Strategic F&A Outsourcing Evolving into Higher-Level Processes

The finance and accounting (F&A) industry is evolving amid the ongoing pandemic as outsourcing of processes requiring professional judgment outpaces outsourcing of routine transactional processes. Enterprise preference for multitower F&A outsourcing deals is increasing, and they are looking for providers who can leverage platform strategy and business process outsourcing capabilities together to effectively transition from legacy systems to their modern counterparts, powered by emerging technologies.

These emerging trends are covered in Avasant’s F&A Business Process Transformation 2021–2022 RadarView™. The report is a comprehensive study of F&A providers, including top trends, analysis, recommendations, and a close look at leaders, innovators, disruptors, and challengers in this market.

Avasant evaluated more than 35 providers across three parameters of practice maturity, domain ecosystem, and investments and innovation. Of the more than 35, we recognized 21 providers who brought the most value to the market during the past 12 months.

The report recognizes providers in four categories:

• • Leaders: Accenture, Capgemini, Genpact, IBM, Infosys, TCS, and Wipro
  • Innovators: Cognizant, DXC, EXL, HCL, and WNS
  • Disruptors: Conduent, Exela Technologies, NTT DATA, Sutherland, and Tech Mahindra
  • Challengers: Concentrix, Datamatics, IQ BackOffice, and Sopra Steria

Figure 1 from the full report illustrates these categories:

“F&A outsourcing is a great way for business leaders to ensure business continuity, which was tested by the pandemic,” said Avasant Partner Srinivas Krishna. In response to the increased demand, F&A service providers are scaling up their capabilities, leveraging emerging technologies, their domain experience, and strategic alliances.”

The full report provides a number of findings and recommendations, including the following:

• • Enterprise interest in outsourcing F&A processes involving professional judgment is driving growth in head count for F&A providers, even though most of the service provider head count is still dedicated to transactional processes.
  • Enterprises want to leverage combined platform and business process management capabilities of providers by pursuing multitower F&A deals.
  • North America is leading the demand for F&A outsourcing and the most reliable source of revenue for providers amid the pandemic.
  • The F&A partnership ecosystem is witnessing growth as providers are increasing their platform capabilities via partnerships and developing joint solutions.
  • As data security gains importance, enterprises are keen to adopt blockchain in their F&A outsourcing processes to enhance transparency, traceability, and real-time data access.
  • Product enhancements, expanding service portfolios, new offerings, and investments will be the focus areas in the future for F&A providers.

“F&A outsourcing is gradually evolving,” said Avasant’s Research Leader Shwetank Saini. “Enterprises are now much more open to incorporate emerging technologies and give F&A providers more strategic responsibilities beyond lower level outsourcing of transactional processes.,”

The full report also features detailed RadarView profiles of 21 providers, along with their solutions, offerings, and experience in assisting enterprises in digital finance transformation.

This Research Byte is a brief overview of the F&A Business Process Transformation 2021–2022 RadarView™ (click for pricing).