As businesses strive to accomplish more from less, there is intense pressure to lower operational and transactional costs within departments. In doing so, businesses can gain from the constrained level of resources such as low-cost global talent, reduced capital and basic infrastructure that they are currently operating in.

In most companies, there exists an inherent division between the various divisions and the finance function this is especially so in the case of marketing. The Chief Financial Officer (CFO) is, more often than not, viewed as someone who is intent on slashing the marketing budget; while the CFO is of the opinion that the marketing team fails to effectively explain the basis and return on investment on communication spends. The result is the creation of silos between the two departments. From the point of view of the marketing team, this division can often lead to lack of financial commitments to marketing and sales campaigns. On the other hand, finance executives like to point out that without their stewardship, marketing can let costs get out of hand. The fact is that finance team can be an effective partner to achieve any business goal. Hence, Re-devising Finance and Accounting Services is one of the key drivers of business effectiveness today.

Continuing our series on Customer Experience Innovation, this article discusses innovation within the customer experience via Re-devising Finance and Accounting Services. Customer Experience Innovation is one of the four key management disciplines identified by the Corporate Executive Board towards achieving 'Intelligent Growth'. How Finance and Accounting Services could 'outperform' through 'intelligent growth' is outlined below.
Key Imperatives for Finance and Accounting to Achieve Outperformance
An intelligent growth agenda requires the following vital components for the Finance and Accounting (F&A) function:

Ensuring F&A is a strategic partner and catalyst for growth enabling the timely and successful execution of strategic growth (revenue through new markets, products, geographies) and operational (business platform transformation) plans
Reducing the cost-to-serve for finance departments improving the productivity of finance as a percentage of revenue
Orchestrating business value networks, while optimizing the total capital employed across the extended supply chain (such as first and second tier suppliers, distributors)

A 2008 study by Deloitte, A Strategic Approach to Organizing the Finance Function, suggests that most F&A teams (almost 60 percent) still tend to focus on their traditional roles as being the custodian and manager of tangible and intangible corporate assets versus donning the strategic role of orchestrating value networks (such as supply chain management, business intelligence, decision support) and being in charge of the allocation of resources based on objective insights.