Day One - Pre-conference Learning Labs - Tuesday 9th March 2010
Choose up to 3 Learning Labs from A or B or C, then D or E, then F or G or H
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LEARNING LAB A
From cost to profit: the Marks & Spencer success story - How to commercialise your shared service operation and run it as a successful business
More information
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LEARNING LAB D
What gets measured gets improved - How to drive up your purchase to pay KPIs
More information
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LEARNING LAB F
Process excellence reality check: it's more than just automation. How to apply Lean Thinking and Continuous Process Excellence for both your manual and automated activities
More information
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LEARNING LAB B
How to succeed in regional/global financial services delivery excellence and eliminate 100% of paper invoices
More information |
LEARNING LAB E
How to set up a single channel for your suppliers, customers, inter company businesses and banks to drive visibility of all your trading and transaction activity
More information
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LEARNING LAB G
The 5 Ps to understanding your readiness for e-invoicing - How to accurately forecast your e-invoicing success
More information |
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LEARNING LAB C
How to align procurement and finance to drive compliancy, process efficiency and working capital optimisation
More information
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LEARNING LAB H
How to harness the power of data capture to drive your SSO up the value chain
More information
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DAY TWO - Conference Day One - Wednesday 10th March 2010
Setting up your shared services for process excellence
08.15 Registration and coffee
09.00 The soaring importance of shared services in a downturn - benchmark your SSO against the top and under performers
The finance shared services landscape is changing. No longer is it just about cost. Shared services organisations are morphing into more complex operations, reaching globally, crossing functions, climbing up the value chain in terms of what they deliver, and running off a platform of captive and outsourced ingredients. In this opening session we will look at key trends which are driving this market, and then drill down into what world class operations are achieving. This conference is about benchmarking, and what better way to open this event than be able to benchmark your SSO against the winners and the under performers.
Susie West - Conference Chair and CEO - sharedserviceslink.com
09.45 Keynote: A renewed focus on cost reduction and improved control - how to strike the perfect balance between savings and service in 2010
Everyone would agree that service delivery is just as important to the shared services purpose as cost reduction. In light of 2009's economic performance, it's arguably harder to keep this dual goal in mind. However, leaders in shared services realise the importance of it, and no one more than Mike Wood. There is pressure on the NHS, and from 2011 to 2014 their productivity needs to increase by up to 8%. Processing 4.1 million invoices per annum, Mike's shared services organisation is considered an oil tanker-like operation in terms of its size, yet with the uncertainties of 2010 regarding political, economic and budgetary conditions, it is required to be agile and responsive. In this excellent opening session, Mike will talk about how they are servicing their 120 customers and delivering remarkable cost savings, whilst delivering a world class standard of service delivery.
Mike Wood - COO - NHS Shared Business Services
10.30 Morning coffee
LOCATION, CENTRALISATION AND GLOBALISATION
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STREAM A
New SSOs
11.00 The 12 step checklist to avoid a difficult SSC birth
What if you had the opportunity to sit down with someone who had been through shared services setups multiple times so they could share a checklist of dos and don'ts with you? This session gives you that very opportunity. Jean Robb has helped set up shared service centres in very different environments, from the private sector at Marks and Spencer, to one of Western Europe's largest local authorities. As Assistant Director for Birmingham City Council's SSC, Jean is now responsible for 275 SSC staff processing 1 million invoices a year and serving 60,000 employees. In this session, Jean will share valuable lessons you can tick off and use in your business case or proposal, from a practitioner's point of view. Her advice will enable you to be much more confident in easing your way into a shared service implementation without encountering typical, but avoidable problems, on your journey. If you are shifting from domestic to regional shared services, or starting up first time, this session is a must.
Jean Robb - Assistant Director Shared Services
Birmingham City Council
11.45 How to secure the best location for your shared services and the top 10 considerations for a seamless transition
Shared service centres globally are on the move as the pressure increases to drop operational costs. Recently acquired by KKR, Northgate Information Solutions put their attention to operational efficiency and cash realisation. As a result, a director-level team was established to manage the movement of cash, and take charge of some highly effective cost reduction initiatives touching on location of back office operations and improved systems and processes around receivables. In this excellent session, Sara Peters will examine how they prepared the move from their historic location just outside London, where they moved to, why they moved there, how they kept business disruption to a minimum, and what the very impressive results are now the transition is complete. If you are looking for a checklist, then come and hear the one Sara used to ensure a smooth migration and improvement in business performance including salary reduction of 55%, rent reduction of 70%, productivity increase of 15%, and SLA improvement to internal customers. If you are looking to make a move and improve on service delivery this session will prove invaluable.
