Finance Function Optimization

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Our consultants include executives who have held senior positions as CEO, CFO, and Controller. And they lead the way in current thinking and practices on finance issues, bringing genuine insight into real business issues. We are able to support finance executives to deliver value and excellence, improve governance and responsibilities, control and reporting, as well as mitigating key risks.

PwC focus areas in Finance & CPM are:

Finance Vision and Strategy

In the midst of all the talk about the finance function of the future, there’s been some troubling headlines suggesting the strategic role of the CFO and finance director is in jeopardy. Whether or not we believe the headlines, there is not doubt that the changing external regulatory environment and cost pressures from inside organizations have had a significant impact in recent times on the CFO’s agenda. These pressures have often been at the cost of the more visionary CFO’s desire to transform the finance function towards a more adaptive, resourceful and multi-talented function.

To realize their vision to fully transform the finance function into the long talked about “business partnering” role, CFOs need to address these challenging demands. Regulations have always evolved, but the overwhelming regulatory changes involved in the introduction of new regulations such as Sarbanes-Oxley and IFRS hit just as globalization’s impact on the business model was increasing demands from within the organization for finance to demonstrate its efficiency and add value to the business.

The challenge for CFOs is how their finance functions can demonstrate increased control whilst reducing costs, and at the same time be visibly adding the required insight into the business? The right balance can be found – and successfully implemented.

PwC has a proven track record of helping clients to formulate the approach that encompasses and balances all of these aspects. The finance functions can then demonstrate its management of the interplay between control, cost and efficiency in direct relation to the business strategy, and will have established for itself the structure and culture to react as the environment around it changes.

Back Office Operations

Our team assesses current operations and evaluates the costs and benefits of existing procedures and structures. This includes preparation of business cases for change, including risk assessments and mitigation programs. Alternative models, which are typically considered, include shared service centers and outsourced services, including local and offshore options. We are able to manage not only the structuring and implementation of service agreements with potential vendors, but also the implementation of internal shared service centers.

Reporting

We identify key process barriers to performance using activity and priority-based approaches. We design and implement new, efficient and effective processes appropriate to the environment, including the subsequent reporting and consolidation of information about organizational performance. We help our clients to reduce time for preparing consolidated reports and to optimize the way how such reports are created keeping the same quality and accuracy.

Finance Applications

Organizations today face a rapidly-changing strategic landscape that forces organizational change and stresses the fabric of enterprise applications that enable so many critical business processes. Increased merger and acquisition activity, challenges associated with global networks and markets, continued pressure associated with regulatory compliance, and the need for more customer intimacy are driving new investment in IT as parts of large-scale enterprise transformations.

PwC's advisory services practice helps finance departments to run their businesses the way they want to, leveraging IT as a critical enabler. Applying our industry knowledge around business models, processes, security, controls, and enterprise software, we help our clients achieve a more effective and efficient use of their technology.

PwC understands the fundaments of execution: why, where, how, and in what sequence critical elements such as strategy, structure, people, process and technology must be addressed and, even more importantly, integrated to create value. From this perspective, this strategic point of insight and advantage, we offer a range of finance application solutions that meet the needs of organizations embarking on enterprise transformation initiatives.