It is a constant challenge for financial executives to transform a finance department into a division that can perform value added services for the company. Before the finance department can enter the business partnering role, some back yard cleaning has to be done, which hopefully will lead to an efficient and effective finance department.

The steps that the financial executive will use include:

• Eliminate any duplication of processess. Firstly by documenting the process from end-to-end, identifying duplication of process & the action plans to eliminate it.

• Simplify processes that are most probably be outdated or processes that have been over- engineered to meet the present business requirements. This is done by reviewing the processes & remove any complexities that do not deliver requisite business benefits

• Standardise wherever possible so that the company uses only a single process and a single technology. Don’t belittle the concept of “flow-through”. We don’t need to use the best of class system in each and every process, one single systems will do.

• Do more automation looking at the ROI or costs versus benefits approach. Always look for certain key elements in the process to be automated so as to reduce transaction cost per se.

• With a big group of companies, you need to do proper consolidation for all the finance processes. Do explore the financial strategy of deploying the shared service centre.

• For those low value transaction processing process, do try to explore the possibility of outsourcing. Now, it’s a common place to outsource preparation of cheques for accounts payable, processing of receipts of collections from accounts receivables and many others. Bankers or service providers are all willing to do the job at a fraction of your finance costs.

• Last but not least, always imbue your staff with a culture or habit of Continuous Improvement. It’s definitely crucial as we are facing constant competition and globalization. Finance functions need to be vigilant and alert to the business needs. Wherever possible, we should institute a framework that gives employees incentives to improve their working methods and performance

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• Initiatives To Drive Faster Close
• Faster Close: Reasons Or Justifications
• The Changing Role of Finance: Business Partnering- A Small Example ( Part 5)
• The Changing Role Of Finance Function: Strategies To Transform ( Part 3)
• Outsourcing The Accounting Function ( Part 1)