Sara Peters - Global Shared Services Director
Northgate Information Solutions
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STREAM B
More mature SSOs
11.00 The 3 key steps to elegant nearshoring to improve service levels, process performance and reduce costs in one year
Impress first established their shared service centre in the Netherlands back in 1999. After conducting a cost review they realised being based in the Netherlands meant their labour costs were relatively high. Senior management decided that migrating accounts payable to the Czech Republic was the best option and set a huge annual cost savings target to be realised within one year after migration.
This was a relatively ambitious target. Sander Koonings was hired to ensure Impress met these targets, but crucially for the migration to have minimal impact on service delivery. The first major problem Sander found was a huge resistance to change. This was largely down to the fact that AP hadn't seen change in a decade. In this insightful session, Sander will share the 3 key steps he used to ensure he led a successful migration project not only meeting the ambitious cost reduction targets, but actually improving rather than maintaining customer service scores. He will also demonstrate how and why he is confident of meeting his 2010 target to significantly reduce costs and increase productivity by a third compared to the migration target.
Sander Koonings - Manager Impress SSC Central & Eastern Europe
Impress Shared Services
11.45 How to move from regional to global service delivery and single-function to multi-function, whilst reducing costs by 25%, increasing the number of happy customers and delivering value-add services to the business
The idea of moving from single-function to multi function is at the forefront of most CFOs' and COOs' minds. In 2005 Juniper started offshoring selected activities to India. All was going well, but in 2007 the CFO stepped up into a whole new gear and asked Mark Burrows to establish a platform that could offer and support global
delivery to APAC, the Americas and EMEA. With the blend of off and onshore operations, Mark stepped up to the challenge to deliver service excellence balanced with meeting cost reduction targets. The offshore operation quickly expanded and has now tripled in size with 75% of transactional work being managed offshore. This excellent session will be looking at how to deliver global business services via a two-tiered model, stay true to the quality of service, and deliver on aggressive cost reduction targets. What were the critical success factors Mark and the team deployed, and how has this set him up to deliver multi-functional and more strategic financial services? If multi-functional and global service delivery is on your agenda, make sure you hear Mark's excellent session.
Mark Burrows - VP Global Shared Services
Juniper Networks
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12.30 The Speaker Clinic
An opportunity to ask your questions face to face with this morning's speakers in small groups and really get the detail you are after.
13:30 Lunch
CAPTIVE, OUTSOURCED AND HYBRID SHARED SERVICE MODELS
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The captive/outsourced mix
14.15 INTERACTIVE SESSION: In what ways should your talent management and development change shape when you outsource your F & A SSO?
This session brings together those companies who have already embarked on the outsourcing journey with those still considering or about to start it to discuss how their staff will be affected. How should shared service or finance operations staff be handled once migration begins?
How do you best use 'redundant' talent within your wider organisation to give your company a competitive advantage? What ideas can be applied from companies who have offshored their operations to those outsourcing and vice-versa? How can you manage your internal talent and that of your outsourcing partners to ensure you keep tight control of your end-to-end processes? Be prepared to exchange inspirational ideas and business cards in this interactive discussion-based session, coordinated by our chair, Susie West.
15.00 How to maximise centres of excellence and outsourcing to drive agility and scalability to support rapid growth and process excellence
2009 was about survival. 2010 for a good number of us will be about growth. This is a session for you if you're forecasting a rise in sales. Cisco Systems adopted a shared services model in 2006 as part of its globalisation strategy to become more scalable. Back then Cisco was a $25bn company growing at 15% pa with the aim of doubling its size within 5 years. Such ambitions required a scalable model, so they developed a model consisting of 4 centres of excellence and an SSO run by Accenture in India. This new structure has empowered Cisco's shared services to reach out to deliver more complex financial operations to its business units and offer cross-functional services to the customer. In this insightful session, Petra Williams will discuss the critical success factors behind implementing a centre of excellence and outsourcing model, what difference it means to service, what not to do if you wish to follow this path, and how this model can significantly impact your growth plans.
