By Sergi Lemus and Caroline Leies
Finance departments operate amid a constant stream of disruptions: talent scarcity, rapidly evolving technology, emerging environmental, social, and governance (ESG) standards. But no matter how many external risks, regulatory changes, and market shocks roll in, chief financial officers are expected to deliver business insights with ever more speed, efficiency, flexibility, and control.
Tax directors, in turn, need to meet increasing demands for tax transparency, comply with new rules, and feed into business insights—often through technology systems that haven’t kept pace with regulatory changes.
To thread that needle, the modern CFO must make constant refinements to their strategy: What’s the best mix of in-house and external resources? How can we use new technologies to operate and transform essential finance functions? How can we make finance processes more flexible and adaptable? Which tax processes need to be merged into finance systems? And how can we deliver on our objectives as efficiently and effectively as possible?
From Outsourcing to Process Transformation
Finance departments have traditionally responded to such pressures by moving tasks into shared services centers, or outsourcing to cut costs and do more with less.
Yet today’s complex challenges—exacerbated by widespread skill shortages, rapidly evolving technologies such as generative AI (gen AI), and ever-changing global regulations—demand a different kind of support. That means CFOs need strategic partners that combine specialized talent, technology, transformation experience, and operational management to cut costs; access hard-to-source talent, capabilities, and technologies; evolve internal processes; and minimize risk.
A good service partner can efficiently operate the standard finance functions, such as payroll, compliance, and invoicing. The most innovative partners, however, also transform the processes to deliver sustainable long-term business value. The goal isn’t simply “reduce headcount” or “save money.” It’s a question: How can improving processes deliver better business outcomes year over year?
The answer lies in focusing on and delivering against such outcome-oriented metrics as optimized working capital, improved billing and payment cycles, improved compliance, and real-time reporting.
An Outcome-Oriented Model
Three organizational scenarios show how an outcome-oriented finance operating model can be extremely effective:
• Large technology modernization. Major projects such as enterprise resource planning (ERP) migrations and upgrades to meet regulatory compliance requirements demand significant time and money. But instead of bringing in separate vendors for business process optimization, technology implementation, and change management, finance departments can choose a single provider with