ACCA Strategic Professional · Strategic Business Leader · Finance transformation
Orlin Ltd is considering how to structure finance after a systems upgrade. It wants a small group of senior specialists in treasury, tax and complex reporting to advise all divisions and develop policies, while transaction processing is handled elsewhere. Which feature of the proposed structure is the specialist group, and what does it imply?
The specialist group is a centre of excellence. Scarce expertise in areas such as treasury, tax and complex reporting is concentrated and shared across divisions, avoiding duplication and supporting consistent policy. It is not a shared service centre, which handles routine transactions, nor an embedded business partner team or outsourcer.
- AA centre of excellence, implying deep expertise is concentrated and shared rather than duplicated in each divisionCorrect
- BA business partnering team, implying finance staff are embedded full-time in each division
- CA shared service centre, implying high-volume standardised processing is the main activity
- DAn outsourced provider, implying control of specialist work passes to a supplier
Explanation
A centre of excellence concentrates scarce specialist skills and makes them available across the organisation, avoiding duplication. Business partners are embedded in operations, which is not described. The group does not handle high-volume transactions, so it is not an SSC, and nothing indicates external supply.
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