Outsourcing Senior Manager

Ideas | People | Trust

We’re BDO. An accountancy and business advisory firm, providing the advice and solutions entrepreneurial organisations need to navigate today’s changing world.

We work with the companies that are Britain’s economic engine – ambitious, entrepreneurially-spirited and high‑growth businesses that fuel the economy - and directly advise the owners and management teams that lead them.

We’ll broaden your horizons

The Business Services and Outsourcing team are essential to meeting our clients' evolving requirements. As well as delivering long-term, sustainable value to businesses by providing a range of solutions such as accounting, payroll and compliance services, they also play a key role in tying together many of our services across BDO both domestically and internationally. By building deep and meaningful relationships with a range of clients from ambitious entrepreneurial SMEs to large multi-national groups, our BS&O team don’t just advise on their specific business challenges, they open doors for other teams to provide our firm’s wider service offering. To succeed in this agile environment, you’ll need to demonstrate excellent problem-solving skills and initiative. In return, you’ll have the opportunity for progression, and the chance to develop in one of the industry’s most exciting and varied roles.

We’ll help you succeed

Leading organisations trust us because of the quality of our advice. That quality grows from a thorough understanding of their business, and that understanding comes from working closely with them and building long-lasting relationships.

You’ll be someone who is both comfortable working proactively and managing your own tasks, as well as confident collaborating with others and communicating regularly with senior managers, directors, and BDO’s partners to help businesses effectively. You’ll be encouraged to identify and draw attention to opportunities for enhancing our delivery and providing additional services to organisations we work with.

Overview:

In this role you will be primarily an outsourcing specialist responsible for providing leadership to the team, developing and managing a portfolio of clients and supporting and working alongside the Partner. This includes planning, monitoring, reviewing work of junior members and taking responsibility for business development and marketing initiatives. The position is based in our Edinburgh or Glasgow office.

Technical Responsibilities:

• Has developed a clear area of specialism in outsourcing services with an understanding of the Scottish market. Expertise in professional services, Financial Services or Renewables would be useful.
• Use knowledge and understanding of client, business drivers, and technology to help design custom or complex management reports and complex KPI dashboards.
• Act as project director on larger clients.
• Maintains and shares sector knowledge with others to ensure the wider team are up to date with developments.
• Uses their broad financial, accounting, business and industry knowledge to educate clients on how their finance and accounting needs will evolve as their business grows; helps clients identify what is next and persuades the client to value those unperceived needs; identifies what needs are critical verse what are not and looks at the business of the client holistically. 
• Can diagnose the relationships and political structures of their clients to appropriately navigate through these complexities; quickly and accurately able to assess people’s different perspectives.
• Reviews and approves work prepared by the team and deals with any issues arising. 
• Identifies circumstances and engages with other streams to resolve accounting issues and spot cross stream opportunities.
• Keep up to date with market trends and can engage with senior business leaders on a wide range of topics.
• Use knowledge of finance and accounting functions as well as common best practice to advise clients on their overall financial ecosystem and propose solutions to complex issues.
• Recognise significant corporate governance issues in the client’s business, and escalate these as appropriate
• Ensure adherence to the stream specific and firm wide policies and procedures.
• Maintain the appropriate team structure through promotion and recruitment.
• Deliver ad hoc projects as required within the department.

Commercial responsibilities:

• Assist in the marketing and business development strategy for Scotland, working with the partner and directors to realise these.
• Contribute to the economic management of the department in matters such as budgeting and monitoring and managing to key metrics.
• Ensures that cloud accounting software and add-ons are being used to the maximum effect across their outsourcing portfolio.
• Open to new solutions and ideas to improve the profitability of engagement and actively seeks to implement these.
• Seek to be a step ahead of the client and anticipate their future needs in a way that will make a significant commercial difference.
• Design integrated solutions for clients and targets that respond to the identified situation including services from outside of BSO.
• Effectively use questions to identify what client’s objectives are, what financial information they value for management/decision making and why. Look for root causes and understand the complexity behind the data.
• Regularly review project plans and work schedules to ensure they are meeting the requirements of clients or internal teams. Resolves workflow and capacity issues which are escalated to them.
• Motivate and develop team members’ career and knowledge, ensuring they fully understand their roles and any developments that affect them.
• Continuously monitor staff performance, identifying issues, causes for concern and development opportunities, and taking appropriate action when necessary.
• Ensure continuing professional development is up to date at all times.
• Demonstrate the drive, energy and leadership to make exceptional service a reality.
• Regularly introduces new opportunities to the firm and stream to achieve new win targets.
• In depth knowledge of the firm’s services and converses confidently about the firm to external contacts, building and developing robust relationships within the industry sector.
• Prepare requisitions for new roles and be responsible for preparation of business plans to support recruitment.

You’ll be someone with:

• Qualified Accountant (ACA, ACCA, CIMA) or equivalent experience.
• Relevant experience of managing a team is essential.
• Proven experience in managing a wide portfolio of concurrent projects and project teams in a project management framework.
• In depth knowledge of management reporting and wider industry functions.
• Excellent understanding of ecosystem of cloud accounting software and ad-ons and can articulate the purpose and value of appropriate systems to clients.
• Excellent understanding of the rules and regulations of doing business in the UK.

Personal responsibilities:

• Influence through understanding others and meeting their needs.
• Able to lead by example and support more junior team members.
• Excellent communication skills with the ability to deal with a wide mix of people, both internally and externally.
• Excellent presentation skills.
• Excellent analytical, problem solving and research skills.
• Sets realistic but stretching performance targets for self and others.
• Knows own strengths and limitations.
• Undertakes difficult conversations when necessary.
• Embraces change with an adaptable and flexible working attitude.
• Able to think outside the box and bring prior experience to pragmatically provide solutions for clients.

You’ll be able to be yourself; we’ll recognise and value you for who you are and celebrate and reward your contributions to the business. We’re committed to agile working, and we offer every colleague the opportunity to work in ways that suit you, your teams, and the task at hand.

At BDO, we’ll help you achieve your personal goals and career ambitions, and we have programmes, resources, and frameworks that provide clarity and structure around career development.

We’re in it together

Mutual support and respect is one of BDO’s core values and we’re proud of our distinctive, people-centred culture. From informal success conversations to formal mentoring and coaching, we’ll support you at every stage in your career, whatever your personal and professional needs.

Our agile working framework helps us stay connected, bringing teams together where and when it counts so they can share ideas and help one another. At BDO, you’ll always have access to the people and resources you need to do your best work.

We know that collaboration is the key to creating value for the companies we work with and satisfying experiences for our colleagues, so we’ve invested in state-of-the-art collaboration spaces in our offices. BDO’s people represent a wealth of knowledge and expertise, and we’ll encourage you to build your network, work alongside others, and share your skills and experiences. With a range of multidisciplinary events and dedicated resources, you’ll never stop learning at BDO.

We’re looking forward to the future

At BDO, we help entrepreneurial businesses to succeed, fuelling the UK economy.

Our success is powered by our people, which is why we’re always finding new ways to invest in you. Across the UK thousands of unique minds continue to come together to help companies we work with to achieve their ambitions

We’ve got a clear purpose, and we’re confident in our future, because we’re adapting and evolving to build on our strengths, ensuring we continue to find the right combination of global reach, integrity and expertise. We shape the future together with openness and clarity, because we believe in empowering people to think creatively about how we can do things better.

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