CaseStudy

From Document Manager Magazine Vol 20 No 05 - September/October

Telecoms giant, Cable & Wireless has simplified its Caribbean accounts processing function from 13 separate business units into one centralised shared service and is saving time..

Cable & Wireless Communications' business in the Caribbean is branded as LIME (Landline, Internet, Mobile & Entertainment). LIME is a leading full service telecoms provider and the largest telecommunications provider by revenue across the markets in which it operates.

Providing telecom services to the communities of 13 Caribbean islands, (Anguilla, Antigua & Barbuda, Barbados, British Virgin Islands, Cayman Islands, Dominica, Grenada, Jamaica, Montserrat, St Kitts & Nevis, St Lucia, St Vincent and the Grenadines and Turks & Caicos) the company was facing the challenges of localised invoice management. Each island's business unit was independently handling its invoices and increasingly this was becoming time consuming, error prone and costly.

Cable & Wireless UK had been using EASY Enterprise for SAP since 2005 to support its SAP finance processes for scanning Accounts Payable and Accounts Receivable documents. During this time the small finance operation in Jamaica was also using the solution to scan its finance documents into the UK EASY Enterprise Solution.

Burchell Campbell, Senior SAP Database Administrator at LIME explains, "We were fast approaching a paper nightmare with 13 business units all handling invoices in their own, local way. Besides the paper issue, the costs and the inconsistencies across the business, simply getting timely financial information that could be consolidated and reported on was close to impossible!"

Campbell continues, "We already had good experience and knowledge of EASY Software's scanning and archive solution which was integrated into our corporate ERP system, SAP. So we knew that if we could replicate this type of functionality across the business units, we could deliver consistency and major efficiencies across the business as a whole." C&W invested in further EASY Enterprise licences and Campbell and the team embarked on a project to set up a finance shared-service operation in Jamaica to support the 13 business units.

"We began by setting up scanning units so each team could self-serve and scan locally. We phased the migration one business unit at a time, and undertook the relevant staff training as we went along. Each invoice is scanned, reference linked with SAP at our Shared Services Centre and then stored in EASY Archive. Its simplicity is its beauty." LIME worked closely with the EASY team to roll out the scan stations and provide user training. "The EASY team was very responsive and helpful and made the transition to the new shared services model a very smooth process," added Campbell.

Commenting on the benefits that the new Shared Services Centre delivers to the business, he said, "The benefits are really obvious to all of us in the business. Firstly we have way less paper, so we are not relying on filing and finding paper to answer queries and we therefore are not worried about the vulnerability of paper to fire, flood, loss etc. The process is much simplified, we can address and resolve queries much faster and the entire operation is smoother as a result. We now have one central source of truth and immediate visibility across all 13 business units."

LIME processes over 130,000 invoices and approximately 100,000 purchase orders a year. Now these documents are scanned and linked to SAP and stored in EASY Archive, eliminating the paper, administrative and process headaches and giving rapid and complete financial visibility. "We are very happy with EASY," concluded Burchell Campbell. "The solutions are quick to set up, very easy to use and adapt and we are delighted with the performance and support. Our next phase includes looking at options to upgrade and migrate the EASY Archive server to the Cloud."

More info: www.easysoftware.co.uk

CaseStudy