Finance and accounting BPO riskier than cloud, say CFOs

Many chief financial officers believe that cloud computing is too risky, but even more think that outsourcing finance and accounting processes to an offshore provider is too dangerous a strategy to pursue.

In a survey carried out by industry analyst Ovum, 29% of chief financial officers and executives at large UK and US companies said they viewed cloud computing as “posing an unacceptable risk”.

By contrast, 38% of respondents said that about offshoring finance and accounting processes to India, while 44% said the same about offshoring those processes to South or Central America.

Loyalty to in-house staff was cited as the primary obstacle to offshoring. “Concerns over losing control, which is traditionally seen as the biggest barrier, was pushed into joint second place with the worry that it would not save enough money to be worthwhile,” said Peter Ryan, the lead analyst at Ovum.

Respondents from organisations that do not offshore finance and accounting said they are unlikely to be persuaded to do by cost reductions under 20%. This result contrasts with the fact that half of those currently outsourcing said they would switch providers for a saving of 15%.

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Ben Rossi

Ben was Vitesse Media's editorial director, leading content creation and editorial strategy across all Vitesse products, including its market-leading B2B and consumer magazines, websites, research and...

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