Gartner Finance Symposium/Xpo 2026 National Harbor: Day 2 Highlights

We are bringing you news and highlights from the Gartner Finance Symposium/Xpo 2026, taking place this week in National Harbor, MD. Below is a collection of key announcements and insights coming out of the conference.

On day two of the conference we are highlighting the sessions Champion Cloud ERP Finance Change by Doing Three Things, Market Trends and Magic Quadrant Insights for Cloud ERP Finance, and Three Profitability Analyses Every CFO Should Be Using. Be sure to check this page throughout the day for updates.

• Gartner Says CFOs Gain a Competitive Advantages from Strategic AI Deployment, Not AI Spending Levels 
• Gartner Says CFOs Must Stop Mistaking Finance AI Deployment for Value Creation
• Gartner Says CFOs Risk Falling Behind Without a Scalable AI Strategy

Presented by Matt Monopoli, Director Analyst, Gartner

Cloud ERP creates a continuous stream of change at a cadence that finance is often not structured to absorb. In this session, Matt Monopoli, Director Analyst at Gartner, argued that go-live is not the destination but a step in an ongoing journey, and that finance leaders need a more targeted approach.

• Traditional change approaches are falling short in cloud ERP, with 77% of finance leaders reporting ongoing change management problems.
• First, finance teams need to reframe how they prepare for change, starting earlier because in cloud ERP the impact of change begins well before go-live.
• Second, they need to manage change at the role level where vendor-driven releases actually have the most impact, and where program-level reporting often misses.
• Third, they need to validate whether change is taking hold, sustaining performance and reducing risk over time. This involves building a capability for continuous change absorption, using fit-for-purpose metrics.
• Organizations that take these steps can reduce change fatigue through proactive capacity protection and improve adoption with each subsequent Cloud ERP release. 

Journalists can receive additional information and/or request an interview with Matt Monopoli by contacting Rob van der Meulen at rob.vandermeulen@gartner.com.

Presented by Mike Helsel, Senior Director Analyst, Gartner

The cloud ERP finance market is evolving quickly as AI becomes more practical and more deeply embedded in vendor roadmaps. In this session, Mike Helsel, Senior Director Analyst at Gartner, outlined three key trends shaping the market, and he said AI will only deliver meaningful value when it sits on top of a modern, integrated and trusted cloud ERP foundation.

• Three trends are driving the market: AI-driven automation and optimization, intelligent analytics and conversational interfaces, and compliance and risk management.
• Cloud ERP capabilities now span a broad maturity range, from manual and rule-based processes to predictive, autonomous and self-optimizing finance operations.
• The market is advancing quickly, but the right choice depends on how well a vendor’s capabilities align to your organization’s strategic goals and operational needs.
• CFOs should evaluate vendors by combining market insight with a clear view of the capabilities that matter most to their finance function.

Journalists can receive additional information and/or request an interview with Mike Helsel by contacting Rob van der Meulen at rob.vandermeulen@gartner.com.

Presented by Michelle Carlsen, Director Analyst, Gartner

In this session, Michelle Carlsen, Director Analyst at Gartner, explained the three essential approaches to profitability analysis, product, customer and channel profitability, that help finance leaders uncover hidden value, address margin pressures and support sustainable performance improvement. By applying these methods, CFOs can generate actionable insights that inform better decisions and foster cross-functional alignment.

• Product-level profitability helps organizations understand which offerings are economically healthy and which quietly dilute margin.
• Customer profitability analysis evaluates profitability by customer segment to help organizations prioritize relationships, refine pricing strategies and optimize service levels for maximum value.
• Channel profitability assesses the economics of routes to market, exposing structural margin strengths and weaknesses that guide scaling, incentive and go-to-market decisions. 
• Consistent, progressively refined cost allocations across products, customers and units is essential for meaningful profitability analysis and informed decision making.
• Turning profitability insight into action requires embedding it into leadership decisions, enabling cross-functional trade-offs around pricing, service levels, channel design and growth priorities.

Journalists can receive additional information and/or request an interview with Michelle Carlsen by contacting Rob van der Meulen at rob.vandermeulen@gartner.com.