Accounting in Telenor 2014-2016
     • Telenor transfered  220 FTE’s from Oslo, Bodø and Islamabad to Accenture Dhaka, 
       Bangladesh 2014.
     • In scope was all processes (S2P, OTC, R2R and Controlling)
     • 2 years of stabilization was needed, not 6 months as we planned for.
     • Still today we are struggeling with quality issues and «housekeeping» 
     • Statutory reporting, VAT reporting and tax return is our fallback and retained in Norway
     •Pitfalls:
         – Language barrieres on both sides 
         – Cultural differences not to be underestimated (work hours, religion, way of doing 
           business, etc.)
         – The need for resources back home increased more than assessed in the business 
           case (different skills needed, and more QA resources)
     • How to succeed in a outsourcing model?
         – Vendor management will be a key competance (move away from nice guys to more 
           «firm guys»)
         – Invest time to document all you have agreed (MOMs to be written and sent after 
           meetings) – Oral agreements does not work.  
   2     – Relocate some of the managment for 6-12 months during transition period
         – Choose between «Captive» model or «Vendor» partner model ?
     Future in accounting (predictions for 2020)
     • First of all we need to work on improving the processes – day in and out
     • Cloud accounting will be installed in >90% small to medium businesses
     • Accounting services will most likely be up to 80 - 95 % robotics
     • Offshore teams will be more prevalent (Europe vs Asia) 
     • Marketing and sales skills will be demanded (opportunity)
     • Young people will not buy into staid and boring tasks (repetitive work)
     • No more time-based billing – you will get involved with the customers 
       differently – shift to a more full scale business advisor 
     • We might need to ‘sex’ the industry up a bit 
     • Business advisory services to be more than 80% of your revenue
     • Accountants can add value like never before.   
         – We need to get closer to our clients and understand their clients’ financial affairs even 
          more than before.  Value add services will be key for success.
     • Clients on a cloud based solution can contribute to Accountants end up to be 
       60% more efficient than on other desktop or hard drive systems.  
     • Operational excellence will be a premise to survive 
   3
     •   Robotics – in accounting ? (Robotic process automation – RPA)
          
     • To succeed with robotics, the transactions needs to be rule based/standardized
     • Less deviations from standardized processes you achieve the more success. 
     • E.g:  
         – Scanning of invoices  - been part of our business for quite some time now. 
         – PO’s (purchasing orders) instead of paper based invoices
         – EDI vs paper based invoices
         – Order to cash processes  - might be a good starting point for Robotics
     • Tools to be looked into:
     • Black Line or similar systems to replace excel for reconciliation work
     • Adra Match – software for bank reconciliation 
     • There will be huge opportunites for cloud based systems.  Faster, lower cost and 
       improved quality is key words for cloud solutions. 
     • RPA increases speed by almost 30 % (for those implementing robotics)
         – Errors go down by close to 20% with RPA
         – You can robotize 60% of your transactions 
     • Take small steps at the time and not all processes at same time. 
     • Smart partnering with third party advisors will be important. 
   4 • RPA is a big opportunity and you should investigate time to create a sustainable 
       business.