Objective
Our client, a vertically integrated communications provider operating in Australia and New Zealand, needed to streamline internal systems. Over several years they had embarked on an aggressive and quick acquisition cycle, with a final position of eighty-plus legal entities. The previous management team had used a merger and acquisition strategy that resulted in the use of three disparate ERP systems within the Group. The objective of the new CFO was to move all businesses onto a single ERP platform.
The CFO engaged us to review the business Operations and Systems. He asked us to deliver a Recommendations Report, outlining the best strategy to achieve the M&A integrations and system streamline objectives. We needed to advise him which ERP was best suited to use in all the legal entities. He also asked us to highlight process inconsistencies or issues within both Finance and Operations.
Solution Delivery
- We conducted a series of workshops in various locations with key staff. These workshops were a mix of general discussion, process mapping and ERP assessment. Many of these workshops highlighted inconsistencies within the various business streams. They also gave staff an opportunity to air what they felt worked/didn’t work. Through these sessions, we were able to understand the (at times) competing needs of the divisions and how the current environments operated.
- As part of the process review, we documented interfaces with other systems. In particular, we focused on the external Billing and Accounts Payable software.
- We had a separate session with management and IT, to review and document vendor performance and system modifications.
- The reviews highlighted previously unknown business issues. These included:
- where legacy systems weren’t meeting needs;
- where the integrations were badly designed;
- where use of legacy systems was lacking in data integrity.
- On completion of all sessions, we assessed all the information and then determined and documented an Integration Strategy for the Group. We detailed best fit ERP, roll-out requirements, vendor actions and potential process gaps.
Achievements
- Our Recommendation Report highlighted the elements of the new platform that were required going forward. It also provided a change management strategy. This enabled Senior Management to move the system administration and overall responsibility from Divisional Finance to the Centralised Business System team.
- Our recommended strategy was to move all the divisions onto a fresh instance of a currently used ERP. This gave all the business units the same experience in a platform change. We designed and configured the new environment to meet all business units’ needs. This meant that there was a change in operation for the business units on that existing platform.
- With the change in the platform versions of the ERP, the business could renegotiate the licensing and support. This resulted in improved support coverage for the ANZ operations and a cheaper cost per user for licencing.
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