Addressing key pain points in project finance with finance operations consulting
Summary
Post-pandemic, the business landscape is still volatile and economic growth is slow for advanced economies. In this environment, businesses need to be adamant about setting up resilient processes for long-term continuity. As financial operations are vital for any business project, supporting services like finance operations consulting have a lot to offer.
Streamlining financial processes to improve efficiency, optimising spend management to support the bottom line, enhancing reporting and analysis to encourage data-driven decision-making, ensuring regulatory compliance to minimise risk, implementing technology solutions to enhance the overall process, improving supplier management to support procurement, and bettering employee training to develop internal capabilities are major advantages offered by finance operations consultants.
Improving project finance operations is an evergreen subject for businesses everywhere, and as businesses face an increasingly complex and competitive environment, finance operations consulting has the potential to help them adapt and facilitate a considerable competitive advantage.
Global inflation has been easing faster than expected, with inflation projected to decline from 8.7% last year to 6.8% this year. The financial instability that followed the March banking crisis has also been contained by US and Swiss authorities.
However, there is much more to be done to stabilise the global economy and in such a volatile landscape post-pandemic, businesses need to take special measures to manage their operations and ensure continuity.
Organising business finance operations with these economic conditions in mind is vital, especially for businesses operating in advanced economies like Europe as economic growth is projected to slow down in the coming years.
In such an environment, the growth of finance consulting services has been apparent, with the Global Financial Advisory expecting to reach a value of $135.6 billion in 2030 with a CAGR of 5.8% from 2021 to 2030.
It is clear that more and more businesses are employing the services of finance consultants to address the issues they face in their finance processes. Here is how finance operations consulting can help businesses with the projects they undertake.
Streamlining financial processes
Financial processes typically face inefficiencies due to manual data entry processes, complex approval procedures, and disconnected systems. More often than not, finance teams use manual methods like spreadsheets to process data, which means more time has to be spent on ensuring their accuracy rather than analysing their impact on projects.
Finance consultants can analyse and determine the appropriate solutions to automate relevant project workflows and integrate connected systems to simplify operations, improving efficiency.
Optimising spend management
Businesses miss out on valuable cost-saving opportunities by not properly implementing spend management initiatives. Inaccurate budgeting, uncontrolled expenses, and lack of cost visibility result in the rise of unnecessary expenses, impacting the budgetary requirements for projects.
Finance consulting allows for a more robust and comprehensive approach to spend management, helping businesses identify cost-saving opportunities and implement effective cost-control strategies.
Enhancing reporting and analysis
Timely finance reporting and analyses are critical for sound financial decision-making. Contrasting data sources, inconsistent reporting formats, and difficulties in extracting meaningful insights affect this process, disrupting the decision-making process and creating ineffective outcomes in project timelines and costs.
Finance operations consultants can help businesses implement standardised reporting procedures and tools for advanced data analytics, enabling them to gain actionable insights.
Ensuring regulatory compliance
Financial regulations for businesses are complex and constantly changing, particularly in Europe, and non-compliance can have serious consequences. Issues like compliance gaps, evolving regulatory landscapes, and potential legal risks must be addressed in this context.
Financial consultants are highly knowledgeable when it comes to the industry standards and regulations that apply to particular projects and help ensure regulatory compliance by implementing robust internal controls, conducting regular audits, and updating existing processes to adhere to evolving regulations.
Implementing technology solutions
Outdated financial systems and technology infrastructure cause integration, accessibility, and security issues and limit scalability. This can result in disruptions in decision-making, affect profitability, and even cause legal issues in the case of security concerns.
Financial consulting can help you identify areas that require technology implementation, evaluate technology solutions, and implement them effectively, enhancing project efficiency and returns.
Improving supplier management
When businesses fail to manage their supplier and vendor relationships adequately, projects that leverage supplier input suffer. Inefficient procurement processes, delayed payments, and inconsistent supplier performance tracking impede smooth operations.
Finance operations consulting takes supplier and vendor management processes into account and helps businesses negotiate better terms and implement supplier performance evaluation mechanisms, optimising the projects businesses undertake.
Bettering employee training
Without a well-trained and developed finance team, businesses cannot hope to compete with their contemporaries that do. Inadequate training and the absence of professional development opportunities cause the finance process to be less than ideal, affecting any process that the business hopes to undertake.
Finance consultants can identify skill gaps within a business for the particular projects they hope to undertake, and offer training programmes that develop the necessary skills and knowledge in internal finance teams.
Set up a robust project financing process that supports long-term growth with finance operations consulting
As the value of establishing a well-developed finance process increases in today’s highly competitive business landscape, the value of finance consulting cannot be overstated in helping businesses enhance the value of the projects they undertake, driving efficiency, profitability, and growth.
