Remote delivery: The China story

Shared service originated in the 1980s. It was initiated by the manufacturing giants from the US, such as General Motors and Ford. In the thirty years since then, the concept of shared services has further developed along with practical application. Together with the advancement in information technology, the model of shared services has been widely applied in various corporate functions in different industries around the world, such as finance, information technology, human resources and it has become an effective business operating model.

In the past five years, along with the economic globalization, the convergence of regulatory policies and the enhancement of information flow, an increasing number of Chinese enterprises have started or planned to use shared services. Therefore, ACCA and Deloitte Consulting jointly carried out this research through questionnaires and in-depth interviews with the finance leaders with different experience in shared services from companies of different sizes in different industries. We have summarized and shared their views and best practices about Finance Shared Services (FSS) in this report.

According to the survey results, almost half of the respondents have started using FSS, indicating that Chinese enterprises are paying more attention to the FSS model. Companies have better understanding of and expectation from the benefits of FSS in finance transformation and financial capability enhancement.