CFOs Embrace Data Clouds Amid Shift Away From Pure-Play Record-Keeping

For decades, enterprise software has been anchored in databases, their primary function to store and manage records with precision.

The role of the CFO — often seen as the guardian of these records — has revolved around ensuring compliance, accuracy and financial clarity. But in the last few years, the paradigm has begun to shift. The emergence of the data cloud is transforming how enterprises think about their most valuable asset: data.

Enterprise software 1.0 was built on a transactional foundation. Enterprise resource planning (ERP) and financial management systems were designed to track every dollar and asset with a strict, structured approach. Companies invested heavily in systems that could reliably handle their financials, procurement and customer records.

While these tools have served their purpose well, they operate under a fundamental constraint: they are optimized for structured data and record-keeping, not for the dynamic insights that modern enterprises demand.

Companies today don’t just need to record history; They need to predict the future. The emergence of data clouds is reshaping this equation, while at the same time challenging enterprise CFOs to move beyond being record-keepers to becoming strategic data stewards, able to leverage real-time insights for decision-making.

See also: Why Every Business Now Wants a Data Lakehouse

The traditional model of enterprise software is rigid, relying on predefined schemas that dictate how data is stored and accessed. This rigidity is both a strength that ensures consistency and reliability, as well as a limitation that makes real-time analysis and unstructured data integration difficult.

The rise of the data cloud changes this dynamic by introducing elasticity, allowing organizations to ingest, store and analyze massive datasets without predefined constraints.

Platforms like Snowflake have built their business on separating compute from storage, a radical departure from the traditional database model. Databricks, with its Lakehouse architecture, merges the best of data lakes and warehouses, breaking down silos and allowing for more flexible analytics.

Meanwhile, open table formats such as Apache Iceberg and Delta Lake are making interoperability across cloud environments easier, ensuring that data is no longer confined to proprietary systems.

The marketplace is increasingly realizing the value of these approaches. Databricks this January raised $5 billion in financing, its largest debt raise ever, and one that follows a $10 billion equity funding round in December that raised its valuation to $62 billion. Snowflake last week (Feb. 27) said it is opening a new Silicon Valley “AI hub” and investing up to $200 million in startups.

With the data cloud, CFOs can move from simply tracking past performance to shaping future outcomes. For example, a CFO at a global manufacturing firm can now integrate operational data from supply chain systems with external market data to anticipate disruptions. Rather than waiting for quarterly reports, they can assess cash flow in real-time, running predictive models to determine the optimal time for capital investments.

Similarly, financial controllers can automate compliance and auditing processes, reducing human error and freeing up resources for higher-value tasks.

Read more: This Week in B2B Was About Unlocking Trapped Payments Data

Historically, finance teams operated within well-defined silos, with data housed in different systems — ERP software, customer relationship management (CRM) platforms, and supply chain databases. Extracting insights required cumbersome ETL (Extract, Transform, Load) processes, slowing down decision-making. The modern data cloud helps to eliminate these inefficiencies by enabling seamless data integration across disparate systems.

“The middle to back office, they’re no longer just a cost center,” Meghan Oakes, vice president of customer success at FIS, told PYMNTS. “They’re a value-added partner for everybody within the business. There are many different aspects of that middle to back office that are now at the forefront of how companies operate.”

Still, the data cloud is not a silver bullet. It comes with its own risks, many of which can be serious. Last year, the enterprise data cloud landscape witnessed a Snowflake data breach that snowballed to include AT&T, Santander Bank, Advance Auto Parts, Ticketmaster parent company LiveNation and over 160 of the world’s largest companies.

As enterprises continue to embrace the data cloud, the nature of enterprise software itself is evolving. Traditional record-keeping systems are giving way to intelligent platforms that leverage AI and automation to deliver actionable insights. This transformation could hold the potential to redefine how CFOs and finance teams operate in the coming years.

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