

The Taiwanese semiconductor manufacturer said that, although the scarcity of auto chips will gradually ease during the current quarter, the overall semiconductor shortage will likely extend into 2022, the company revealed during an analyst call on Thursday, as reported by Reuters.

The high demand for chips, especially the 5-nanometre node type used in 5G-supported smartphones, helped fuel TSMC’s Q2 results, with the company reporting a profit increase of 11% from the year prior and a revenue growth of 28%.

The company expects demand to continue into the third quarter, estimating Q3 revenue to grow between 21% and 23%, with 3-nanometre node chips scheduled to enter trial production in the next few months.

TSMC’s CFO Wendell Huang told analysts on the call that the company’s “second-quarter business was mainly driven by continued strength in high performance computing (HPC) and automotive-related demand”.

"Moving into the third quarter, we expect our business to be supported by strong demand for our industry-leading 5-nanometre and 7-nanometre technologies, driven by all four growth platforms, which are smartphone, HPC, IoT and automotive-related applications,” he added.

TSMC’s chip shortage predictions echo the opinions of Cisco CFO Scott Herren, who in May confirmed that the company’s recent supply chain disruption, caused by the global semiconductor shortage, could last until the end of 2021, with a possibility that they would extend until 2022.

Meanwhile, Dell Technologies founder and CEO Michael Dell said he expects that the chip crisis “will probably continue for a few years”, and warned that it could take some time before the semiconductor shortage is dealt with accordingly.

TSMC was previously involved in discussions with EU officials around building a TSMC semiconductor plant in Europe in order to remedy the impact of the global semiconductor shortage on the continent. However, the talks quickly collapsed and the chip company switched its attention to markets in North America and Japan, where a $338 million (£238 million) semiconductor research project will aim to develop new chip technology.

Google Cloud has reported a loss of $5.61 billion (£4.1bn) for the fiscal year 2020, which ended on 31 December.

The cloud business brought in revenue of $3.83 billion (£2.8 billion) and recorded a loss $1.24 billion (£900 million) for Q4 2020, Google revealed on Tuesday. This marks the first time the company has announced the operating income metric for Google Cloud.

With 2020 dubbed as the year of the cloud due to the fact it's helped keep people connected during the pandemic, an operating loss of $5.61 billion may seem like a grim result for Google.

However, the company also managed to deliver $13 billion (£9.53 billion) of revenue during 2020, a steady increase from $5.8 billion (£4.25 billion) in 2018 and $8.9 billion (£6.53 billion) in 2019. Despite mounting losses over the year - $4.3 billion in 2018 and $4.6 billion in 2019 - this has been attributed to investment in new data centres as Google Cloud expands its operations.

In 2020, the cloud giant launched four new cloud regions in Indonesia, South Korea, and the US, and announced another four to come in Qatar, Spain, Italy, and France.

On an earnings call with investors, CEO Sundar Pichai said that Google Cloud will continue to invest going forward.

“The market dynamics and our momentum in the context of the market is the framework in which we are thinking about the scale of investments - and the pace of investments,” he said, adding that the cloud giant is “definitely investing ahead” in order to ensure that the company is “able to serve the customers globally across all the offerings they are interested in”.

When it comes to Google as a whole, the tech giant reported Q4 revenues of $56.9 billion (£41.73 billion) which, according to CFO Ruth Porat, “was driven by Search and YouTube, as consumer and business activity recovered from earlier in the year”.

Porat also touched on Google Cloud’s results, adding that Workspace is experiencing strong growth among larger businesses, “which are signing meaningful, long-term commitment agreements”.

Google Cloud competitor AWS reported revenues of $12.74 billion (£9.34 billion) and an operating income of $3.56 billion (£2.6 billion) for Q4 alone. For 2020, AWS’s operating income was $13.5 billion (£9.89 billion).