Petra Williams Controller Emerging Markets
Cisco Systems
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Effective communications with customers, suppliers and outsourcers to lubricate change management
14.15 How to become a strategic partner to the business
One further trend that shared services organisations are seeing worldwide in addition to going global and multi-functional, is the delivery of more value-add services to senior finance and the business units. BP is on the road to implementing its Global Business Service platform to enhance the quality of service experienced by the customer, largely through expanding activities into higher value services. One key component to this shift has been the deployment of their consistent engagement model. This model was designed to oil the wheels of change and ensure elegant communication. Using it has enabled Phil Whelan's SSC to hit every single one of its KPI targets for year 1 of its 5 year strategic plan. Not only is this engagement model repeatable, allowing reduced cycle times for transition, but it has also built up credibility for BP's shared services. This has enabled BP's Business Service Centre to become part of the company's wider business strategy so they can now stride with real confidence up the value chain whilst focusing on continuous improvement. By the end of this session, Phil will have shared the key secrets of what the model is and how it works, as well as how his shared services organisation has become sustainable in order to continually drive economic value year after year.
Philip Whelan Managing Director Business Service Centre
BP
15.00 The principles to ensuring your BPO provider delivers service excellence on a budget
As business process outsourcing evolves from a focus on exploiting labour arbitrage to creating value, both outsourcers and service providers are under pressure to develop alternative models to deliver service excellence. The current tight financial environment exacerbates the need to drive innovation and value creation as efficiently and effectively as possible for both parties. Srinivas Krishna presents Microsoft's approach to this by revealing a set of principles that are simple to operate and repeatable. Srivinas will share how both Microsoft and its outsourcer are assessing mutual dollar value benefits from each transformation project and will explain how this enables both sides to innovate and share in the benefits. These key principles were used throughout Microsoft's outsourcing
process from initial design, selection process, contracting and even now after 3 years of its relationship with their service provider. This objective has been founded on a partnership approach between the two sides rather than the traditional client-vendor relationship. If you are considering outsourcing or want to transform your existing outsourcing relationship, this session will serve you excellently.
Srinivas Krishna Director of Finance Operations
Microsoft
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15.45 Afternoon coffee
INSPIRING YOUR PEOPLE TO WORK TOWARDS YOUR SHARED SERVICES DREAM
16.15 Mistakes to avoid so your shared services orgsanisation can deliver 75% cost reduction
There is significant pressure on postal service companies globally to reduce their cost of operations. Royal Mail started their shared services journey in 2000. They had a plethora of different systems and processes. Along the way they reduced their 100 transactional sites to 3, and replaced their patch-work quilt of accounting systems with a single SAP installation. In this plenary session Nigel Smith will talk about the mistakes to avoid if you are looking to secure a streamlined operation and deliver on 75% cost reduction targets whilst retaining a great quality of service, managing change quickly and ensuring the teams within the shared services operation realise excellence is down to them. If you're feeling the pressure, but want to ensure your people support the shared services vision, this session will prove invaluable.
Nigel Smith Head of Finance Operations
Royal Mail
17.00 Fuelling continuous improvement - how to gain rapid buy-in and realise significant improvements from any CPI project
'Continuous improvement' is a term that chimes with every shared services director and CFO. Year-on-year the SSO strives to deliver increased targets and better support to the business. One excellent CI initiative is the deployment of Lean Six Sigma. More intuitive than its forefather, Lean Six Sigma is easily implemented by shared services organisations that want to find reasons for underperformance quickly. Emmanuel Decroix joined BNP Paribas to lead the Lean Six Sigma Corporate in September 2006. He created a diverse team of LSS experts, based in Asia, Europe and the Americas. He leveraged their experiences to enhance the original program, to deliver a very practical LSS approach combined with a change management touch. The BNP Paribas program now spans a staggering 27 businesses and functions, across 25 countries. In this session, Emmanuel shares the BNP Paribas continuous improvement journey, what worked well and what the company learned along the way. He will illustrate through fascinating anecdotes, a fast-paced, facts based approach that has allowed this European bank to embark successfully on a quality journey, combining process enhancement with customer satisfaction and cost reduction.
Emmanuel Decroix Global Lean Six Sigma Leader
BNP Paribas
17.45 The Speaker Clinic
18.15 Chair's Close
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DAY THREE - Conference Day Two - Wednesday 11th March 2010
Taking your SSO to best in breed and world class
08:15 Registration and coffee
09.00 Top tips learnt from Conference day one
09.45 Keynote: How to shine as a leader when the pressure is on and deliver a 'best of breed' service
How can you wow your customer base and become best in class in 2010? How could you re-design your service delivery proposition and better achieve your KPI targets to ensure both the customer and senior management are happy without either feeling short-changed? And how can this be achieved on a small budget? Dan Foley's shared services centre at ITV has gone through some significant change in the past two years. With ITV feeling the pressure, Dan had to come up with delivering cost saving and cash realisaton whilst ensuring the customers were impressed by the service. His view is that world class is great, but when you are operating on a low budget and resources are tight, the zenith is to be a 'best of breed' shared services, where the SSO supports the business in a way that helps it perform at its optimum, whatever the economic conditions. One key to success here is leadership. Being a leader in shared services can be tough as the activities in scope are considered low value, so motivating staff is often an issue, and shared services directors.....dare it be said.....sometimes lack the visionary skills to wow the troops. So stand back for a moment and see how Dan Foley at ITV is inspiring his staff to be completely involved and how this is having a huge impact on performance. This session will give you goose bumps.
