What are some examples of business process outsourcing for the finance and accounting industry?

If you’re a CEO, CFO or C-Suite Executive, you’re always looking for a competitive advantage - especially in today’s business landscape, with inflation and the cost of resources rising in a post-pandemic world.

One way to get a leg up on the competition is through business process outsourcing (BPO). Business process outsourcing allows you to focus on your vision, while a team of external specialists take care of specific business functions or processes. This strategic collaboration can help your organisation increase efficiency, drive innovation, and lower costs. 

Given the benefits, it’s no wonder business process outsourcing is gaining such popularity. According to Grand View Research, BPO is expected to expand at a compound annual growth rate of 9.4% from 2023 to 2030.

Four examples of business process outsourcing

To see some examples of business processing outsourcing in action, let’s look at four recent success stories from Sundaram Business Services.

1. Finance and Accounting support solutions 

Sundaram offers CFO support solutions for corporations, as well as Business Advisory Support for accounting firms. One of our clients, a leading 5-star hotel in Sydney, recently hired us to take on its processes and manage them remotely, with no onsite visits possible.

We were able to:

• Create efficiency gains of 20-25% through Lean Six Sigma tools
• Implement an extended office model that helped close the books two days after month-end (down from five days) 
• Maintain the credit recovery score at under 2% for the ageing bucket of 90+ days.

2. Administration and Audit Services for self-managed super funds (SMSFs)

We recently helped a leading accounting and business advisory firm streamline their Self-Managed Super Fund administration. Senthil Nathan, a Chartered Accountant who has been with Sundaram Business Services for 15 years, was crucial in this process. 

Senthil has extensive exposure in statutory audit, internal audit and tax audit across a range of industries such as banking, mining and manufacturing. He commenced his career in the back-office process of SMSF Audit and has had roles in operations, account management and transition.

Senthil and the Sundaram team helped our client:

• Achieve an 80% reduction in the amount of work related to accounts preparation
• Free up time for their staff to focus on high-value, client-facing activities
• Double the number of funds they managed.

3. Support for mortgage brokers, aggregators and lenders

Sundaram offers diversified mortgage lending, aggregation and broker support services to 3,600+ brokers across the country. One client in the mortgage industry recently approached us to help reduce operating costs, improve process efficiencies, and decrease turnaround time. 

Our approach involved implementing process controls, workflows, and streamlined communications for loan application processing. 

This helped our client to: 

• Achieve efficiencies in delivering information to its members 
• Maintain compliance with regulations
• Free up time to focus on business development and growth
• Significantly lower labour costs.

4. Portfolio Management services for fund managers

Sundaram offers Platform Support Services and Fund Administration Support Services, both of which are overseen by Srinath Srinivasan. Srinath has been with us for 12+ years, and has a wealth of experience in the mortgage industry. He has been instrumental in driving Business Re-engineering Workshops for clients, to eliminate non-value-added tasks in their businesses.

Recently, Srinath and the Sundaram team worked with a leading wealth management fintech company in Australia to manage investments, funds and units behind the scenes. This involved business automation, risk analysis, and quality orientation to streamline processes. 

With our help, the client was able to:

• Conduct same-day reporting and reconciliation
• Quadruple the number of fund managers
• Reduce manual intervention and eliminate privacy breaches.

Sundaram’s business process outsourcing is an extension of your team

The crucial aspect of successful business process outsourcing is that it helps your organisation, rather than hinders it. There’s no point in outsourcing to save time, for example, if you waste more hours with back-and-forth communication in the process.

According to the 2022 Global Outsourcing Survey by Deloitte, 22% of executives’ primary concern when selecting their outsourcing partner was the potential negative impact on company culture. This highlights the importance of selecting a partner that aligns with your values and plugs into your business like a seamless extension of your existing team.

“That’s what sets us apart from other outsourcing specialists,” said Ravi Elumalai, Sundaram’s Head of Business Excellence and Quality.

“Clients don’t just want someone to help them with critical tasks in their organisation. They want those tasks done in a manner that is consistent with how they do them internally. That’s exactly what the culture at Sundaram is all about – and it’s why we’re trusted by top-tier companies in Australia, New Zealand, and the UK.”

It’s a view shared by Sundaram’s clients, too.

“The team has supported our business and the values that SBS hold align completely with what we’re doing for our team and our business. Therefore, I envisage a long and prosperous relationship with SBS.”

-      Jayne Coppins, CompliFast Solutions Manager at QED Risk Services

To hear more from Jayne Coppins, check out the video testimonial on our YouTube channel.

Sundaram’s seamless customer engagement model

Another crucial factor behind Sundaram’s success is our seamless customer engagement model. Our customer engagement model includes:

• Ease of engagement: We provide comprehensive support from your initial inquiry to our first face-to-face meeting and throughout the entire engagement. Whether it's a short-term project or a long-term partnership, we are committed to assisting you in scaling up and adding value. Our approach is characterised by well-documented systems, continuous support, and a commitment to ongoing improvement.
• Governance and relationships: Our team will be an extension of your own – one you can work closely with and rely on at all times. We incorporate regular and detailed feedback, analysis, troubleshooting, and a proactive approach to identify areas for improvement.
• Risk management: We constantly monitor, assess and manage risk for business continuity, information security, operations and compliance. This ensures any risks to your organisation are minimised throughout every stage of the process.

By prioritising these three core aspects, we ensure a seamless customer experience that achieves favourable outcomes for our clients. We interact and engage with clients throughout their journey with us, from the initial contact right through to building a sustainable, long-term relationship.

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Sundaram Business Services is a business process outsourcing company with offices in Australia, India and the UK. With over 20 years’ experience in the Australian market in providing outsourced teams to Australian businesses across Accountancy, Portfolio Management, Self-Managed Super Funds, and Mortgage Broker support, our business becomes an extension of yours.