Taiwanese companies need to outsource their financial transaction processing work so that chief finance officers (CFOs) can be more deeply involved in decision-making, a business consultant said yesterday.
"The [outsourcing] move could help companies cut costs while having their CFOs more focused on the business decision-making and strategy support," said Vincent Li (
Outsourcing or centralizing a company's transaction processing and speciality services -- such as tax and internal audit -- could provide a more viable cost structure and is a business model that IBM is promoting to its customers.
"Some local enterprises, including one financial holding company and a high-tech manufacturing group, have been engaged in the work of outsourcing their transaction processing," Li said, without naming the companies.
This business model is a new concept in Taiwan as only large companies can make it worthwhile.
Family-run companies that take the finance section as the core of their organization would not easily release their control to third parties, Suhas Bhide, partner of business consulting services in IBM China/Hong Kong Ltd, said yesterday at a press conference.
However, Bhide said, to deal with the increasing complexity of business and establish business models for future development, the role of CFOs should evolve to "chief focus officer," focusing on developing core competences as well as building unique strength.
According to a survey that IBM conducted last September -- which polled 450 CFOs in companies with annual revenues of US$8.4 billion located in 35 countries -- 68 percent of CFOs regarded shareholder value as the highest priority, with managing the balance sheet the last in their ranking of the top five priorities.
The survey also showed that decision support and performance management activities were expected take up most of CFOs' workload over the next three years, at 37 percent, while transactional activities would shrink to 34 percent from the current 50 percent.
"The Enron scandal is indeed a strong stimulation to enhance the significance of the CFO's role, especially after the passing of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act in 2002, which demands the disclosure of control and processing," Bhide said.
A local scholar agreed, adding that the passage of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act places a great deal of responsibility on CFOs in terms of corporate governance.
"Though external governance -- such as endorsement by accountants or supervision by credit rating companies -- still functions, the most significant element lies in the companies' internal controls," said Shiue Fu-jiing (
Companies should invest more in ensuring information is authentic and transparent and disclosed on a timely basis, which requires the CFO's deep involvement," Shiue added.
Elon Musk’s lieutenants have reached out to chip industry suppliers, including Applied Materials Inc, Tokyo Electron Ltd and Lam Research Corp, for his envisioned Terafab, early steps in an audacious and likely arduous attempt to break into the production of cutting-edge chips. Staff working for the joint venture between Tesla Inc and Space Exploration Technologies Corp (SpaceX) have sought price quotes and delivery times for an array of chipmaking gear, people familiar with the matter said. In past weeks, they’ve contacted makers of photomasks, substrates, etchers, depositors, cleaning devices, testers and other tools, according to the people, who asked not to
Taiwan is attracting a growing number of foreign jobseekers as companies increasingly recruit overseas talent to ease labor shortages and expand global reach, recruitment platform 104 Job Bank (104人力銀行) said yesterday. More than 40,000 foreign nationals searched for jobs in Taiwan through the platform last year, a 28 percent increase from a year earlier, the company said. Malaysians accounted for the largest share of overseas jobseekers at 12.2 percent, followed by Indonesians at 11.9 percent and Vietnamese at 10.8 percent. Indonesian applicants surged more than 50 percent year-on-year, while Vietnamese jobseekers rose by more than 30 percent. Applicants from the
JET JUICE: The war on Iran’s secondary effects have seen fuel prices skyrocket, knocking flight schedules down to earth in return as airlines struggle with costs Airline passengers should brace for more irritation in the next few months as carriers worldwide cancel flights and ground planes to cope with stratospheric increases in jet-fuel prices. Dutch flag carrier KLM is the latest company to cut its schedule, saying on Thursday that it would scrap 80 return flights at Amsterdam’s Schiphol Airport in the coming month. That puts it in the same league as United Airlines Holdings Inc, Deutsche Lufthansa AG and Cathay Pacific Airways Ltd, which have all pruned itineraries to mitigate costs. Global capacity for next month has been reduced by about 3 percentage points, with all
NO SHORTCUTS: Asked about Elon Musk’s Terafab initiative, TSMC CEO C.C. Wei said it takes two to three years to build a fab and another one to two to ramp it up Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) yesterday raised its revenue growth forecast for this year to above 30 percent, up from the 25 percent it estimated three months earlier, citing extremely robust artificial intelligence (AI)-related chip demand. “Our customers and customers’ customers, who are mainly cloud service providers, continue to send us very positive signals and outlook,” TSMC chairman and CEO C.C. Wei (魏哲家) said at an earnings conference. The company also hiked its capital expenditure for this year toward the higher end of its forecast, or US$56 billion, as it aims to step up advanced chip capacity expansions, such as
RSS