Workday, a leading provider of enterprise cloud applications for finance, HR and planning, has announced the release of its new Workday Accounting Center and machine-learning-driven predictive forecasts for Workday Adaptive Planning.

“We continue to deliver on our vision for the changing world of finance by expanding data management, self-service analyses, and machine learning-fueled processes to help finance leaders better navigate continuous disruption and change,” said Barbara Larson, general manager at Workday Financial Management.

Workday Accounting Center enables customers to manage operational and financial data from multiple sources with a single point of control enterprisewide.

By enriching operational data with meaningful and strategic attributes, organizations can turn data into accounting and insights faster, eliminating the need for finance teams to rely solely on information technology (IT) to maintain accounting rules.

For example, with Workday Accounting Center, not only can an insurance company create accounting entries for operational transactions, but it can also report and analyze those transactions with full drill-down and visibility into the source transactions.

The predictive forecasting embedded in Workday Adaptive Planning’s analytics engine helps estimate likely outcomes for revenue, expenses and other critical business variables using machine learning. The forecasts are derived based on a wide array of data points aggregated from across the enterprise, including sales, HR, marketing and operational data.

The machine learning algorithms also detect anomalies and automatically flag potential issues so organizations can make informed decisions.

Key advances for customers in the office of the CFO include:

• Embedded ad hoc analysis on real-time data using Discovery Boards
• Ability to publish plans from Workday Adaptive Planning directly to Workday Financial Management and vice versa.

"CFOs and CIOs recognize that they must embrace new digital technologies in order to manage the ever-increasing volume and sources of data required today," said R "Ray" Wang, founder and principal analyst, Constellation Research, Inc.

"And because it's so challenging to move off of legacy systems, leading companies recognize that they need a solution that can scale and evolve over the next decade and beyond. Intelligent data, machine learning, and a robust ecosystem are critical factors for companies when choosing their next partner for financial management systems."

The financial technology revolution is coming to the tangled task of managing employee expenses - and it is long overdue.

This whitepaper looks at the benefits of adopting the new techniques, ranging from improved analytics to quicker identification of potential fraud.

Download it now to discover why the automation revolution for expenses is now underway, and what you can do to capitalise on it.

Finance teams are struggling to manage both the deluge of data and how that data is shared with the rest of the business. Unable to garner the insights they need to capitalise on the deluge, research shows that CFOs need the support of technology.

Oracle’s global survey examines the role of finance leaders and data, offering key recommendations which can innovate finance departments.

Download it now to learn more about finance leader’s issues and views about data.

Second only to the CEO, the chief financial officer (CFO) is one of the most important roles in any business. CFOs are critical because, as you might have guessed, they need to have a firm grasp of an organisation’s finances.

In a business, the CFO takes the lead in making sure that anything related to finance is closely scrutinised and under control. This includes everything from how everyday business operations affect profit and revenues to what the company spends its money on.

You might think that a CFO is only a company’s most high level accountant, but their role is much more intricate than that. They take part in making decisions at the executive-level of a company and are usually crucially involved in its main strategy. Usually a CFO’s insight is considered to be invaluable, and many listen to them to see if ideas are workable or even if there are better options.

In most businesses, a CFO will probably report to the head of the company, the CEO, and the two need to be able to work together seamlessly considering the proximity of their roles. However, it isn’t the same in every organisation. The layout of the executive team and how big the company is play an important role in dicating how much involvement the CFO has across the business. It’s possible, therefore, that a CFO could be in charge of not only the finance department, but also the operations and IT teams. In a huge organisation, on the other hand, the CFO would probably stick to monitoring the business’s finances.

As such, the role is varied and the CFO may be expected to oversee the controllership, the treasury, economic strategy, and forecasting. In some businesses, this may be known instead as a financial director rather than a CFO, while in others, there will be both a financial director and a CFO, with the former reporting to the latter.

What is a CFO's role around financial controllership?

Controllership is a major part of a CFO's role. It refers to analysing a company's financial position and reporting back to key stakeholders in the business, such as the board.

