In its study “Outsourcing Finance Processes: Opportunity or Risk for the CFO?”, the market analysis and consulting firm Pierre Audoin Consultans (PAC) came to the conclusion that the use of external service providers in the field of finance and accounting is now well established in the DACH region. Already 61 percent of the companies surveyed make use of corresponding services for their accounting.
The most common form of support emerged as consulting services, for example for the establishment of GBS or shared service structures or for process optimization. However, 70 percent of companies have so far limited themselves to individual projects when using external service providers in finance and accounting. After all, around 20 percent rely on the outsourcing of sub-processes to optimize their Q&A area.
The survey of more than 200 financial decision-makers from German, Austrian and Swiss companies showed that the relevance of so-called business process outsourcing (BPO) in the F&A sector is not only increasing in large companies, but also in small and medium-sized companies. Although most of them have so far only outsourced individual process areas or sub-processes, they have done so to a considerable extent. For example, 43 percent of companies that rely on BPO service providers for treasury currently outsource more than a third of their total finance and accounting activities.
According to the PAC study, companies’ experiences with F&A BPO service providers to date have been quite positive. 94 percent of outsourcing companies stated that they were satisfied with their F&A service providers. According to their own statements, about 25 percent of those surveyed have even had very good experiences. The fact that business relationships work when outsourcing finance, accounting and accounting can also be concluded from the more than three years of cooperation with the respective service provider, which 78 percent of the study participants report.
A similar situation can be seen in BPO strategies, in which near- or offshore branches the F&A service provider is used. This affects about 40 percent of the cooperations. However, many companies are still uncertain about the outsourcing of F&A processes abroad. More than two-thirds of those who have no experience in this area cannot yet imagine near- or offshoring their financial processes.
The biggest concerns about outsourcing in finance and accounting are the loss of know-how and security issues. In particular, there are questions of how to handle sensitive and confidential data in order to ensure valuable relationships with employees, customers and suppliers and to ensure the controllability of business transactions. The reservations are particularly great where there is no experience in the field of treasury outsourcing. F&A service providers who want to gain the trust of companies must prove their skills, for example through reference projects, and, above all, respond to the specific requirements of interested parties in the DACH region.
Despite the concerns, numerous companies want to expand their cooperation with external service providers, according to the PAC survey. They expect this primarily to reduce costs and compensate for the shortage of skilled workers. The most important aspects in the selection of a partner include their industry know-how and the quality of the project team.
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