Hackett Research Alert: Top Finance Performers Cut Costs by Nearly Half, Operate with Less Than Half the Staff of Typical Companies

Hackett`s Latest Finance Book of Numbers Research Details Efficiency and
Effectiveness Gains of World-Class Organizations
ATLANTA & LONDON--(Business Wire)--
World-class finance organizations now operate at nearly half the annual cost of
typical companies, and have less than half the staff, according to newly-release
Book of NumbersTM research from The Hackett Group, Inc. (NASDAQ: HCKT). At the
same time, these finance organizations are dramatically more effective than
their peers, better at strategic business support, and drive improved bottom
line results for their companies.

According to Hackett`s 2010 Finance Book of Numbers, "Outperformance: Finance`s
Journey Starts Today," the gap between world-class performers in finance and
typical companies continues to grow.

The efficiency gap translates into an annual cost savings of nearly $140 million
for a typical Global 1000 company (with $26.38 billion in revenue). According to
Hackett, world-class finance organizations have successfully reduced their cost
of finance by 40 percent since 1998, while typical companies have only achieved
a 19 percent cost reduction.

Hackett`s research groups finance activities into several key areas where
world-class organizations outperform their peers: transactional capabilities
including revenue, disbursements, and general accounting; capabilities such as
compliance, tax, and treasury; and capabilities that drive performance,
including planning and performance management and business analysis. World-class
performers are those that achieve top-quartile performance across a range of
both efficiency and effectiveness metrics in Hackett`s comprehensive finance
benchmark.

The greatest gap between world-class and typical companies comes in spending and
staffing on transactional capabilities, which represent the largest overall cost
and staff component of most finance organizations. Key to these superior results
are the focus of world-class companies on simplification and standardization,
technology leverage, and the global service delivery model. With their superior
transacting capabilities, world-class finance organizations are able to dedicate
more of their total finance process cost and staff to the higher-value activity
of driving business performance.

To drive greater effectiveness, world-class organizations focus on enhanced
planning, budgeting, forecasting, reporting and business analysis. This enables
them to improve agility, make better strategic decisions, evaluate performance,
and more effectively make course corrections as necessary. Analysts at
world-class finance organizations spend 32 percent less time collecting data,
and commensurately more time analyzing it than typical companies, in part
because they are much more likely to generate management reports from a
centralized data repository. Analyses at world-class organizations include
financial and non-financial measures 42 percent more often than at typical
companies, address future actions 45 percent more often, and are more likely to
use sensitivity, investment, and value analysis techniques. Budgets are
completed in only three months compared to four at typical companies, with fewer
budget iterations and 21 percent fewer line items. Analysis staff at world-class
finance organizations are also 31 percent more likely to have experience in both
finance and company operations.

In addition, world-class finance organizations are more disciplined in key areas
such as compliance, tax, and treasury. They establish a solid control
environment that supports the protection of company assets, improved financial
reporting, better cash positions, higher after-tax profits, and reduced exposure
to risk from currency, commodity, and interest rate fluctuations.

"Today, many finance organizations have been strained nearly to the breaking
point by demands that they `do more with less,`" explains Hackett President of
Advisory Services and Finance Executive Advisory Practice Leader Sean
Kracklauer. "But at the best finance organizations, we`re seeing a powerful new
model emerge. These organizations are successfully driving towards
`outperformance,` through a clarity of purpose and plan, creation of a global
operating model, rationalized investment, and superior effectiveness that simply
isn`t seen at typical companies. They can reduce costs and staff while at the
same time strengthening the broader enterprise`s performance, earnings and cash
flow results."

According to Hackett Chief Research Officer Michel Janssen, "Top performers in
finance understand that what`s important is to create an operational model that
is agile and flexible while at the same time achieving industry-leading cost,
quality, and cycle-time performance levels. Service delivery strategy is key.
Companies have to look at finance holistically, and make careful decisions about
issues such as service placement, process sourcing, and organizational modeling
- basically which finance activities are done where, by whom, and how. It`s a
complex challenge, but well worth the effort."

Hackett`s latest Finance Book of Numbers research, which is available only to
members of Hackett`s advisory programs, contains more than 130 pages of
research, decision frameworks, and analysis, including over 100 charts
presenting efficiency and effectiveness metrics for world-class and typical
companies. The book also includes Hackett`s new Finance Capability Maturity
Model, which provides 25 pages of details regarding specific practices of
finance organizations at four progressive capability levels -- lagging,
achieving, exceeding and leading -- along with a self-rating system enabling
companies to assess their own maturity.

About The Hackett Group, Inc.

The Hackett Group, Inc. (NASDAQ: HCKT), a global strategic advisory firm, is a
leader in best practice advisory, benchmarking, and enterprise transformation
consulting services, including shared services, offshoring and outsourcing
implementation. Utilizing best practices and implementation insights from more
than 4,000 benchmarking engagements, executives use The Hackett Group's
empirically-based approach to quickly define and implement initiatives to enable
world-class performance. Through its REL group, The Hackett Group offers working
capital solutions focused on delivering significant cash flow improvements.
Through its Archstone Consulting group, The Hackett Group offers Strategy &
Operations in the Consumer and Industrial Products, Pharmaceutical,
Manufacturing and Financial Services industry sectors. Through its Hackett
Technology Solutions group, The Hackett Group offers business application
consulting services that help maximize returns on IT investments. The Hackett
Group has worked with 2,700 major corporations and government agencies,
including 97% of the Dow Jones Industrials, 73% of the Fortune 100, 73% of the
DAX 30 and 50% of the FTSE 100.

More information on The Hackett Group is available: by phone at (770) 225-7300;
by e-mail at info@thehackettgroup.com; or on the Web at www.thehackettgroup.com.

Book of Numbers is a trademark of The Hackett Group.

The Hackett Group, Inc.
Gary Baker, 610-234-5900
Communications Director
gbaker@thehackettgroup.com

Copyright Business Wire 2010