Hiring better finance people will lead 30% of customers to pay their bills faster

World-class finance executives get customers to pay their bills nearly 30% faster than typical companies, according to The Hackett Group. A typical $10 bln company can generate more than $35.8 mln/year in bottom-line savings if they achieve world-class performance in this area by reducing Days Sales Outstanding (DSO), a standard measure of how quickly companies get paid by their customers. World-class finance organizations now spend 42% less in the finance function than typical companies (0.73% of revenue versus 1.26%), and have 44% fewer finance staff (63 employees/ bln of revenue versus 112). The cost gap between world-class and typical companies is also growing. Typical companies saw an increase in the cost of finance of 18% over the past 2 years, in part due to increased compliance-related costs, while world-class companies continued to reduce overall finance costs over the same period.