global shared services process design
The Opportunity:
A Fortune 50 consumer products company sought to move toward becoming a Best-In-Class Shared Services AP Organization by focusing on tactical quick wins and strategic initiatives that would lead to measurable financial and operational improvements.
Engagement Scope:
Innovar Partners was chosen to perform a strategic and operational assessment of the AP organization that paid in excess of $10 billing annually to vendors. Our Impact Integration Framework led to a prioritized implementation path that would drive toward these goals:
- Increase the percentage of on-time payments to vendors
- Improve overall efficiency of core AP processes to achieve maximum ROI with respect to ERP system
- Decreased cycle time in AP workflows
- Assess organizational design
- Assess the impact of a pending geographic move of the department
- Review current organizational metrics and provide recommendations for improvement
- Begin development of capabilities to move toward becoming an “analyzing and optimizing” AP organization vs. a “transactional” organization.
Results:
In a results oriented, quick strike approach Innovar Partners used process flow, data analysis, and benchmarking data to establish a prioritized opportunity assessment. Recommendations and implementation plans were placed into short-term tactical categories and medium-term strategic categories to formulate a roadmap to move the organization toward Best-In-Class always ensuring the recommendations were sensitive to the environment within the company. Major areas of analysis and recommendations include:
- Optimization of Optical Character Recognition (OCR) system by increased enablement of vendors and improved use of OCR forms
- Optimization of ERP work flow to increase percentage of autoposting
- Creation of operational dashboard with internal and external scorecards created to drive behavioral changes
- Organizational re-alignment to force common view of invoices
- Assess the impact of a pending geographic move of the department processed removing knowledge pockets and to enable increased automated processing
Proven Innovar Differentiators on Margin Improvement Engagement:
Experience – By bringing a team of specialists that averaged 20 years of experience each, broad Share Services backgrounds, and a proven methodology, the Innovar Partners team was able to rapidly get into in depth analysis typically not associated with the assessment phase of an engagement.
Real World Solutions – We don’t make recommendations that are known Best-In-Class practices. We understand that every company is different and thus so should proposed solutions. We have years of operations experience. We understand the real world.
Cost Effective – Innovar Partners fees were significantly less than Big Box advisory firms while providing a more experienced team.
Financial & Operational Experience – The ability to blend strong project financial understanding along with deep experience on the project operations side enabled a rapid delivery of a successful outcome.
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