Day One - Conference Day Two - Conference Day Three - Learning Labs
08.30 Registration and Morning Coffee
09.00 Accounts Payable as We Know it is Dying – Stats, Trends and Benchmarks
Most companies attending this event are shared services organisations, or at least operate centralised finance. This in itself is one step in the direction of touchless. But the steps to be taken between paper invoice processing and touchless invoice processing are plenty and can take years to master. Centralising invoices and running off one ERP lays the foundation for process standardisation, but this could almost be deemed as the ‘easy bit’. Once the giants of shared services and SAP are in place, Finance is still faced with low PO compliancy, too many touch points, low productivity per FTE, high cost per invoice, poor control over liabilities, too many invoices out in the business, and Accounts Payable seen as a huge ‘problem’. These two days are about how AP as we know it is dying. By following certain steps, AP moves from being a paper-heavy, touchpoint-heavy, and costly exercise, to being an electronic, clean, efficient, timely, cheap, intelligent process, which transforms Accounts Payable into a strategic partner.
Susie West - Conference Chair and Director
SHAREDSERVICESLINK.COM
09.45 What Can be Achieved with a Toned and Touchless P2P? Selling… and Then Realising Strategic Finance
Chances are you registered for this European conference with the aim to drive out the paper and the touchpoints in your P2P process, and significantly reduce costs. Maybe the efficiencies that emerge from this continuous improvement work are enough. But why put a ceiling on the return? Increasingly, companies across Europe are realising that with a clean and complete P2P process, Finance then becomes a value add partner and can start impacting the bottom line. The effectiveness of value add finance is deeply rooted in the effectiveness of your business processes. According to a recent Aberdeen Report, two thirds of companies have ranked working capital optimisation as a HIGH priority. But how do you try and persuade the board to invest in your vision? How can the CFO and the finance organisation get the rest of the business to follow suit enthusiastically? This session will address what can be achieved with CFO sponsorship for a more streamlined P2P. Marcus Demgenski from LyondellBasell Industries will talk about: how they used Six Sigma to bring about working capital and DPO improvements; what they are doing to drive up electronic invoices; and how they did all of this as a joint initiative between finance and procurement.
Marcus Demgenski - Director Finance Shared Services Europe
LYONDELLBASELL INDUSTRIES
10.30 Morning Coffee Break
11.00 Stop Acting as Silos! Successfully Synchronising Purchasing and Accounts Payable and Attaining 40% Savings
Working capital management... dynamic discounts... significantly reduced costs... It started out as a decision to introduce shared services concept for accounting with simultaneous implementation of an ERP system to optimise business processes. The part of the business hit the hardest by these giants is P2P. Often this area is so ‘traumatised’ by the change here, there is often nervousness about introducing the next level of change which is often referred to as Continuous Improvement. Putting the ‘fear’ to one side is essential if the centralised invoices are now going to morph into stream if invisible data. So where do you start if you want to make your life painless? If high 3 way match and touchless processing is your number one goal, what does your best starting place look like? This session will look at how Telekomunikacja Polska strategically aligned their purchasing, accounts payable and supply chain functions under one umbrella organisation. We will look in detail as to how this massive, but hugely effective task was engineered, the critical success factors to marrying the two Ps, and how exactly they have managed to take 40% out of their Accounts Payable costs as a result of this approach.
Irmina Buballo-Wojciechowska - Accounting Shared Services Branch Director
Magdalena Rudzka - Shared Services Processes Quality Assurance Department Director
TELEKOMUNIKACJA POLSKA
11.45 Achieving 95% Payment-on-Time and On Track for 85% First Time Match Through Building a Single P2P Team
You will often hear that step changes in Finance are impossible unless Finance and Procurement are aligned. This couldn’t be truer for Procter & Gamble who, with a $15 billion spend in Europe, across 50 different sites, recognised that if the cost per invoice were to reduce; if compliance and control were to be realised in Procurement; and if the receipt to post cycle were to shorten, then Purchasing and Finance needed to be a single team with a single vision. In this session Percy Kirkman will be illustrating how they managed to secure senior level buy in; how they went about building a cross functional team; how they are driving process efficiencies in an environment which is not ‘command and control’; how they are selling the benefits site by site, and making the vision real; and how their efforts have already resulted in a marked increase in first time match at the lead sites in a very short period of time. For anyone looking to break away from the fragmented P2P organisation, and establish a single P2P team, this session is a must.
