ACCOUNTANCY INSIGHT and strategy is more valuable than the more traditional focus on transactions and costs, a new report has concluded.
CIMA’s survey, From Efficiency to Effectiveness: Transforming the Finance Delivery Mix, revealed finance professionals who consider their organisation “high performing” focus more on management support and are strong when it comes to transformed and collaborative finance functions.
By contrast, less successful respondents continued to place firm emphasis on traditional accounting operations.
Shantanu Ghosh, senior vice-president of Practices, Solutions and Transitions at report sponsor Genpact, said: “Many finance functions are evolving to provide more high-value insight and strategy rather than just focusing on accounting transactions and costs.”
Despite cost considerations, the survey shows that 60% of participants use or plan to use external finance services in a bid to add capacity and boost the effectiveness of financial processes.
Paul Blackburn, group financial controller of GlaxoSmithKline, said process management specialist Genpact had helped GSK improve its audit and increase the effectiveness of its services.
CIMA surveyed 3,000 finance and senior managers around the world, considering how finance services will be delivered in future and the way in which professionals can help meet company objectives through management support.