Company Profile: Business Services Industry >US$5 billion Annual Revenues Publicly Traded Function: Source to Pay > Accounts Payable Business Impact: Metrics Catalyst for Change Challenges The client was experiencing rapid growth through numerous acquisitions, however, the client’s existing domestic shared service center lacked the scalability to take on the associated increase in work volume. The increase in paper-intensive, widely-divergent processes utilizing numerous legacy ERP systems was leading to a large backlog of work, cost-inefficiency, and decreasing service levels. Solution OPI took on the goal of renewing the client’s Accounts Payable shared service center. Given a high exception rate, OPI and the client worked together to standardize the processes across BUs and implement a workflow tool for AP. 50 OPI professionals located both onsite and offshore allowed the client to gain scale and efficiency from offshore operations, yet still have significant onsite presence in order to research and resolve exceptions. Rigorous measurements and metrics were collected around volumes, processing rates, and exceptions which were used to focus ongoing business process redesign efforts. Results OPI offerings cataloged exception types into nine different groups which helped to identify and explain the root cause of the exceptions. Six Sigma based projects then focused on reducing exceptions such that employees dedicated to exception resolution decreased by 15%, troublesome backlogs were eliminated, and costs reduced by as much as 50%. Most importantly, however, OPI’s outsourcing solution proved the positive impact of strategic sourcing and acted as a catalyst for change within the company. The company recently began an assessment to identify opportunities for the integration of third-party offshore outsourcing across all functions managed by its shared service center.

Company Profile: Consumer Services Industry >US$2 billion Annual Revenues Publicly Traded Function: Record to Report > Bank Reconciliations Business Impact: Business Process Redesign Cost Reduction Challenges Employees utilize a check-free reconciliations tool to match and reconcile thousands of complicated accounting reconciliations every month. OPI’s Quality team sought to increase the efficiency of the auto-matching process and reduce process time by eliminating ineffective steps. Solution OPI’s Quality team assessed the reconciliation process, the quality of the auto-matches, and all exceptions to the process. We worked to redesign the process by eliminating non value-add process steps, specify more detailed matching criteria for the check-free tool, and automate report generation and formatting. Results Reengineering improved the quality of automated matching and both eliminated and automated non-value added steps. These changes resulted in a decrease in average processing time per reconciliation of 35%. Even while the number of reconciliations managed by the team increased by 30% over time, we were able to decrease the number of employees deployed to reconciliations by 24%. The business impact amounted to $300K of annual cost savings.

Company Profile: Business Services Industry US$1 billion Annual Revenues Privately Owned Function: Record to Report > General Ledger Business Impact: Business Process Redesign Access to Information Challenges Monthly closing activities were taking 15 days, on average, due to consistent delays in receiving information for journal entries, accruals, and other necessary information. OPI’s Quality team set out to decrease the days for monthly close. Solution OPI’s Quality team worked closely with the Company to analyze the financial close process and identify root causes of the delays. We studied the feasibility for automating additional entries, accruals, payroll, prepaid expenses, and depreciation, worked to set up standardized, formula-driven templates, and established communication procedures that together worked to streamline the process. Results Reengineering amounted to timely submissions, and increased automation such that the month end close went from 15 days to 5 days in one month’s time. With improved transparency, management is now able to make more timely decisions about the business.

Company Profile: Manufacturing Industry US$3-5 billion Annual Revenues Publicly Traded Function: Full Service FAO - Source to Pay, Hire to Retire, Record to Report, & Compliance and Risk Management Business Impact: Catalyst for Change Cost Reduction Challenges A number of historical acquisitions had created a complex, decentralized finance and accounting function including more than 30 disparate legacy financial systems. The client sought to simultaneously implement a new ERP system and adopt an outsourced delivery model. Solution Working in conjunction with a third-party application integration company, OPI participated in the strategic redesign of the finance and accounting function. In addition to the implementation of a new ERP system, the new model centralized the F&A function within an OPI staffed shared services center (SSC), and standardized processes across business units. OPI deployed 55 people onsite, supplemented by 40 people in India. OPI worked closely with company leadership to institute a formal governance program and carefully manage the change process. Ongoing service delivery allowed for the collection of process metrics and movement toward best-in-class operations. Results Outsourcing allowed for the adoption of a centralized SSC strategy, and brought focus to process reengineering and ongoing improvement. Operations which had previously gone unmeasured now rank in the top decile of benchmarked performance. Even while company revenue has more than doubled since adopting outsourcing, F&A headcount has decreased by 45%. Results include annual cost savings in excess of $2 US Million.

Company Profile: Financial Services Industry >US$10 billion in Assets Publicly Traded Function: Business Research > Valuations Business Impact: Service Quality Compliance and Risk Management Challenges A financial services provider serving thousands of emerging and growing firms regularly provided private company valuations for IRC409a “nonqualified deferred compensation” compliance. This service was not only time consuming, but volumes were steadily increasing. The company sought to develop a new delivery model for this service. Solution OPI Analytics professionals developed a custom valuation model and report template that could be leveraged for the private company valuation and IRC409a requirements. Focus was placed on both decreasing the cost per valuation and also improving the efficiency of each valuation in order to accommodate the increasing volume. Results By reengineering the processes and adopting an offshore outsourced delivery model, OPI and the company have worked together to improve service quality, reduce costs, and ensure ongoing compliance with regulatory requirements. OPI Analytics offshore professionals worked to improve the valuation model such that average touch time per valuation decreased by 50%, to 40 hours. To date, OPI has completed more than 1,200 company valuations, and our project scope has grown to also include FAS 141 valuation services.

Company Profile: Manufacturing Industry >US$5 billion Annual Revenues Publicly Traded Function: Credit Analytics Business Impact: Talent & Skills Compliance and Risk Management Challenges A leading Electronics Manufacturing Services provider was challenged by the task of monitoring changing credit situations on a timely basis for their large customer base. Solution OPI Analytics professionals worked to design outsourced processes for the effective and efficient delivery of customer credit portfolio reporting, business and financial risk assessment, and internal credit rating. The reengineered process leveraged a custom-developed underwriting credit template to spread and analyze multiple years of key financial information. This data was then paired with in-depth sector / industry analysis which when taken together provided company management with the necessary information to recommend or reaffirm the credit rating and net exposure limits for their customers. Results The company gained access to informative credit analysis that previously had proven too timely and costly to maintain on an ongoing basis. In addition to meeting the demands of the US operations, the company leveraged OPI’s skill sets to expand its credit monitoring to its other operations across North America, Europe, and Asia Pacific. OPI’s services not only improved the efficiency of the company’s credit analysis function, but the company was now armed with more information which enabled them to make strategic decisions regarding their exposure and credit risk.