Percy Kirkman - P2P Leader
PROCTER & GAMBLE
12.30 The Speaker Clinic
13.00 Networking Lunch
14.00 How do You Migrate 11 European Countries into an SCC and Move to a Single SAP in 24 Months AND Drive Your First Time Match from 54% to 85%?
This $8 billion turnover multinational (of which $4 billion is in Europe) has seen a significant improvement in their first time match rate for MM (inventory) invoices. With a total volume of almost 400,000, focusing hard on taking the perfect 3 way match from 54% to 85% has had a very beneficial impact on the P2P function. And all this transpired, despite the massive organisational change from moving finance to shared services and on to a single SAP platform. So how was this all possible? One man who can take a lot of credit for these statistics is here to illustrate what had to happen to improve process compliancy, and how this was possible during a climate of change.
Rene Leender - Lean Six Sigma Black Belt
O-I EUROPE
14.45 So What if You ARE NOT Aiming for 99% PO? How Efficiencies Are Attainable With High Non PO
SCA has done one or two things a little differently to what you would expect in F&A. Firstly, they created a virtual shared service organisation (VSSO) instead of the typical shared services model located in central Europe and then based this VSSO around a ‘hub’ set up. This concept offered similar results in terms of productivity, driving invoices per FTE from 9,000 pa to 25,000, and in some cases 35,000. They also offered potential cost savings of 50%. One key finding during the implementation of VSSO was that 100% PO-compliance is only value-adding if the business processes behind those invoices have a repetition rate 10 a year. SCA has found that it is not worth forcing PO-compliance for ALL incoming invoices, but has found a way to automate the wild invoices (maverick/non PO) and therefore the VSSO happily accepts 50% non PO. One of the striking features to this story is that it only took 2 months to automate 50% of the non PO invoices. This session looks at how this was made possible and looks at the critical success factors, including: the importance of a flexible workflow tool which allows automation at multiple levels; and the importance of a sophisticated OCR-engine with high capture rates and an intelligent history-based rule set built within. As a result SCA is witness to a P2P process which SCA believes could not be achieved through using standard tools available on the market.
Thomas Wust - CFO Germany Austria Switzerland
Martin Riemenschneider Virtual Accounts Payable Manager Europe
SCA HYGIENE
15.30 Afternoon Coffee
16.00 Can Finance ‘Get things done’ Without the Buy in From Procurement?
If you haven’t already looked into setting up a single team with a single vision in order to get things done in finance, should you feel disheartened? Or can Finance make great gains independently, still operating separate to Procurement? During this session we will be looking at what is achievable together and in isolation, and do great gains in P2P really start with Finance and Procurement becoming bed fellows?
16.30 Maximising Your Investment in SAP to Save Over €20 Million in Procurement Alone and Drive PO to 92%
Procurement in Cable & Wireless has saved €20 million in the last 18 months just through using SAP intelligently. Many of us have been there: massive resource and energy go into implementing SAP, but once it’s bedded in, bad habits creep back in, and using SAP becomes a hurdle to negotiate rather than ‘part of the process’. In 2006 C&W identified that, in Procurement alone, there were €350 million worth of savings that could be realised if SAP was used ’better’. Jennifer Pinney and the team went to the CFO with a list of the benefits that could achieved through offshoring, internal communications and using SAP intelligently. These benefits included: taking PO compliancy from 65% to 92%; reducing cost per invoice by 50%; saving millions in Procurement deals; and realising €50 million through working capital optimization in the P2P process. In this session Jennifer will be looking at how they built their business case, how they engaged the CFO, how they managed the ‘Commercially Aware, Financially Disciplined’ programme across Europe, and how they identified the massive saving opportunities within SAP.
