The finance function is under pressure to enhance its value contribution to the business, deliver information and maintain effective controls in line with ever changing governance needs. It is at the same time being subject to continuing internal demands to reduce the cost of its operations. In combination, these pressures create a challenging environment for the finance function.
It’s becoming increasingly incumbent on Finance Functions to demonstrate the value it adds to the business and to identify bottom line growth opportunities. Given this backdrop, many finance functions are in a quandary. They are unsure how to demonstrate whether they are delivering real value to the business and to what extent they meet best practice standards for world class Finance Functions.
PwC’s Solution:
We use the Finance Function Effectiveness Diagnostic (FFED) to provide a 360° view of the Finance Function, highlighting potential barriers to achieving Finance Function Effectiveness. We use this diagnostic to assist our clients to re-engineer and change the face of the Finance Function to become more efficient in its day-to-day activities thereby enabling it to add real value and advisory support to the organisation as a whole.
The Finance Function Effectiveness Diagnostic assesses 15 focus segments within the Finance Function to provide:
- Comfort to the Board;
- A health check on the value of governance;
- Comparison to world-class benchmarks; and
- A blueprint for Finance’s future direction.
PwC provide comprehensive Finance Function Effectiveness services, including:
- Benchmarking of Finance processes and practices to identify performance gaps and issues;
- Visioning of the overall Finance Function, considering organisation, process, people and technology;
- Developing Finance policies and control frameworks, factoring in all relevant business, regulatory, governance and internal control requirements;
- Designing best of breed Finance organisations, including mapping of roles and responsibilities of corporate, business unit and shared services Finance groups;
- Identifying opportunities for shared services and outsourcing/co-sourcing delivery models
- Designing detailed Finance transaction processing and reporting processes including business intelligence; and
- Delivering programs for large-scale, multi-work stream transformational initiatives.
