Challenge

Fueled by acquisitions and rapid geographic and service expansion, a global professional services firm saw general and administrative costs outpace revenue and exceed peer benchmarks. A sustained focus on top-line growth drove the expansion of finance, accounting, and tax teams to support new offerings and bespoke client demands. Fragmented governance contributed to the proliferation of non-standard roles and processes.

Leadership lacked a clear view of how work flowed across the organization, resulting in a poorly executed ERP implementation and ongoing inefficiencies. Prior restructuring efforts fell short by underestimating the scale and sources of complexity. The company partnered with us to unlock step-change cost savings and bring G&A back in line with peers.

 

Discovery

We conducted a targeted assessment to identify the people, process, and technology drivers behind rising complexity and costs. Through activity inventories, time studies, and interviews with subject matter experts, the team developed a detailed baseline of where time and resources were being consumed and surfaced near-term cost reduction opportunities.

We also conducted deep dives into the most time-intensive and error-prone processes to reveal where manual effort and execution risk were driving inefficiency, informing how processes were prioritized for intervention. Using these insights, our team then evaluated which cost lever would be most impactful: offshoring, ERP enhancements, automation, or standardization.

 

Impact

The analysis showed that offshoring, supported by organizational redesign, was the fastest and most flexible path to value. We developed and executed a transition plan with leadership to redesign processes and roles, supported by training content and work instructions. This included shifting the finance organization from a generalist model to a specialist structure anchored in standardized workflows.

Workflow solutions were deployed to better leverage existing technology, and a new governance model with leading and lagging metrics ensured accountability and performance transparency. The organization achieved a 33% reduction in run-rate G&A expenditures within nine months, surpassing its benefit case and restoring cost competitiveness with peers.

 

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Contact Our Experts

Stephen Wilson is a Managing Director at Innosight, based in Dallas. stwilson@innosight.com

 

 

Andrei Perumal is a Managing Director at Innosight, based in Dallas. aperumal@innosight.com

 

 

Ernie Spence is a Managing Director at Innosight, based in the Washington, DC area. espence@innosight.com