“Factory of numbers” as an alternative to the traditional finance departments

The concept of shared service centers (also known as “factories of numbers” for the finance function) has been common used by multinational industrial groups for a few years now. While trying to cut costs, improve quality and focus on key business, it is more efficient to integrate the back-office functions into one entity, while the operative group subsidiaries can focus on their business. The traditional solution, in which each subsidiary has its own finance, payroll and IT department is quite expensive and outsourcing to external partners bears many risks.

Is it possible to compare the processes which are provided by the finance departments to processes performed in a factory? Is it possible to transform the traditional finance departments into effective service providers acting in an organized market?[...] >>Download the full version from here

Magdalena Szarafin
http://www.szarafin.info