Jennifer Pinney - Global P2P Process Owner
CABLE & WIRELESS
17.15 Speaker Clinic
17.45 Close
08.30 Morning Coffee
09.00 Chair’s Overview
Today’s focus is looking at what you do with a clean process. The pace at which you move to Lights Out is yours to decide, and how you get there depends on which solution you opt for. But once you’re in a place where there is a complete and accurate view of the cash flow and commitments of your business, you can take your finance function into a level of value based finance realised through dynamic discounting and working capital management. Accounts Payable becomes a source to drive business intelligence, and is a corporate muscle, which the company relies on for powerful, commercially critical information.
09.15 How to Achieve 50% Efficiency Gains Through EDI and Workflow in a Multi Instance SAP Environment
Not all of us have business models that lend themselves elegantly to one instance of SAP or Oracle. Sometimes if a company has multiple businesses, the only option available is multiple ERPs. However, few manufacturing giants run off the number of ERPs and versions than ABB. ABB runs a very efficient operation off a patchwork of systems, which is great for business delivery, but makes the application of standard tools tricky, and reporting more difficult. In this session Pether Jonsson will be illustrating how a company processing 5 million invoices per annum can introduce EDI and workflow in such a way that they realize 50% savings, despite multiple systems, and 20 shared services centres. One very tangible result of their touchless focus is that invoices processed per hour has increased from 5 to 15. Pether will tell the story about how this was made possible.
Pether Jonsson - Shared Accounting Services Lead Center
ABB GROUP
10.00 Touchless Processing in Legal Land - E-Invoicing and Line Level Automatching in Europe
In 1994, Whirlpool set up the first shared services centre in Ireland, which was also one of the first in Europe. Fourteen years on, and servicing 35 entities, running off SAP, and processing over 300,000 invoices annually, Whirlpool has decided to transform its Accounts Payable process from paper to data: firm in the belief that digitalisation/dematerialisation is an advantage beyond labour arbitrage. Rather than shooting for full BPO, Whirlpool has decided on a strategic automation partner with the objective of having touchless processing for the vast majority of inbound invoices. The automation solution allows for both PO and non-PO invoices: PO invoices flow through an e-invoicing hub and feed into an invoice management cockpit sitting within SAP, enabling automatching at line level and therefore pure touchless processing (subject to tolerances). Non-PO invoices, follow a similar process through the e-invoicing hub and cockpit, from which workflow is triggered for online invoice authorisation. Whirlpool has some very interesting ideas on availing short-term labour arbitrage while e-invoicing conversion ramps-up. They are set on eliminating the non-value add activities within the AP function, and draw up the future state AP footprint designed to enable supply chain financing and working capital management. Séamus McCormack will talk with passion about how they rolled out their e-invoicing tool in legally complex countries like France and Italy early on; how they are onboarding suppliers in multiple cultures; the critical success factors to e-invoicing success; how they are handling auto-matching; and the true benefits of outsourcing the paper. For anyone looking at an e-invoicing hub for pan Europe, this session is a must.
Séamus McCormack - Head of European Shared Services
WHIRLPOOL
11.00 Morning Coffee
11.30 Goodbye to 30% Capture Rates – What Needs to Happen to Secure a Successful OCR Project
Many of us are not in a place where we can start rolling out e invoicing. BUT, we are in a place where we can install scanning and OCR. However, we have heard some great stories about 80% capture rates, and some horror stories of 20%. What does a company need to do to ensure capture rates are 80% plus and that the ROI in your OCR suite is what you expected? In this session JohnsonDiversey will be looking what they needed for their own success, including: how they set up the project without requiring suppliers to change anything; how they realised EDI was not fit for them; how the make-up of their department is changed now that no one is doing 8-hours of heads-down processing anymore; and what role workflow plays in the process. This session is a MUST for anyone looking at successfully installing OCR technology.
