Most of the large organizations across the globe have created a center for Finance Business Services of some form or the other. Largely these centers have been set up with a concentrated and a conscious effort with a proper strategy in place. In some random cases, the Finance center came into existence simply by co-locating all the finance processes under the same roof or at times on the same floor. In some of the cases, centers were set up merely due to industry or peer pressure

Irrespective of the reason why the Finance Business Service Centre came into existence, all such centers have shown positive outcomes for their parent organizations and are now probably at different stages of maturity. Some have moved in early and evolved rapidly while others have had the late mover advantage – that of others’ hindsight. Whatever stage of maturity the center might be at today, the common theme has probably been "Cost Efficiency” - the primary driver for setting up the center in the first place. Over the years these centers have been focusing on continuous improvement initiatives, FTE efficiencies, timeliness of response, improvement in the process key performance indicators, process standardization, process effectiveness, labour arbitrage benefits, benchmarking with the best-in-class, adoption of state-of-the-art tools, improving user experience and even focusing on value creation for the functions supported.

We initially setup our Global Finance Centre (GFC) with the principal intention of
consolidating all of finance and accounting processes in one place. Later on,
gears were shifted to focus on business priorities and creating value for the
markets by supporting and providing actionable insights.

We, at Whirlpool Corporation, a Fortune 500 multinational manufacturer and marketer of home appliances initially setup our Global Finance Centre (GFC) with the principal intention of consolidating all of finance and accounting processes in one place. Later on, gears were shifted to focus on business priorities and creating value for the markets by supporting and providing actionable insights.

The focus shift had a positive impact on the perception towards the center. As the center moved up the value chain, a structured approach got adopted towards process migrations, delivering committed KPIs and creating tangible value to the business.

All the basic attributes of a shared services center were embedded well into our set-up and the center continued to strive towards global standards. Soon the scope got expanded beyond our home region and the center began supporting other regions as well. In addition, over time, the center and its leadership developed capabilities in non-finance and reporting processes.

The Global Finance Centre

The GFC’s objective is to re-shape the corporate thinking to adopt the SSC as a part of the larger BPM strategy, where the primary driver is to focus on the core processes and create capacity for increased business partnering. Additionally the advantages of creating such a strategy is to reap the benefits of:

  • Process Standardization
  • Cost Efficiencies
  • Continuous Improvement
  • Access to global talent pool
  • Capitalizing on Time Zone difference
 

The operating model at GFC is primarily business facing and the team(s)/ sub-verticals have been structured accordingly. For instance, all F&A activities related to a region fall under the same vertical lead. A vertical lead is responsible for all activities supported for the region and has further sub-leads to support individual process streams. Team members are cross trained to avoid any delivery disruption. SLAs for query response time are set and the intention is to achieve the response time @100%. A query ticketing tool has been developed to measure both response and resolution time for the processes. Post every monthly operating review, ratings are taken from the stakeholders to measure customer satisfaction index. Global reporting has been enabled through pre-defined formats with in-built flexibility, which serves as self-service model for the stakeholders as they are able to view different cuts as per their requirements.

Adopting New-age Technologies

With the advent of digital wave, there is a visible shift in focus with implementation of newer technologies and automation of the processes.

New-age technologies such as Robotics are in everyone's radar and most of the centres have either implemented, running a pilot with a proof of concept or in the process of evaluation.

The question that the centers should be asking is
"How to stay relevant?"

At GFC, automation through technology has made operations more effective and efficient. Most of the operations/ processes are already partially automated and various tools/ technologies are in the process of evaluation for complete process automation.

We believe that automation of transactional processes with an objective of cost efficiency and productivity improvements paves the way to upward movement in the value chain with a strong focus on analytical capabilities.

Even for adopting Robotics, the focus of the finance centre, due to the very DNA it was built on, would be to look at a positive business case. A common question that immediately crosses the mind is "How would this technology help to reduce the cost of the centre?" If the business case is not positive due to lack of scale or standardisation, or too many process exceptions, should the finance centres drop the initiative and not consider such new-age technologies at all? With "Cost" at the focal point of it all, a centre may or may not consider implementing robotics at this stage depending on other factors including, but not limited to, improving end-user experience, design thinking and cost appetite. The best part is even if the center does not implement now, there will be a lot of focus on removing exceptions and standardizing processes. The reality is, as it is with every rapidly evolving technology, there would a time, in not too distant future that all the transactional processes that are supported by the finance shared services (almost 70%-80% of the total share of work) will either be fully automated or become touch-less.

