Asia-Pacific Embraces Finance and Accounting BPO

Uptake of FAO services in the region has traditionally been slow, probably because of a general preference for wanting to wait and learn from the experience of others. But with many of the world's largest and most successful companies now engaged in FAO, Asian companies have joined the trend. They are now seeing the benefits, with that message spreading to many companies.

Historically, Asian companies have leaned toward very rapid adoption of proven concepts, and the current high growth in FAO shows this to be no exception. This growth has occurred in parallel with a general increase in overall outsourcing activity in other areas of the business as organizations realize that often it is better to hand off back-office functions to a third party. All of this is boosted by a wave of shared-services delivery through the Asia Pacific region, which has moved from a national to an international basis.

As the risk in this journey increases, companies look to share that risk with expert providers through outsourcing. Many companies are starting with so called low-risk areas in transaction processing before moving to higher-end functions such as business analytics, performance management systems and reporting. It is in these value-added functions that Asian companies are starting to lead their counterparts in other parts of the world.

Asian companies are quickly moving up the FAO value chain, taking on new services that are only now being moved into outsourced models in the United States and the United Kingdom. But Asian companies have been able to learn from what has been done in the United States and Europe, using this knowledge to leapfrog their businesses ahead rather than taking the incremental development path.