Dan Foley Business Service Centre Director
ITV
10:30 Morning coffee
PROCESS COMPLIANCY
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STREAM A
Purchase to pay process compliance
Sponsored by ARIBA
11.00 Killing the silos and embracing end-to-end processing. Ensuring finance and procurement align to significantly improve the SSO performance
Increasingly finance is becoming aware that the success of the SSO is in the hands of procurement, and what happens 'upstream'. In 2007 AXA wanted to rollout a new workflow solution from Ariba as there was a need to use a common system to improve purchase controls and approvals, as well as improve supplier management and contract negotiations. But like many finance operations, AXA's accounts payable and procurement operations operated as silos, doing their own thing and working with separate goals and separate projects. There was a huge lack of understanding of how to practically run the new Ariba process to ensure both parties were truly served. So a significant business change had to take place. What happened next meant that accounts payable could become a slick operation, first time match rates could soar, and the purchase to pay process could become automated end-to-end. In this insightful presentation, Tracy Giordano and Paul McMullen will talk openly about what drove them to change their relationship, how they instigated the change, how they overcame internal resistance and where they are now. For anyone realising they need to engage procurement to secure AP's success, this session will be a breath of fresh air.
Tracy Giordano Accounts Payable Manager
AXA
Paul McMullen Head of General Expenses Procurement
AXA
11.45 How to secure 94% payment on time and optimise working capital
The metric of 'payment on time' is increasingly important as multinationals and public sector organisations feel obliged to help their suppliers survive in a recession. So what did AstraZeneca do during the 9 months it took them to turn its payment on time rates around from 74% to 94%? Just 1% away from world class, this insightful presentation will be examining how AstraZeneca used Ariba and its ASN service to move to e-invoicing, and how this is having a huge impact on processing efficiency and therefore PoT rates. With 50% of invoices now electronic, and OCR now mopping up the paper, 65% of all invoices are now being processed without the support of accounts payable. James Dyer and his team are now looking to boost working capital further by working with its procurement teams to change key terms and conditions for suppliers. He is also looking to give much more flexibility by giving those suppliers two options - increasing payment terms or shortening them with a discount. This will potentially save millions. In this session, James will discuss problems encountered on: his journey of achieving straight-through processing; how his team completely re-engineered the old Ariba process; key tips to successfully adding an invoice module and workflow; and how AstraZeneca themselves practically onboarded suppliers to e-invoicing.
James Dyer Global Process Owner Purchase to Pay
AstraZeneca
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STREAM B
Order to Cash
11.00 4 steps to hitting 90% automated reconciliation rates, slashing your cost per invoice by 79% and focusing your AR department on adding value to your business
Even the most sophisticated SSCs struggle with reconciling sales invoice with bank statements. In a shared services operation where automation technology is flourishing, there will still be an army of people in accounts receivable, reconciling invoices out against cash in. This session will make this problem go away. Ista, with operations across Germany, the US and UK, provides consumption-dependent billing and ancillary costs for houses. As a group, it is privately owned, has revenues of €600 million, 4600 FTEs and services 26 countries. Its long-term corporate goal is to IPO. Consequently, process excellence and cost reduction are major goals for its FSSC. In 2007, Ista's FSSC processed 974,000 outgoing invoices at the total unit cost of €0.89 per invoice. By 2009, it was processing over
1 million invoices and automatically reconciling 90% payments made with sales invoices. All this meant the cost per invoice had dropped to a very impressive €0.20. In this excellent session Jan Eric Meyer- Hubbert, who was instrumental to this result, will be sharing the 4 enablers that made this possible, why they needed a solution which allowed scalability during peak times (without ISTA having to recruit temps to deal with the volume surge) and where they intend on going next.