Shared Services Director
JOHNSONDIVERSY
12.00 Knowing where and with whom to use Procurement Cards: How they can Help You and Why you Should Use Them
Procurement Cards can sometimes be seen as the unsung hero. They have been around for years, and occupy much discussion but few companies seem to be using them to great effect. Is this because Finance people are anti P Cards as they don’t allow for accruals? Or does this cause for resistance go deeper? Resistance means that P Cards, if and when used, are there to ‘mop up’ the tail of suppliers at most. This session is presented by an organisation that has a different view and has found that 80% of their transactions (in terms of volume) are less than £1500 but constitute approximately 10% of the total value. By moving the majority of this 80% to P-card they have the opportunity to reduce their transaction costs by a staggering 90% without increasing their risk. In addition to this, they are removing the whole matching problem that comes with invoicing. In this session Simon Cramond will discuss: how P-cards are making a difference; how they are interacting with foreign suppliers; and what financial and process advantages organisations across Europe are seeing by implementing P-cards.
Simon Cramond - Interim Head of Financial Shared Service Centre
THE BRITISH COUNCIL
12.45 Speaker Clinics
13.15 Networking Lunch
14.15 Forget E-invoicing – Eliminate 300,000 Invoices Completely Via ERS in Europe
Mention the term ERS or Self Billing to strategic or operational finance executives and you may often be met with a blank look. Evaluated Receipt Settlement is still a relative unknown in Europe as the penetration is unimpressive. But why? Why are Buyers not doing ERS when it eliminates the need for an invoice completely and saves you from paying, at a minimum, €1.30 an invoice? Ford are the experts at ERS. Go to some companies in Europe who are pretty mature in their P2P processes, but their ERS penetration will be 6%. Talk to Ford, and their penetration is 60% of all their 500,000 European invoices. Over the years they have enrolled 8,700 suppliers onto their ERS scheme. But how have they achieved this? Surely there must be something different about the nature of the Ford business which enables this level of conversion? Joe Fitzpatrick from Ford would argue that their business and their suppliers are no different to the profile of others. There are however, some components in a business which need to be watertight in order to avoid over spend on an invoice, or the tax authorities fining you for incorrect tax references. This session looks, at a strategic level, at the business case, benefits and critical success factors of rolling out ERS across Europe. For operational finance professionals, be sure to attend Joe’s Learning Lab on Friday which digs deep into rolling out ERS from a project level.
Joe Fitzpatrick - Manager Transactional Accounting
THE FORD MOTOR COMPANY
15.00 How to Successfully Manage the Inevitable – Rolling Out SAP and Bolt-Ons Globally for 2 Million Invoices
Many of the companies attending this event have multiple business lines, and complex processes to support the different requirements within them. This couldn’t be truer for Alstom, with three massive business lines including Power Systems and Transport, and a staff of 69,000 in over 60 countries, the complexities here are huge. Getting a business this size on to one version of SAP, and ensuring that all applications that sit on top are used globally, is an epic task. In 2006 Christian Mueller moved from being Director Finance Shared Services to heading up the PowerMax project. The main aim: to move the entire business on to a standard version of SAP, and roll out the platform of tools, including OCR, document management, workflow, automatching and e-invoicing. Having piloted in one of the toughest European countries – Italy – and realised success, they are now on the road to migrating Norway, Hungary, Malaysia, followed by China and the USA and France next year. They have chosen to take on the toughest countries first, and once completed, 2 million invoices globally will follow the same process. In this session Christian Mueller will be talking frankly about how this project was made possible, the key learning’s from Italy, and the impressive results gleaned so far.
Christian Mueller - Head of PowerMax
ALSTOM
15.45 Taking Your P2P Platform Global and Managing a Single P2P Team
You would expect Oracle to be ahead of the curve in their P2P organization… and they are. This closing session looks at what led Oracle to morph from a shared services organization with 30 centres, to a global P2P platform with one ERP version, one shared services centre in India, and one global process strategy team. The stats are impressive: 300 FTEs in P2P; the average cost per invoice of under $5.00; 91% XML invoicing in the US; and PO compliancy in the 90s. Amy puts this down to 3 core success factors, which, if they hadn’t been applied, would have meant the above stats would have looked quite different. Amy will talk great candour and passion about how they reached a global P2P platform in under 4 years; what she would definitely do differently given her time again; and where next for Oracle.