Controllership also involves analysing the company's historical data and predicting trends in its financial position. This could be seasonality, looking into how political events such as elections may have affected figures and then feeding this back to everyone in the business and analysts that play a crucial role in strategy.

Any reports the CFO collates must be accurate and allow for swift business decisions to be made by the rest of the business, such as whether investment is needed, new product launches, or if other resources are required to support business growth.

The information may also be supplied to third parties, such as external accountants or other businesses, particularly if it is seeking investment or acquisition. The information for the reports can be provided by various departments within the organisation, but it is the CFO's responsibility to ensure the data is correct and create actionable strategies from the data.

A larger company will depend on the CFO to present the information to the board on a regular basis. In some company's the CFO will scrutinise every expenses form submitted by employees - or at least conduct spot checks - to ensure everything is in line with company policy and compliant with any external regulation, too.

What are a CFO's treasury duties?

Treasury duties involve looking at an organisation's present financial condition. This includes the effective management of cash flow and overhead expenses, as well as establishing credit terms for customers and more favourable payment terms from vendors.

The CFO must decide on how to invest money while considering risk and liquidity. An organisation's CFO should also oversee its capital structure, figuring out its equity, debt and internal financing. Fixing problems around capital structure is the biggest job of a CFO.

A CFO also needs to have effective controls that provide oversight against fraudulent and other criminal activities. A CFO will also be responsible for addressing compliance issues, the most basic of these are filing and paying taxes.

How does a CFO help a company strategise?

The CFO of an organisation must also look to the future and help in planning its financial future. The CFO needs to find and report what areas of a company are most effective and how the organisation can exploit this information.

Within an organisation, a CFO can help assess output and search for areas of effectiveness that can be grown to further improve success. They can be called upon to exploit their knowledge of markets, funding, and the overall economic outlook to help organisations make better decisions about risk and resource allocation.

What qualifications are required for a CFO?

The qualifications you need to become a CFO can vary depending on the type of organisation. As their main responsibility is financial management, you would expect a CFO to have experience, training and qualifications in accounting and finance. Larger organisations will often also dictate that their CFO has an MBA and/or advanced degree in accounting, finance, or economics.

A CFO should also have a strong dose of business acumen and nous, as that will help them offer strategic advice backed up by financial knowledge and data that should better aid business decision making. By the time a person has reached the position of CFO, they should already have gained a plethora of business experience.

What is a CFO's salary?

Like many jobs, the salary you can expect to earn as a CFO varies depending on many factors, including experience, location and sector. Payscale figures from May 2022 suggest that the national average is £98,313, ranging from £51,000 to £156,000, making it one of the best paying jobs on the market.

What role do CFOs play in business success?

As outlined above, the CFO role is absolutely critical to the continued financial health and wider success of any organisation. After all, no company can just spend without making a profit or reinvesting revenue in new product or service areas or innovating.

For example, an article by McKinsey & Company, published in April 2022, underlined that CFO's have a choice when it comes to digitising a business.

"They can decide whether they want to focus on driving digitization in their own function, whether they want to become digital champions for the entire organization, or they want to do both. CFOs also need to take a sharp look at the costs and benefits of digital use cases," the article stated.

"Rather than make decisions based on the available tools or systems, they should define the road map for the function or the organization and apply a cost-benefit analysis to prioritizing the different digital investments. Also, a digital finance function requires new skills and talent, so one of the most important activities for CFOs now is proper talent management. How do you recruit, train, and retain digital talent that can help you drive the digitization journey?"

Dropbox has welcomed the former Nike CFO Don Blair to its board of directors.

Blair has more than three decades of financial and management expertise on a global scale and will serve on the board's audit committee.

He was previously the CFO at Nike for 16 years, where the company's revenue more than tripled and its market value increased by eight.