Jan Eric Meyer-Hubbert Director FinanceTransformation
Ista Shared Services
11.45 INTERACTIVE SESSION: Secrets to how shared services can decrease DSO and inflate working capital
During 2009 the importance of shared services increased within most organisations for three reasons: cost, control and cash. This excellent interactive session will be looking at what shared services organisations are doing to inflate their cash ownership and how they are improving their cash flow forecasting as a result. What can be done to extend and standardise payment terms, and chase collections on the other side to help the company realise more cash? This session will dig into what tactics companies are doing to optimise cash without irritating suppliers or customers.
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12.30 The Speaker Clinic
13.00 Lunch
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STREAM A: Purchase to pay automation
Sponsored by OB10
14.15 If you use OCR technology correctly it can be a very powerful tool - how to use OCR to meet ambitious KPI targets
There are apparently only 2 OCR engines in the world. So why is there such disparity in capture rates amongst the users? This session looks at the critical success factors to ensuring OCR and data capture technology help you exceed on your business case, rather than struggle to meet it. In 2008 Dutch Rabobank decided to centralise the processing of its 600,000 invoices. Until this point, much of the transaction processing was done locally, and the difference in process approach and productivity across the bank was huge. One key requirement was a solution which would feed elegantly into their SAP system, and help them with driving up payment on time and strip out much of the invoicing costs. To enable success in these areas, Rabobank were relying on the technology to have a high first pass rate. The solution they went for? Logica's Total Invoice Management Solution. In this joint presentation, Martijn will discuss how he assessed potential solutions for this problem, the challenges of rolling out the solution and key lessons learnt. Marco de Wit from Achmea, which shares the same parent company as Rabobank, will then conclude by discussing exactly why Achmea are looking to implement the same Logica solution, even though their processes and organisational structure are very different. Martijn Tabbernee Manager Cost Accounting
Rabobank
Marco de Wit Manager Cost Accounting
Achmea
15.00 How to attain 90% saving per invoice even when your global e-invoicing project is being led by the States
You will have heard the horror stories where huge US-based companies have rolled out e-invoicing brilliantly in the US, with 95% of invoices converted to electronic. The US procurement and IT teams are so pleased with results that senior management instructs them to look east and rollout e-invoicing to their European cousins. They start the project with a well deserved air of confidence which soon turns to frustration. This session will be looking at the story of Bristol Myers Squibb, a company headquartered in the US. 50% cost savings had been attained in the US and HQ assumed that rolling out e-invoicing across Europe would be as easy, with the lessons learnt from the US making implementation even quicker. How wrong they were! Not only was supplier onboarding not mandated in Europe, but the complexities in the VAT requirements in all chief countries hadn't been seriously appreciated. In this fascinating session, Maria Gonzalez-Cabal, who co-led the European implementation, will be looking at how they overcame these 2 significant inhibitors, how they have exceeded the 50% saving per transaction and hit 90% savings per invoice, and what she recommends other companies in similar situations to do if they wish to bag success early on.
Maria Gonzalez-Cabal Principal Ecommerce Analyst
Bristol Myers Squibb
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STREAM B: Reporting and general accounting
14.15 How to ensure shared services enable general accounting process excellence
Often we hear the stories about how shared services have enabled process excellence in purchase to pay and order to cash. But what about activities like general accounting, reporting and fixed assets? This session looks at the fascinating Solvay story. Before shared services, Solvay ran the general ledger and cost accounting over 50 sites. They decided to implement standard SAP and shared services, and they did so in such a way that they now close their books working day 6 and it costs them €0.11 per GL line (upper quartile is €0.15). During this session Thomas Varchim will discuss how Solvay's team built a perfect environment for breeding process innovation and how they engaged all stakeholders involved in this challenge. If reporting and general accounting is your priority area
this session will prove invaluable.
Thomas Varchmin Process Leader for Close the Book
3S Solvay Shared Services
15.00 INTERACTIVE SESSION: How to effectively build a single chart of accounts across Europe for reporting to enable rapid decision-making and increase your profit margins
Even today many shared services operations run off a platform that supports too many charts of accounts. The lack of control and visibility of financial behaviour that this provides is disturbing in today's world. The power that comes from having a single source of information illustrating what operational costs are right across
the business, from sales to production to support, can result in decisions which can positively impact the organisation. This session is excellent for any organisation looking to move to a single chart of accounts.
