How to facilitate finance processes through the managed services solution

The results of the CFO Barometer show why companies should outsource managed services.

The most recent CFO Barometer reveals that CFOs are concerned about finance processes with a major impact on their teams and the time spent on these processes. The underlying question is: how then can CFOs make these processes more efficient? Do CFOs need to assign more people or do they need to turn to tools or outsourcing?

Skills and time constraints

56% of respondents indicate that available resources and time are often used inefficiently and ineffectively. 60% state that understaffing is not the problem. Instead, they attribute this inefficiency to a lack of time or proper skills. Concerning skills, it is clear that the war for talent is in full sway as 85% say it is difficult to find the right people.

The outsourcing situation

Over half of the respondents (55%) do not think about outsourcing certain tasks. The majority (81%) indicate that they want to retain a certain amount of control and therefore they only partially outsource a select few processes like the preparation of the financial close. Yet CFOs could also outsource other repetitive tasks to save time, such as compliance, administration, preparing reports for analysis, preparing internal management reports, etc. 

So, what is holding them back? The risk that certain (sensitive) internal information will be disclosed. However, that risk is ultimately no greater than that incurred when outsourcing payroll to an external payroll provider – something that CFOs do more often. Therefore, the possibilities of outsourcing these processes does not warrant the level of distrust we see among CFOs. Given the continuing tight labor market, we expect outsourcing to systematically increase in the future.

After all, employees are much more likely to quit when they have to do things outside their field of interest. However, many CFOs think that so-called loan staff or the temporary hiring of specialists is the only solution to this problem. But finding profiles and figuring out what tasks to give them once consolidation has been completed is difficult and time-consuming in its own right. So, despite CFO concerns, the managed services concept proves to be a win-win situation.

EY and managed services

Managed services are a relatively new service offered by EY in many of its different divisions. In our model, the client officer is the single point of contact for the company that wishes to hire us. This person is responsible for aligning the client with the desired service, timing, and deliverables. The requested reports are then prepared/processed by our systems and people, with the client officer taking care of the communication flows to the client. General awareness of these services is still in its infancy, but we strongly believe that this new trend is set to accelerate.