DentsuAegis is restructuring its Australian operations team to focus on strategic functions, with a review into operational efficiencies to be completed in March or April next year.
At this stage it is unknown how many roles will be at risk, but DentsuAegis has confirmed the review will centre upon its finance team.
“We are currently reviewing some of our finance operations to focus our team on commercial and strategic functions rather than transactional," DentsuAegis' Australian chief financial officer Dion Cust told AdNews.
"We anticipate that this will see some staff move to different roles, either within finance or in other parts of the business.”
It is believed that DenstuAegis' finance team is 60-strong, and DentsuAegis' Australian chief operating officer Kym Pfitzner played down concerns around job losses, saying there would be little change to staffing levels as a part of the review.
"The review is ongoing, but we don't forsee too much disruption to headcount," he said.
However, with the review still in its early stages, he could not rule out redundancies at the agency.
Pfitzner said staff were informed of the review process, and staff currently focused on the transactional side of its business would be given opportunities to upskill.
DentsuAegis stressed that the review would centre on the back-end, meaning its work with clients would be unnaffected.
"What we're doing is freeing up people from doing the same transactions again and again on a monthly basis. With a group such as ours which is large you end up duplicating roles," Pfitzner said.
"As a consequence of the duplication, you create great inefficiency. As time goes on, technology allows a lot of this to be consolidated and specialised. So it's turning from that transactional side, centralising that and getting more efficient with that.
"Traditional finance is sitting in the back office and processing orders, which is a reactive-type function. The move to the commercial and strategic positions is about focusing more on the front-line staff, rather than the process behind the scenes."
Despite speculation the transactional roles would be offshored, DentsuAegis stressed that most will remain in Australia.
More broadly, DentsuAegis said it is currently looking to fill more than 100 positions nationally, with its staff having doubled since June 2010.
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