Establishing a key foundation technology using a cost effective SaaS model.
“The business case developed provides a roadmap to reduce costs through standardised processes and production efficiencies associated with one unified system.”
Anthony Hawkins, CEO, FourPL
BACKGROUND
One of Australia’s transport and logistics companies identified the need for a group wide technology uplift to be more efficient, improve customer service and gain a competitive advantage over their competitors.
With significant business growth and acquisitions and little consolidation of systems, there were a number of financial systems being used throughout the group. The finance system footprint contained in excess of 50 legacy systems housed throughout the regions and even with a core financial system across Australia there were many associated systems outside of Australia.
The Asian landscape was even more fragmented and broken and in many cases basic and core functionalities were missing. In a number of instances these systems were not scalable, and were obstacles to growth opportunities. Additionally, a number of custom built applications and non-financial systems were used extensively to manage day to day financial processing, resulting in increasingly high costs to run these systems.
PROJECT
FourPL was engaged to build the business case for a Finance Transformation program. The FourPL team worked closely with each of the customer’s divisions to help identify the opportunities associated with the program and define the program approach. Using our benefits methodology and past experience with similar transformation programs, we developed a successful business case for the Finance Transformation. In June 2014 the business case to transform finance across the organisation was approved by the Board.
OUR APPROACH
Our team used the FourPL benefits identification methodology to ensure the business outcomes were identified to enable funding to be approved for the program. This process included supporting the preparation of benchmarking and maturity matrices, enterprise architecture, transformation, implementation and program management. Our team utilised their thorough understanding of the customer’s business, leveraged our industry knowledge of supply chain integration services and solutions and our extensive experience of the SAP ecosystem and program management, to ensure we produced a project business case that achieved the approval of the board.
OUTCOMES ACHIEVED
Delivery of the Finance Transformation program commenced in January 2015 and the first release is expected to reach completion in 2016. The key outcomes for the program are:
Align finance vision and agenda to:
- Enable finance team to support the strategic aims of the business
- Improve service to the business and customer
- Improve focus on decision support.
Implement and capitalise on strategic sourcing and vendor management.
Organise the finance function to maximise efficiency and effectiveness across the business:
- Develop programs to develop and nurture finance talent across the organisation
- Optimise the organisational footprint
- Establish a base for centralisation of value added finance activities or other functions.
Implement a system that is able to exploit advances in technology.
Create a core system capability platform for future IT transformation initiatives.
KEY SUCCESS FACTORS
- The successful completion of a commercially sound business case that was aligned to the customer’s overall corporate strategy.
- The effective use of benefits methodology to drive business outcomes.
- Experience in similar projects.
WHY FOURPL?
- ERP strategy and roadmaps expertise.
- Benchmarking and maturity matrices to define benefits and identify opportunities for the business.
- Transformation and readiness experience.
- Project management and support capability.
- Extensive transport industry experience.
FourPL contact for more information:
Anthony Hawkins – Chief Strategy Officer, FourPL
anthony.hawkins@fourpl.com.au
+61 411 476 999