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15.45 Afternoon coffee
16.15 How to attain F&A process excellence and effectiveness without shipping shared services
Many of us still have shared services operations in medium to high cost locations. For various reasons the thought of moving these centres near or offshore causes a choking effect amongst senior management and the centres are required to stay relatively local. So how do you deliver shared services excellence when there are certain restrictions in place when it comes to cost deliverables being met? This closing session will provide you with excellent insight into what Sanoma Uitgevers did. When Steven Flipse arrived there in 2000, there was no ERP to speak of and every division had their own system. It was a time of many kingdoms and lack of cross-company transparency. What followed was the implementation of SAP, with shared services then deployed to optimise the SAP investment. The question is, can you have an effective SSO if you are running it out of a mid to high cost location. Steven would say yes - if you have an efficiently run SSO, you can attain significant cost effectiveness targets without having to ship to India. This session looks at what they did, how they maximised the SAP investment, how they transformed productivity, and what the future looks like for them in terms of offshoring.
Steven Flipse Chief Financial Officer
Sanoma Uitgevers
17.00 The Speaker Clinic
17.30 Chair's Summation
18.00 Close of Conference
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DAY FOUR - Post Conference Site Visit Day - Friday 12th March 2010
Transport for London & Crown Packaging UK
There is no better way of confirming all the knowledge you have picked up over the past few days than seeing it in the flesh and on site! We have arranged 2 exceptional site visits which have been designed to re-affirm much of what has been talked about during the conference. On both site visits, the head of each shared services operation will show you the services being run at their SSC and introduce you to the individuals who have contributed to its major improvements. This will enable you to discuss your key concerns and share challenges so you return to your office with fresh ideas boosting confidence and ensuring your SSC is on track to succeed.
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Crown Packaging UK
(morning site visit)
Crown Packaging UK's SSCs were brought about with the introduction of a common ERP system. Its European Division has 7 shared service centres servicing the local plants, based right across Europe. The UK SSC was initiated on the 1st July 1998 and is the 2nd largest Crown SSC after France. It serves 12 factories and 7 corporate offices. Although a small shared service centre, with 21.6 FTEs, it provides a host of services, including accounts payable, accounts receivable and credit
control, payroll, treasury and governance. The UK SSC now has the highest productivity per FTE in the whole European division (e.g. 24,000 invoices per FTE per annum in AP). It also has by far the highest number of e-invoices (42% of total invoices are handled by OB10), which has greatly boosted both efficiency and cost effectiveness.
08:15 The day begins with you joining the group in reception of The Waldorf Hilton in order to depart by coach to the SSO.
09.45 Arrival and welcome at Crown Packaging UK's shared service centre. You will be greeted by your host for the day, Steve Pearce who is the UK & Ireland SSC Manager. Steve will give an overview of the SSO against which you can begin to benchmark.
10.45 Coffee Break
11.00 The shared services tour - this will serve as a fascinating opportunity to see how the accounts payable operation manage their paper and electronic invoices, and how the accounts receivable and credit control departments are deploying best practices to ensure their DSO are attractive to treasury. Looking at payroll, treasury and governance, we will then end the tour with a working lunch with the shared services staff before departing to the next centre.
13.00 Departure by coach
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Transport for London (afternoon site visit)
Transport for London (TfL) is the integrated body responsible for London's transport system. TfL created the Financial Shared Services Centre in August 2004 to support all of TfL's 14 divisions. The shared services centre is well on track to deliver total net benefits of £16m over 10 years through increased efficiency and economies of scale. Having rolled out one common version of SAP, and instilling a culture of continuous improvement within its organisations, the shared services organisations have seen headcount savings of over 40%, the proportion of invoices paid on time has improved from 77% to 92%, overdue debt has improved from over 50% to less than 8% and 100% customer satisfaction. On this site visit, Andrew Freeman, Head of TfL Financial Shared Services Centre will take you around his SSC and introduce you to its key staff across four functional areas - accounts payable, financial accounting, financial operations and financial reporting.
By the end of the visit, you will have taken away key ideas for how TfL has been so successful. Crucially you will be able to discuss with its key people how these ideas may work in your own shared services operation and address concerns you may have about any potential challenges you may encounter when implementing them.
14.30 Welcome by our host for the day, Andrew Freeman, Head of TfL Financial Shared Services Centre. Andrew will present an overview of the SSO against which you can begin to benchmark.
15.30 Coffee Break
15.45 The shared services tour - this tour will be looking profoundly at the accounts payable process. We will then move to the financial accounting and reporting operations to understand how such impressive KPIs have been met within the shared services centre.