Amy Aves - Senior Director, Global Procure to Pay Strategy and Operations
ORACLE
16.30 Speaker Clinic
17.00 Prize Draw and Close
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Learning Lab A
08.00 – 11.00 How to Master an ERS Project - All the Things You Need to Know About Getting Suppliers onto Self Billing
For Operational People Only! This session is for people that like the detail. You have been warned. This Learning Lab is limited and VERY hands on and absolutely key for anyone looking to eliminate the invoice completely. Before you attend, you will be asked to bring a breakdown of your own supplier database. Why? Because this session is looking at how you can apply ERS to your own suppliers. By the end of the session you will have a very good idea about:
- Which of your own suppliers qualify for ERS
- Which absolutely do not qualify and why inclusion would be risky
- What your business case will look like based on these numbers
- What needs to be done to qualify these suppliers in greater detail
- What needs to be done internally to get your ERS project to fulfillment
- How you need to work with Tax and Legal to ensure that you understand the implications of ‘source of goods’ throughout your supply chain, and with whom the responsibility lies if tax is mis-quoted
- How to put the project in place and avoid exceptions caused by freight
- The process and infrastructure you must have in place if this is going to work
- How to onboard suppliers quickly and effectively in multiple countries
- The financial and process benefits that come from doing ERS properly
- Learning Lab Facilitator:
Joe Fitzpatrick - Manager Transactional Accounting
THE FORD MOTOR COMPANY
Learning Lab B
11.15 – 14.15 Attaining Touchless Through 3 Way Auto Matching at Line Level – How to Use Technology Wisely to Successfully Secure Procurement’s Buy In (Working Lunch Included)
All Financial professionals know that without Procurement onside, touchless processing will continue to be an unattainable fantasy! So what do you do? Spend months pursuing some change management programme and force users to follow the P2P ‘rules’? Perhaps. But there are other ways to educate your P2P ‘partners’ without the use of a baseball bat and it’s called ‘the smart application of matching technology’.
So what does this mean? Well, in essence it’s pretty simple. Shared services organisations globally are all striving for the same thing: touchless processing. The penny has dropped in most organisations that to attain this, Finance has to somehow get Procurement to love and support them. This can be hard in organisations where Procurement and Finance have operated as silos. This excellent Learning Lab will illustrate to Shared Services Professionals how a particular technology can help you:
- Elegantly bridge the disconnect between Procurement and Finance
- Leverage your massive investment in your ERP
- Refocus your AP team on more strategic initiatives
- Enhance Supplier relationships so Procurement’s life (and therefore Finance’s life) is much easier
- Significantly increase controls so data is matched quicker and reporting is meaningful
- Drive up your match rates into the 90s
- Reduce your cost-per-invoice by 50%
- Significantly reduce the error rate and inefficiencies in the process
- Prepare your P2P process for offshoring
Learning Lab Facilitators:
Glenn Inniss - Finance & Accounting Domain Manager LOGICA
Anthony Rafter - Business Analyst TRINTECH
Learning Lab C
14.30 – 17.30 Driving OCR Capture Rates Up from the 50s to over 80% - The Critical Success Factors to a Speedy ROI
If you are considering, or have implemented OCR, this Learning Lab is a must. Not only will you be party to the project management expertise of Brainware, but you will be accompanied by other P2P professionals who are all involved in an OCR project, and are all trying to master the technology so capture rates are over 80%. This excellent Learning Lab will be looking at the critical success factors that must be applied if you are going to see the back of a 30% capture rate. You will be asked to bring data to this session including:
- Numbers of invoices in scope for the OCR project
- Numbers of countries
- Numbers of Suppliers
- Matching process
Armed with all this information, we will spend the first half of the session looking at the key elements you can apply to your project to make OCR a success, and the second half applying these learning’s to your own situation so you can leave here with your own project plan to evaluate, implement or improve your OCR project.
Learning Lab Facilitator:
BRAINWARE