Finance Turning to Outsourced Digital Solutions, ISG Says

STAMFORD, Conn., Sept. 25, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Finance leaders are relying on outsourced digital solutions to make real-time and forward-looking business decisions and streamline work, according to new study from Information Services Group (ISG) (Nasdaq: III), a leading global technology research and advisory firm, that evaluates providers in the finance and accounting outsourcing (FAO) space.

The ISG Provider Lens™ FAO Digital Outsourcing Services Quadrant Report finds corporate finance organizations are seeking greater speed and agility and stronger integration with the business by leveraging advanced data analytics, automation and cloud-based services, while piloting blockchain technology to improve visibility into financial transactions.

"CFOs now require anytime, anywhere information to make business decisions faster," said Esteban Herrera, partner and global leader of ISG Research. "Finance is no longer just a support function; it's a key player in enabling strategy and operations. And with the faster pace of digital business, CFOs are under increasing pressure to leverage emerging technologies that allow them to adapt quickly to changing business conditions and regulatory environments."

Dashboards powered by advanced analytics and fueled by increasing volumes of data are allowing finance executives to monitor and mitigate financial risk, reduce days sales outstanding, and take prescriptive action to improve cash flow. Robotic Process Automation (RPA), meanwhile, is streamlining such processes as order-to-cash, procure-to-pay and record-to-report, with productivity improving, in many cases, by triple-digit percentages. Artificial intelligence is moving beyond optical character recognition (OCR) technology to natural language processing (NLP) capabilities that enable the automation of more complex work, such as fraud detection and exception handling.

The ISG report said cloud solutions are being leveraged to improve collaboration among finance functions and across the business. Such solutions, which eliminate costly software upgrades and remain current, are becoming more common, with vendors like NetSuite offering off-the-shelf products that comply with the latest regulations and accounting standards.

Providers such as IBM, Wipro and Conduent are stepping up their investments in blockchain, as demand heats up for the distributed-ledger technology. Many enterprises are running trials and have a small number of live implementations underway, the report notes.

Beyond technology and service provision, finance organizations are turning to providers to help them embrace design thinking – aimed at integrating front-, mid- and back-office functions to achieve seamless customer service and deliver enhanced business outcomes – and to leverage organizational change management to help employees quickly adapt to business transformation.

The ISG Provider Lens FAO Digital Outsourcing Services Quadrant Report evaluates 20 providers across four quadrants – Global Consulting and Global Digital Operations, and U.S. Consulting and U.S. Digital Operations. Accenture, EXL, Genpact, IBM, Infosys and Wipro were named leaders across all four quadrants.

The ISG Provider Lens FAO Digital Outsourcing Services Quadrant Report is available to ISG Insights™ subscribers or for immediate, one-time purchase on this webpage. A customized version of the report also is available from HCL.

About ISG Provider Lens™ Quadrant Research

The ISG Provider Lens™ Quadrant research series is the only service provider evaluation of its kind to combine empirical, data-driven research and market analysis with the real-world experience and observations of ISG's global advisory team. Enterprises will find a wealth of detailed data and market analysis to help guide their selection of appropriate sourcing partners, while ISG advisors use the reports to validate their own market knowledge and make recommendations to ISG's enterprise clients. For more information about ISG Provider Lens research, please visit this webpage.

The series is a complement to the ISG Provider Lens Archetype reports, which offer a first-of-its-kind evaluation of providers from the perspective of specific buyer types. Click here for more information about the previously published ISG Provider Lens Archetype report on FAO Digital Outsourcing.

About ISG

ISG (Information Services Group) (Nasdaq: III) is a leading global technology research and advisory firm. A trusted business partner to more than 700 clients, including 75 of the top 100 enterprises in the world, ISG is committed to helping corporations, public sector organizations, and service and technology providers achieve operational excellence and faster growth. The firm specializes in digital transformation services, including automation, cloud and data analytics; sourcing advisory; managed governance and risk services; network carrier services; technology strategy and operations design; change management; market intelligence and technology research and analysis. Founded in 2006, and based in Stamford, Conn., ISG employs more than 1,300 professionals operating in more than 20 countries—a global team known for its innovative thinking, market influence, deep industry and technology expertise, and world-class research and analytical capabilities based on the industry's most comprehensive marketplace data. For more information, visit www.isg-one.com.

SOURCE Information Services Group, Inc.

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