17.15 Close and departure by coach back to the Waldorf Hilton.
17.45 Arrive at the Waldorf Hilton
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Learning Labs in Detail
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LEARNING LAB A
From cost to profit: the Marks & Spencer success story - How to commercialise your shared service operation and run it as a successful business
In 2006 Marks and Spencer had centralised accounting units operating under a shared services banner. The early labour arbitrage benefits were exhausted and the centre faced an impending SAP implementation. A new leadership team was appointed to implement M&S's first wave of SAP. This team worked hard to establish new processes, find a new building, establish new teams and build solid customer relationships based on SLAs and KPIs. By April 2007, M&S Shared Services had gone live with SAP. The focus was now on developing an exceptional team to deliver best value, a trusted service and ultimately to drive wider stakeholder success. After 6 months of business as usual, 60% of KPIs were being achieved with a 50% level of customer satisfaction. One year later both these figures leapt to 95%. The Finance Shared Service Centre delivered a 33% annualised ROI from operating costs in 2008, and a similar level in 2009! Now operating with an expanded commercial and international remit the centre has evolved into Marks and Spencer Business Service Centre. In this excellent Learning Lab, Gary will explain how they took customer satisfaction from 50% to 95% and how to turn your SSO into a profit centre.
Learning Lab Facilitator:
Gary Critchley Head of Business Services and Information
Marks & Spencer
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LEARNING LAB B
How to succeed in regional/global financial services delivery excellence and eliminate 100% of paper invoices
Shared services organisations are going regional or global in their service delivery approach. Gone are the days of one country shared services. Now it's about supporting multiple countries, various business lines, and multiple languages through a standardised approach. So in order to do this SSOs need tools, technologies and platforms that can support multi-country needs. In this excellent Learning Lab we will be examining how accounts payable operations are now looking for one e-invoicing and invoice automation solution to scoop up their entire European invoice volumes from small and large suppliers. If you are processing between 100,000 and 5 million invoices per annum and cater for 1 to 15 countries, and are scratching your head to determine how you are going to get rid of 100% of the paper and enrol thousands of suppliers, come and find out at this excellent Lab.
Learning Lab Facilitator:
Quentin West
Basware
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LEARNING LAB C
How to align procurement and finance to drive compliancy, process efficiency and working capital optimisation
Most corporates believe e-invoicing will heal all ills, and to a degree that is true. But the biggest issue for most shared services organisations is approval - for electronic and paper invoices. And this stems from the fact that companies continue to place orders without PO. And we all know that non-PO driven spend, or invoices lacking a PO simply get stuck in the system. A result of 'bad' invoices is often a purchase order raised retrospectively. The more this happens in the business, the higher the costs climb, the poorer the MI is and the poorer the compliance. How can this problem be fixed? If procurement and finance became more aligned, and were educated on the consequence of POs not being raised, then MI would improve, the cost per invoice would reduce, and the impact on working capital would be significant. Join this excellent Lab to take a look at a unique approach which can help eliminate the types of invoices that cause the problems - ie the non-PO invoices and the transactions associated with one time only vendors (OTOVs). This session will equip you with tactics on how to engage procurement successfully, and knowledge on how to increase your first time match rate and reduce your cost per invoice.
Learning Lab Facilitators:
Sid Vasili
Invapay
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LEARNING LAB D
What gets measured gets improved - How to drive up your purchase to pay KPIs
Nearly every shared services director will tell you: what get's measured gets improved. In the world of shared services there is such a reliance on accurate data for 2 reasons: firstly the world is against you and you need data to back up your case. Often shared service directors will only be able to dispel the white noise and rumours by presenting real figures representing number of invoice errors, percentage of invoices paid on time, how much spend was made off contract, who was 'guilty' of not raising purchase orders and how much this cost the business. Secondly, for the good of continuous improvement, we all know that if we want to continue to reduce costs and cycle times, and increase productivity, it is vital to know key statistics, and have easy access to them. In this excellent Learning Lab James Tucker will be walking you through the critical success factors to measuring and then driving up your purchase to pay KPIs, looking in particular at: invoice productivity; early payment discount opportunities being taken; first time match rates and driving this number up; and payment on time statistics. A key component of any electronic invoice and electronic payment initiative is the ability to measure performance. This session will explain how AP managers can track and measure key AP performance metrics, such as invoice review cycle times, on-time payments, invoice errors and discrepancies, early payment discounts, and supplier activation results.
