Outsourcing the entire transaction processing to a third ­party vendor that can deliver the entire value chain for less money with clear Service Level Agreements. However, Chief ­Finance Officers will have to be aware that the management of Service Levels requires a special skill-set that is not typical for a Chief Finance Officer department, but is the key for a successful Outsourcing. Furthermore, it should be kept in mind that a re-integration is likely to come at a high cost. 

Chief Finance Officers should also consider “cloud computing” as a special case of outsourcing provided for by the likes of Google, Amazon, IBM and Microsoft. Cloud computing is a rebranded form of “utility computing” whereby computing becomes a utility that you simply plug in to. However, cloud computing is not about handing over management of data centers. Instead, it is about buying standardized IT capabilities ­(memory, storage, processing power, software) on demand, over the Internet, billed according to usage. In that way, Chief ­Finance Officers might be able to reduce or completely get rid off their servers and fixed assets and tap a virtualized pool of computing resources via an interface as simple as a web browser. As a result, capital expenditures and operating expenditures for ­Finance ­related IT resources can be drastically reduced. However, the challenges of the classical outsourcing remain: Outsourcing ­requires strong governance and clearly structured processes! 

Introduce business performance measurement: Basic analytical performance measurement methods, such as Activity Based Costing (ABC), should be introduced to improve financial planning and management. Based on the ABC methodology more complex ­financial analysis on key business aspects can be conducted, such as Profit and Loss statements at a Service, Channel and ­Customer Segment levels. In addition to that, Chief Finance Officers will have to consider the appropriate communication strategy to equip all vital business stakeholders with this information regularly while keeping administrative work low and avoiding large scale IT investments.  

Streamline the finance organization: The results of the above mentioned performance measurement methods will help the Chief Finance Officer to identify major bottlenecks and problem areas and provide a good baseline for re-shuffling the Finance department. This will help the Chief Finance Officer to evolve from the role of a “Scorekeeper” to a “Business Partner”. Effectively, it means that major organizational changes will have to be implemented in the operational, tactical and strategic ­Finance activities.