Therefore, the question that the centers should be asking is "How to stay relevant?" The Finance Business Services would need to move away from the traditional approach and create a modern, new-age business service.

A New-age Business Service

This leads to a few questions, for Instance, “What needs to change to be relevant? What will happen to the existing workforce? What should be the focus areas? What would be the service offerings?” There is no easy recourse to "How to stay relevant?" and evolve as a new-age business service.

Clearly the service needs to become a trusted strategic business partner and contribute to the top Line and profitability of the organization. In order to transform from a simple support system to a trusted strategic business partner, significant contribution would be necessary to help the business take informed decisions. Business decisions are based on the insights provided by data. The finance centers have access to gigabytes of data.

Significant contributions can be made to the top line by providing data analytics - both timely and accurately. While technology fully supports the speed of data availability on real time basis at a click of a button, however in order to be accurate, the reliance on data has to be of the highest order. Therefore, one of the focus areas for the new-age Finance Business Services is to ensure data integrity. Data governance is the key. Emphasis should be on ensuring that the data captured is accurate and cleaned up on regular basis.

A Finance business service intending to setup such technologies needs to understand the business environment in a much more detailed manner. Pursuing common goals as defined by the business is another area of prime importance.

From working in a siloed approach as a back-end support function to understanding the overall ecosystem in which the business operates is a big shift. End-to-end understanding of the different functions and departments in order to provide recommendations taking into consideration the business and market nuances is critical.

Adoption of a cross-functional approach helps partnering with multiple functions/ departments and changes the perception of the Finance Business Services. Integration of multi-functional business services has become a reality with the head of the business services reporting directly to the CEO of the organization. This is when the true strategic business partnership is initiated.

Self-service is the new normal. Finance Business Services acts as a business helpdesk and depending on the business requirement creates tools/ applications wherein data is pulled from ERPs and relevant information provided. Once the application is created, the user is able to use that in a self-service mode, reducing regular dependency on finance business services. Technology continues to be the focus area with design thinking principles, keeping in mind the last level in the organization.

People Strategy at GFC

People have always been the greatest assets and ultimate differentiators at GFC. In order for new-age Finance Business Services to stay relevant, its workforce will have to become relevant. Workforce DNA needs to undergo a massive change with professionals of today who understand data and are able to analyze to provide business intelligence - professionals that understand and speak the business language and are tech savvy. Investment in workforce is a must to enhance existing skills within or buy talent externally.

We continue to empower, engage and motivate our employees
by delivering on the intangibles that our people value the most.

This is strictly followed at GFC and our employees feel empowered to do their best. We believe in creating an energizing vision for employees and an environment that supports them to stretch happily. We continue to empower, engage and motivate our employees by delivering on the intangibles that our people value the most. The ‘GFC Employee Value Proposition’ is depicted as below:

Specialist teams at GFC are interacting directly with third party consultants to implement new and modern innovative tools, techniques and professional methodologies that can be easily replicated across in order to create more meaning and efficient service offerings to the customers. A shift in skill set of the resources to be more business and tech savvy and be able to provide actionable insights to the business has resulted in stepping up of the GFC in the value chain from traditional/ transactional processing support to end-to-end accounting and controllership for few regions augmenting the top line for specific businesses, global reporting, improved FP&A activities, analytics on business case, case modelling, case simulation and data analytics.

GFC has come to be known as a value creation unit throughout the business units.

Quoting Peter Drucker, "The best way to predict the future is to create it". GFC is evolving rapidly – focusing on data integrity and governance, working closely with multiple functions and departments in an integrated manner and speaking their language, aligning our goals with that of the business, creating an environment for self-service and investment in workforce. We believe this is an imperative to staying relevant and paving the way to be a trusted strategic business partner.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Sharad Malhotra

Sharad Malhotra is Senior Director and Head of Global Finance Centre at Whirlpool India and has more than two decades of cross functional experience in Finance and Accounting, Procurement Operations, HR Back Office support, Customer Services and Supply Chain Management Processes with history of working with a third-party service provider and a captive shared services.

He has managed large scale operations across multiple geographies during his tenure with Genpact, apart from service delivery, his experience in Genpact covers a wide variety of roles including transition/project management, driving transformation agenda, implementing RPA, creating solutions as part of deal pursuits and customer relationship management.

He currently leads the cross functional and multi-regional Shared Services at Whirlpool, India. He is passionate about driving value for the stakeholders. He and his team have received multiple recognition from regional CFO and global stakeholders and are striving towards becoming a true strategic partner to the business.