EquaTerra Names New Finance and Accounting and Procurement/Supply Chain Advisory Practice Leads as Markets Increasingly Pursue a Range of Service Delivery Transformation Options
Houston (September 1, 2010) – EquaTerra, a global business advisory firm, today announced it has appointed Rick Bertheaud to lead its Finance and Accounting (F&A) Advisory practice, and Sarah Pfaff to lead its Procurement and Supply Chain Advisory group.
Bertheaud has more than 25 years of expertise in process redesign, organization restructuring and change leadership in outsourced, shared services and internally transformed environments. He has redefined and implemented finance and other staff function delivery models for clients including Nestlé, Bristol-Myers Squibb, Mead Johnson Nutrition, Pearson and Darden Restaurants. According to Bertheaud, “In response to the economic downturn, most organizations in 2009 looked to short-term mandates to retrench finance and other back-office functions. In 2010, we’ve seen many of these same organizations taking a more programmatic approach to transformation to lock in lower costs for the longer term, as evidenced by a resurgence of interest in shared services and outsourcing initiatives. Today’s clients are seeking quicker paybacks, shorter deal terms and less investment in technology and other transformation – in essence, they are looking to quickly reduce and variablize costs as they position themselves for an unknown economic future.”
Pfaff has spent the past two decades helping organizations realign their cost structure, governance and management processes, establish shared services centers, evaluate and transition services to outsourcing arrangements, reengineer business processes and reduce overall cost structure and spend. Before joining EquaTerra she founded eBreviate, an eSourcing firm, and was executive vice president of consulting services and chief marketing officer at FreeMarkets. Said Pfaff, “As a result of the recession, which slashed procurement budgets and teams, today’s chief procurement officers are increasingly leveraging both internal transformation and outsourcing to achieve greater procurement savings. And while there had previously been a focus on just the transactional procurement processes, companies today are expanding their view across the full procurement lifecycle, from strategic sourcing to payment.”
EquaTerra’s F&A Advisory practice helps organizations select the right service delivery strategy, per their unique requirements, to reduce the cost of F&A processes, improve overall business performance, support growth and maintain compliance. Its advisors support clients in all phases of the lifecycle, from F&A strategy and assessment to implementation to operational governance. The firm’s Procurement and Supply Chain Advisory practice helps clients gain an in-depth understanding of their current procurement operations, and then determine the right strategy, implementation approach and operational governance model to boost cash flow and drive improvement across category management, cataloging, ordering and the rest of the procurement cycle.
About EquaTerra
EquaTerra sourcing advisors help clients achieve sustainable value in their IT and business processes. Our advisors average more than 20 years of industry experience and have supported more than 2,000 transformation and outsourcing projects across more than 60 countries. Supporting clients throughout the Americas, Europe, Middle East, Africa and Asia Pacific, we have deep functional knowledge in Finance and Accounting, HR, IT, Procurement, Real Estate & Facilities Management and other critical business processes. EquaTerra helps clients achieve significant cost savings and process improvement with internal transformation, shared services and outsourcing solutions. For more information, please contact Lee Ann Moore at +1 713.669.9292; www.equaterra.com.
North American Media Contact:
Kim Messerschmitt
Director of Marketing, North America
+1 972 987 1686
mailto:kim.messerschmitt@equaterra.com
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