Transforming finance at The Adecco Group with Microsoft Dynamics 365

The Adecco Group is the world’s leading talent advisory and solutions company. Through its three global business units—Adecco, Akkodis, and LHH—the Group offers temporary and permanent placements, outsourcing, training, and apprenticeships that make work better for more than half a million people at 100,000 organizations every single day. When the staffing giant set out to centralize its global financial operations with future-proof technology, Dynamics 365 stood out among all other applicants.  

Transforming the back office  

In 2018, The Adecco Group embarked on a journey to modernize its finance operations to mitigate risks associated with obsolete legacy systems and establish standardized financial processes. The pilot program in three small markets yielded immediate benefits including improved data quality, enhanced transparency, and strengthened security through cloud-based finance operations.

Encouraged by these results, the rollout quickly expanded. In 2020, a plan to transform the company’s Finance function took shape. The Adecco Group formalized its Finance Transformation Program, which encompassed a new Finance Target Operating Model, the establishment of a Shared Service Centre (SSC), and a full-scale ERP implementation. Microsoft Dynamics 365 Finance was selected as the foundation of The Adecco Group’s core finance back-office processes and the backbone of its future finance system architecture. 

With 450 legal entities in 60 countries and territories, the company is rolling out the new solution in phases. Today, The Adecco Group has successfully implemented Microsoft Dynamics 365 in 15 countries, including one of its largest markets, Japan, and 23 more countries are expected to join them over the next two years. "As a global business, scalability is critical. Dynamics 365 Finance has seamlessly scaled with us, ensuring that we can efficiently manage our financial operations across multiple regions and business units, without compromising on accuracy or control," says Nathaniel Eaton, Senior Vice President, Finance Operations. 

The Group’s template-based approach has been a critical factor in the success and speed of the implementations. It optimizes operational efficiency at scale by integrating standard processes and control standards in a template.

Working smarter, not harder 

Dynamics 365 Finance supports large, complex financial workflows regardless of geographical specificities or operational scale, making it the right choice to support The Adecco Group. Streamlined processes, a standardized chart of accounts, and globally defined business processes across key areas like order to cash, procure to pay, record to report, and master data management have shortened accounting cycles and reduced the finance team’s manual workload.

As a global staffing solutions provider, The Adecco Group operates on strict timelines to ensure that customers receive their invoices promptly and payments are processed accurately. Closing financial periods involves reconciling accounts and processing receipts, all within tight deadlines. With Dynamics 365, financial closing processes, even in a particularly intricate accounting environment like Japan’s, have been shortened by two days.

As Kenji Takasaki, Country Head of Finance at The Adecco Group, Japan, says, “I see great saving opportunities because of Dynamics 365.” Kotaro Icimura, Project Lead, agrees: “It’s wonderful to have this state-of-the-art finance system, and the benefits will only grow as other major markets are implemented.”

Stephanie Troester, Group Senior Vice President ITD BackOffice, highlights the importance of collaboration in driving success: “Since we began implementing Microsoft Dynamics 365 in 2018, one of the key drivers of our success has been the strong, collaborative partnership between The Adecco Group IT & Digital (ITD) team and the Dynamics 365 team at Microsoft. Together, we've not only shaped future functionality in Dynamics 365 but also continuously improved how we use the platform—particularly through the integrations developed by our ITD team.”

Unifying a financial ecosystem

The Adecco Group takes a holistic view of digital transformation with the Microsoft technology stack. Where there’s a gap or an acceptable system is already in place, Troester explains, “we can leverage the unique abilities of Dynamics 365 to integrate with auxiliary systems, saving us time and money.”

To balance local and global reporting needs, the Group uses an enterprise data warehouse (EDW) built on Azure Data Lake to aggregate data from across the organization to support enterprise-wide reporting and analytics. Built-in functionality in Dynamics 365 directly feeds financial data to the EDW, eliminating the need for a staging area—and the related costs. Power BI is used to visualize the data story in reports and dashboards that provide valuable insights into trends, patterns, and key metrics within the organization's data. “[Dynamics 365] has allowed for the decommissioning of old systems, resulting in a savings of $540,000 over the next three years,” says Troester.

In a large market like Japan, where The Adecco Group processes 1.5 million lines of payroll each month, reporting was a cumbersome process. Now, standardized reports, created directly in Dynamics 365 or using Microsoft Power BI, ensure consistency and visibility. With data captured at the source when transactions are recorded and with a comprehensive self-service reporting environment, teams can easily create reports as needed and expedite month-end close.

By fostering a culture of digital fluency within its finance teams, The Adecco Group’s ITD team ensures that employees are equipped with the knowledge and tools to fully capitalize on the capabilities of Microsoft Dynamics 365. Troester emphasizes their strategy: “Our strategic approach to ERP implementation has enabled seamless integration with other business-critical applications. By connecting front-office and back-office systems, we also ensure a smooth flow of data between Sales, Operations, Finance, and HR, creating a more cohesive and efficient enterprise-wide infrastructure.”

Global synergy, local impact 

For a global enterprise like The Adecco Group, handling finance tasks centrally, regardless of country of origin, is key to optimizing efficiency. The SSCs for finance, which were recently established in Bulgaria and India, are a critical piece of the company’s strategy to streamline, standardize, and centralize its financial operations with Dynamics 365. The two SSCs have absorbed more than 50% of local financial activities—an enormous productivity and efficiency boost for a company that processes 25,000 invoices monthly and issues payments through 150 banks all over the world.

For local teams, especially in smaller markets with limited resources, off-loading financials has significantly reduced the effort of managing end-to-end processes and required reporting. Local teams have been able to shift their focus from data management to more strategic activities like data analysis and supporting business growth initiatives.

As Mark Hookey, Head of Finance Transformation Project Office, explains, "with Dynamics 365, we have been able to significantly improve our control environment and bring our financial data into a single source. This transformation has allowed us to leverage financial information more effectively and enhance our overall efficiency." Future-proofing its ERP with Dynamics 365 ensures that The Adecco Group can continue to expand to new markets seamlessly while maintaining long-term operational efficiency. 

Scaling for seamless growth 

Looking forward, The Adecco Group plans to implement Dynamics 365 in more than 20 additional countries over the next three years. By strategically adopting Dynamics 365, The Adecco Group has modernized its finance function with a scalable, future-proof platform that supports its global business objectives, and serves as a launchpad for further automation and AI-driven enhancements. With continued investment in this realm, The Adecco Group is setting a new standard for digital finance transformation in the talent solutions industry. AI-powered analytics, predictive modelling, and more will play a crucial role in enhancing forecasting accuracy, optimizing financial planning, and improving overall decision-making. 

Notably, the company is among the first to preview the Account Reconciliation Agent in Dynamics 365 Finance, a tool that speeds up the financial close process by automating transaction matching and using previous actions to learn and recommend discrepancy mitigation.

The journey is far from over—The Adecco Group is exploring Copilot in Dynamics 365 Finance for zero-touch processes like autonomous close and other ways to automate at scale. “We are building on this foundation to introduce generative AI as it comes in natively on top of our platform,” says Eaton. “Dynamics 365 is the backbone of our technology ecosystem. Combined with the operating model and our Shared Service Centres, scalability is seamless.”

The Adecco Group remains committed to innovation, efficiency, and the continuous evolution of its financial operations to support its long-term growth strategy.