Finance BPO pie extended at Panalpina

BASLE, SWITZERLAND: Panalpina, a freight and logistics company, has rolled out the first phase of a finance and accounting (F&A) business process outsourcing (BPO) initiative as part of a seven-year agreement with Accenture signed in October 2010.

Panalpina is working with Accenture to consolidate and standardize finance processes across its global operations, including Purchase to Pay, Order to Cash and Record to Report services. The project aims to deliver consistent processes, uniform technology and a strong control environment for Panalpina’s finance function while achieving significant cost efficiencies.

Accenture first designed the new operating model for Panalpina’s finance function and is now delivering F&A services to the company in 14 languages and in 23 European countries, as well as the U.S. and Canada. This represents approximately half of the finance and accounting operations at Panalpina.

“By implementing a financial shared services model, Panalpina is able to achieve significant efficiency improvements,” said Marco Gadola, Panalpina’s CFO. “We chose to work with Accenture because of their proven track record on delivering robust F&A services using the capabilities and flexibility of their global delivery network.”

“Accenture and Panalpina are working to create a world-class finance organization for Panalpina,” said Michael Sturm, a senior executive for Accenture’s Air, Freight & Logistics and Travel Service group. “That means a finance organization that is both efficient and effective — that has consistent processes, uniform technology and a strong control environment to help achieve high performance in a challenging, global marketplace.”

This outsourcing work builds on a strong relationship between the two organizations as Accenture has worked with Panalpina on a number of management consulting projects, says a press release. Panalpina started the project of optimizing its F&A operations in late 2010 with implementation during the course of 2011. The work is being delivered by teams located on-site at Panalpina and in Accenture Global Delivery Centers the Philippines, the Czech Republic and the United States.