FSS industry growing fast in Malaysia

PETALING JAYA: The global financial shared services (FSS) sector is one of the fastest growing sectors in Malaysia, offering a wealth of employment opportunities and international exposure.

There could be ample potential for the country to tap into to drive growth in the finance industry given that many more global companies have embarked on an FSS strategy to drive their finance transformation agenda.

To address some of these opportunities, the upcoming Finance Transformation & Shared Services Conference, which will be held on April 25to April 26, will bring together industry veterans who will be able to share their expertise and experiences in leading change in the finance industry.

The speakers will include CFOs, finance directors, project and transition managers, continuous improvement finance manager and process and system experts, among others.

The conference is designed around the three pillars of finance transformation – people, process and technology.

AGOS Asia chief executive officer Teoh Joon Leng noted that there were currently more than 400 global business services and FSS companies based in Malaysia with a staff force of more than 70,000.

Of this approximately 14,000 are foreign workers. “There’s an increasing move of transactional activities to the FSS so that the finance team can focus on more value-added activities.

“In that migration from the finance team to the FSS team, there are processes to note to ease the migration and avoid some common pitfalls like miscommunication,” said Teoh.

“FSS are a cost-effective way for companies to do more with less people.

“And there are different approaches to take during the migration.

“It’s important to come up with an analysis map to consider who and what will be impacted by the migration and how to manage them,” said Roche Services (Asia Pacific) head of procure to pay Mohd Zulkeflee Ab Wahab.

AstraZeneca Asia-Pacific Business Services global finance operation, APAC transition lead Rosleen Mak added that there is also a need for change management during the migration to FSS to include non-finance users.

“There are other departments across a wide spectrum that interacts with the finance department and they, too, will be affected by the change,” said Mak.

Zulkeflee and Mak will be among the speakers addressing the importance of applying the right processes for FSS.

Some areas that will be covered include taking a look at leading-edge practices for procure-to-pay, order-to-cash and record-to-report functions as well as industry best practices.

Other focus areas include challenges faced by matured FSS, continuous improvements and what’s next for the FSS industry.

Finance Transformation & Shared Services Conference is organised by Star Media Group in partnership with AGOS Asia and with ICAEW and i2m Ventures Sdn Bhd as the working partners. Should you require any further information, please feel free to contact 03-79671388 ext 1233 (Christine Darlington) or ext 1432 (Jasmine Chin) or email events@ thestar.com.my