"Nike has long been a source of inspiration to me, and it was clear from the first time I met Don that we shared a belief in building a brand - and a business - that stand for something," said Drew Houston, CEO of Dropbox.

Blair was an executive at PepsiCo before he joined Nike and is currently on the board of Corning Incorporated.

"Don knows how to build a sustainable business for the long-term, and we're looking forward to drawing on his expertise as we continue to grow and scale our company," said Houston.

"I'm thrilled to join the incredibly talented team at Dropbox," said Blair in a comment. "The brand stands for simple, powerful tools that help teams unleash their creativity, and I'm impressed by the way that mission inspires everything they do. Their products already reach hundreds of millions of users and the company continues to drive innovation. I look forward to being part of their continuing growth story."

Dropbox is reportedly preparing for an initial public offering according to reports from July. The cloud storage firm was looking for underwriters to draw up its IPO and was said to be interviewing investment banks last summer.

"It does look very much like an IPO is in the offing - the question will be when," said Clive Longbottom, co-founder and service director at analyst firm Quocirca. "Bringing in Don shows a definite target of something: the background he brings is of large corporate finance, rather than the ever-continuing raising of mezzanine and other rounds of investment."

"I would think that Don will want to get his feet under the table and carry out a deep study into how Dropbox currently stacks up before he would allow an IPO to be mooted - this could take up to a year if he finds that Dropbox is more of a tech company than he would really have preferred," he added.

"There are rumours around that Dropbox has already been working with banks to lay the groundwork for an IPO: hopefully, Don will not rush this process and will ensure that a proper process is gone through to ensure that it makes sense in both Dropbox's existing level of maturity and in the hunger of the markets for such a move."

HPE's outgoing CEO, Meg Whitman, also joined Dropbox's board in September. The two companies have previously partnered to build Dropbox's very own cloud infrastructure and HPE is one of the cloud storage firm's customers.

Image source: Dropbox

Banks and financial services companies are leaving themselves at risk of being hacked thanks to poorly-written code, according to new research.

Software analysis firm CAST reviewed 278 million lines of code from more than 1,380 applications developer using Java EE and .NET, and discovered more than 1.3 million vulnerabilities caused by errors and sloppy code hygiene.

Financial services companies, IT consultants and telcos were found to be most guilty of this, with the highest number of common weakness enumerations (CWEs) per thousand lines of code.

"We found that overall, organisations are taking application security quite seriously. However, there are clear outliers to this broad finding that put companies and their customers at significant risk," said CAST's senior vice president and chief scientist Bill Curtis. "Without a clear understanding of existing application security vulnerabilities, organisations are not addressing some of the biggest software risks that pose a threat to their business."

Interestingly, the report found that outsourcing had little measurable impact on code quality, with significant differences in the CWE rate of apps developed in-house compared to those outsourced to other firms.

Similarly, there were little statistical differences between onshore and offshore-developed apps. Application size also did not appear to affect the amount of weaknesses present. The biggest indicator of risk appeared to be age, with applications between five and 10 years old presenting the greatest potential for flaws.

The report also had harsh words about Microsoft's .NET programming language, warning that .NET applications had more vulnerabilities on average than Java apps, though it didn't provide numbers. Microsoft's .NET apps developed with the waterfall software evelopment method had the worst scores overall.

However, CAST cautioned that continuous deployment can prove risky, too. Java apps with six or more annual releases had the largest number of CWE vulnerabilities, which could prove a problem for companies that have adopted an agile, DevOps-centric development model.

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The consumerisation of technology goes across all technology types. The recent boom in smart home devices is fuelling growth in IoT, but how is this driving buying decisions in businesses?

The consumerisation of IT has led to more business departments - whether HR, marketing or finance - making purchasing decisions on cloud solutions, according to consulting firm Intrinsic Technology.

This can lead to lots of different systems running in silos. In turn, this is counter-intuitive for the CIO, who effectively takes on a supply management role, and who has to fight to augment disparate systems to ensure they are interoperable.

