Alternative structures

In this lesson

1. 0:00 Finance function structures overview
2. 0:15 Business partnering approach explained
3. 0:48 Outsourcing financial services
4. 2:52 Shared service centres model
5. 3:36 Advantages of centralised services

About this lesson

Understanding these models is essential for the Finance Leadership Programme and strategic finance roles, as organisations increasingly adopt flexible approaches to deliver financial services more effectively. Business partnering represents a collaborative approach where finance works closely with other departments like operations, marketing, and sales rather than operating in isolation. This structure improves alignment with business goals, enhances communication across functions, and allows finance professionals to deliver greater strategic value. It's now a standard structure in many larger organisations seeking to integrate financial thinking into business decision-making. Outsourcing involves engaging third-party providers to handle specific financial processes such as bookkeeping, payroll, tax, or accounts payable. The key advantages are potential cost savings through specialised providers, access to expertise you may not recruit internally, and the ability to focus your internal team on higher-value, strategic work rather than routine transactions. Shared service centres consolidate finance work into centralised locations that serve multiple parts of the business, often across different countries in global organisations. This model delivers standardisation and efficiency by operating consistent processes organisation-wide, eliminates duplication, scales easily as the business grows, and improves reporting and analytics through consolidated data and centralised expertise.

Duration: 4m