Topics for this discussion will include:
- Productivity breakthroughs from AP automation
- Identification of key AP performance metrics
- Examples of customer results
- Recommendations for implementing payables performance tracking
Learning Lab Facilitator:
James Tucker
Ariba Network & Financial Solutions
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LEARNING LAB E
How to set up a single channel for your suppliers, customers, inter company businesses and banks to drive visibility of all your trading and transaction activity
One of the biggest problems for finance directors today is the ability to accurately forecast cash flow. The reason? Firstly information on liabilities takes too long to hit the system, especially in a paper world. And secondly, to really manage your cash flow forecasting you need to know the realtime state of cash in and cash out. Increasingly DSO and DPO are becoming vital statistics for shared services directors as well as treasury in order to deliver accurate and meaningful reports to senior management, but increasingly it is hard to find the means to quickly attain the full picture of what your cash position is. Come and join this Learning Lab to see how shared service organisations are using a single channel to send and receive all business documents including purchase orders, paper and electronic invoices, and payments. Consolidating all these information flows from across the organisation provides access to realtime, accurate and complete cash flow information which drives very powerful business intelligence. In particular this learning lab will be looking at how to:
- Know what to look out for if you are looking for a way to deliver payments, exchange invoices, POs, PO acknowledgements and remittance notes electronically and in any file format
- Set up technology so that you have a single view of your liabilities and money due, so your DSO and DPO can be modified and working capital optimised
- Help treasury and senior finance in their foreign currency payment planning
- Better support your finance operation especially if it is operating off multi-accounting systems
- Provide meaningful information to the business on excellent cash planning and forecasting
For any finance director or shared services director looking to set up e-messaging with all trading partners via one channel, in order to drive cash flow forecasting and process efficiency, this Lab will prove invaluable.
Learning Lab Facilitator:
Alister Hoad
Tieto
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LEARNING LAB F
Process excellence reality check: it's more than just automation. How to apply Lean Thinking and Continuous Process Excellence for both your manual and automated activities
What exactly is the scope of “process excellence”? You're never going to have 100% automation, as you don't employ robots yet! Reality check: your quest for process excellence needs to encompass both manual procedures and automation in unison. In this thought provoking Learning Lab, you'll find out how leading enterprises are addressing business process excellence across F&A shared services, using techniques such as Lean and Business Process Management. Be sure to attend this engaging Lab to find out how to:
- Identify and remedy process inefficiencies
- Make sure improvements stick
- Develop a culture and methodology for continuous business process excellence
- Connect strategy to process and performance management
Learning Lab Facilitator:
Nigel Kilpatrick
Nimbus Partners
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LEARNING LAB G
The 5 Ps to understanding your readiness for e-invoicing - How to accurately forecast your e-invoicing success
We've all heard of at least one horror story detailing an e invoicing failure. And on investigation, most of these disasters could have been avoided if only the project team had evaluated their 'as is' state before embarking on their e-invoicing project. The importance of readiness is a determining factor in making sure that your e-invoicing project is a success. So how do you define and measure your readiness? In this invaluable Learning Lab, OB10 will discuss in detail the 5 areas which must be assessed in order to calculate your readiness. By attending this session you will be privy to what tools are required for a valuable assessment and how, once ready, you can ensure your project is a success. You will be shown how to measure your own 'as is' operation and score its readiness for e-invoicing, and you will be shown what approaches could help you close the gap quickly if your score is indeed under average. If you are evaluating e-invoicing for 2010-12, and you wish to secure success, then this lab will help you:
- Fully understand how ready your organisation is for handling electronic invoicing
- Save time and money by enabling you to focus on the areas that need attention
- Identify which stakeholders need to be engaged and why
- Understand what needs to happen in your company to guarantee e-invoicing success
- Understand what your return will look like
Learning Lab Facilitator:
Ruud van Hilten
OB10
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LEARNING LAB H
How to harness the power of data capture to drive your SSO up the value chain
One key trend that is being witnessed in the shared services space right now is the movement of SSOs' services up the value chain. Shared services are no longer about just transaction processing. There are now much more about delivering financial advisory services to the business and helping the business make the right decisions based on the right information. In this excellent session we will be looking at how accounts payable teams are implementing data capture technology to streamline their invoice processing operation. Once this is elegantly achieved, KPIs concerning productivity, receipt-to-post cycles, and book close are looking to significantly change. The result of this is dramatic - information which is controlled, timely, complete and accurate can start supporting senior management in their quest for more impactful management information and business intelligence. Join this excellent Lab if you want to enable the value-chain-shift and find out what the secrets are to best practice data capture deployment.
Learning Lab Facilitator:
Steve Britton
Brainware
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