With processes such as shadow IT taking a grip on companies, some business teams are now making technology decisions without the CIO, which can cause them to lose control of the IT and end up with issues such as information sprawl.

In a recent survey of 850 software decision makers, Forrester found that on average, enterprises buy 50% of their software without direct IT involvement. The survey also found that managers outside IT perform too little due diligence on software suppliers' security, and fail to negotiate vital protection into SaaS contracts.

"We've seen several organisations facing 30% price hikes from SaaS providers because the manager who placed the order didn't secure a price commitment beyond the initial contract term," said Duncan Jones, vice president and principal analyst at Forrester.

"We've seen others who faced a ransom to get their data back if they did not renew their contracts, because the manager hadn't considered that eventuality."

Some technology management groups are trying to stem this tide, while others are simply hoping they won't get blamed for subsequent problems.

Trusted expertise is needed

One of the biggest pitfalls businesses face is jumping in feet-first, without doing the groundwork to create a clear strategy and understand how the implementation of new technology will impact the wider IT estate. There are opportunities here for the channel to provide trusted expertise and advice to end user organisations.

Many providers, including AWS, LinkedIn and Slack, have had success selling direct to enterprise employees. This method avoids expensive enterprise software sales processes, but it also requires good, automated processes for user engagement.

Vendors adopting this model should ensure they have customer-friendly contracts that enterprises can accept without having to negotiate multiple concessions. This reduces friction in the sales process, and reduces the risk of corporate groups vetoing the business manager's choice of product.

With 27% of final decisions now being made by a different group or person other than the IT department, IT channel vendors should look to adapt their business models and sales strategies to their new buying audience.

Picture: Bigstock

Long-bubbling tensions over the future direction of Bitcoin boiled over last week, with miners split over technical issues finally solving them by splitting the currency itself.

The cryptocurrency forked into two separate currencies last Tuesday; the original Bitcoin Core (BTC), and newbie Bitcoin Cash (BCH), each using its own individual blockchain network.

The fork is a dramatic turn of events that has naturally left many users concerned about the future of the currency, and many potential buyers confused as to where to invest their cash, or how best to leverage the technology.

How did it come to this?

BTC is the original pioneer of cryptocurrency, and has grown hugely popular since its creation in 2009. However, with such widespread use, it's faced mounting pressure from users over bottlenecks they experience during transactions on its blockchain network.

Millions of Bitcoin transactions take place every ten minutes, but until last month the blockchain, which publically records all transactions, could only handle 1MB of data added every 10 minutes. That prevented huge DDoS data surges trying to take the network offline, but meant transactions were bottlenecked, with users facing huge delays to confirm transactions.

While frustration among Bitcoin miners and developers mounted, blockchain's peer-to-peer nature meant overwhelming consensus was necessary to make any changes to the network. In other words, users needed to agree a new standard.

This led to what was described as a civil war, as architects of the currency became split over possible solutions to the issue.

Some proposed raising the 1MB limit, while others wanted to make it easier to process transactions by moving signature data, essentially records of a transaction, to a separate network known as Segwit. Doing so would reduce the amount of data transactions use up by cutting some of the clutter from them, allowing more transactions to be processed within the 1MB limit.

As we reported last month, it appeared a consensus had been reached - a compromise known as Bitcoin Improvement Proposal (BIP) 91, that would see the Segwit solution implemented immediately and the data limit double to 2MB in three months' time.

We now know that a portion of the Bitcoin community remained unhappy with the proposals; they've since announced a breakaway currency known as Bitcoin Cash (BCH), which operates on a blockchain that has an 8MB transaction ceiling as an alternative to Segwit.

What happens now?

Valuation of Bitcoin as of 7 August - courtesy of Coindesk

The consensus among experts is that it's far too early to tell what will come of this split, and BTC has yet to show any signs of any major depreciation in price outside normal fluctuations. In fact, it's experiencing an all-time peak in value of $3,3398 or 2,603.

BCH, meanwhile, debuted at $555 before peaking at $727 on 3 August - it's now worth just $258.

"With regard to the price, BCH seems to have gathered a lot of steam in a short period of time," Colin Platt, co-founder of blockchain consultancy firm DPactum, told IT Pro last week. "It's worth noting that while the Bitcoin Cash network remains in its early stages, transactions are unable to reliably move into or out of exchanges which may make the market prices liable to manipulation."

For those watching the trading prices, it's worth noting that at this stage, they offer few assurances to the success of either platform. BTC seems to have shrugged off the split for now, and given its solid market position, it remains in a steady position as the most funded cryptocurrency on the market.

Can Bitcoin Cash succeed?

Bitcoin Cash has already received some early support from the market, which is closely watching what will come of that improved data rate. This could, in theory, produce one of the fastest transaction speeds on the market.

"The Bitcoin Cash fork is attracting support and could certainly be viable," said Dr Garrick Hileman, economics historian at the University of Cambridge. "Beyond the financial gains Bitcoin holders may realise from the advent of Bitcoin Cash, there are also potential technical benefits, such as observing how BCH performs with 8MB blocks and what kind of use it attracts."

However, according to a statement released by the Bitcoin Foundation last Wednesday, it appears less than 15% of the BTC network supported the move to BCH . The foundation said: "It's not yet clear that the Bitcoin Cash network will survive and be valuable to coin holders in the medium- to long term."

While support could conceivably increase given enough momentum, BCH potentially faces issues with its underlying technology. To solve some of the disruption caused by the split, BCH developers introduced new software mechanisms to attempt to reduce the mining difficulty.

"These are relatively new mechanisms," said Platt, whose organisation is closely monitoring the mining activities on BCH.

"These are only lightly tested, and as a result there could be avenues for parties to created unexpected disturbance in the network", he explained; something that Bitcoin Core was able to avoid thanks to a low data limit. "While we have not seen concrete evidence of this so far, it remains a risk."

A great deal of BCH's success lies with the underlying architecture, and how it matures over the coming months.

Yet even if the initial issues are ironed out, Bitcoin Cash still faces the hurdle of attracting the attention of users, and initial prospects are not looking good.

Coinbase, one of the largest digital currency exchange markets, informed users on 27 July that, in the event of a split, it would not be supporting two separate currencies. "We have made this decision because it is hard to predict how long the alternative version of bitcoin will survive and if Bitcoin Cash will have future market value," a Coinbase statement read. The exchange has since backtracked on its decision, but while it now plans to support the currency, its systems won't be ready to do so until January 2018.

Other exchanges, such as Kraken, have allowed the trading of Bitcoin Cash, yet without ubiquitous support, it's unclear how feasible it will be to trade in the currency. As Vili Lehdonvirta, senior research fellow at the Oxford Internet Institute, pointed out: "Two currencies with 50% market share in the same area are less useful than one currency with 100% market share from the point of view of ability to pay."

The problems with cryptocurrency

Ultimately, the biggest issue for both currencies is that economic fundamentals have very little application, as their value is still largely based on speculation and betting, according to Lehdonvirta. "I doubt those Bitcoin Cash buyers are buying it to actually use it for paying for goods and services," he said. "I suspect they are buying it because they, for whatever reason, think that it might increase in value in the future."

Until cryptocurrencies achieve something close to high volume commerce, predicting the success of either currency is almost impossible at this early stage.

The technology underneath is where the real 'success' will come from, claimed Paul Armstrong, author of Disruptive Technologies and founder of technology consultancy HERE/FORTH. "Blockchain as a technology offers business users much more than simple currency," he told IT Pro. "From smart contracts to supply-chain verification, blockchain remains a foundational technology that will allow much greater things to be built on top of it.

"Think beyond money into what jobs you need blockchain to do and businesses may see more money made or saved than simple money transactions alone."

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