Jan:Feb 2017 Credit Management magazine

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All images supplied by Rolls-Royce
separate Finance Service sites (the other being in
Bristol to serve Rolls-Royce’s Defence business). This
was all pre-SAP days and we had many legacy systems
for the various accounting and sub-ledgers and these
were bespoke to Rolls-Royce.
“Then in came a new Head of Finance Services, to
make a step change and create a new Shared Services
Centre in a single location.”
He was tasked with leading a finance transformation
which led to centralising all financial operations in
Derby. “He introduced many exciting ideas”, Sam
recalls. “I was retained and qualified much at the same
time as the new Centre was opened and I was promoted
to take on my first proper management role as Financial
Accountant for Operations.”
SUBSTANTIAL CHALLENGES
Some of the initial challenges were substantial. The
legacy systems were slow and cumbersome and it took
three weeks to close the accounts each month. In late
2000, the Head of the Finance Service Centre suggested
that Sam should develop his people management
experience and an opportunity was shortly becoming
available in Accounts Receivable. “I was to work
with the incumbent Business Process Owner as her
Operations Manager and learn how to manage a team,”
he says.
“But shortly after being appointed, the existing
Business Process Owner left Rolls-Royce and I was
promoted into the role. I now had the responsibility and
exciting opportunity of implementing a new Accounts
Receivable module into SAP in a process that I knew
very little about!”
It was, in Sam’s words, a very steep learning curve:
“It was a larger team to manage than I had been used
to and I made many mistakes along the way,” he admits.
“Despite the challenges, we were successful, but we
had to learn fast.”
With the opening of the new SSC, Rolls-Royce
began a concerted campaign to centralise all of its
“But shortly after being appointed, the
existing Business Process Owner left Rolls-
Royce and I was promoted into the role. I
now had the responsibility and exciting
opportunity of implementing a new Accounts
Receivable module into SAP in a process that
I knew very little about!”
transactional processes and migrating the UK entities
(including Bristol, East Kilbride and Ansty) into a single
centre. It then undertook a similar exercise for its
subsidiary business Rolls-Royce Deutschland (a joint
venture business between Rolls-Royce and BMW that
developed the BR700 family of engines) and its Energy
business (now part of Siemens) that included locations
in Singapore, Canada and the US.
GLOBAL ENVIRONMENT
Rolls-Royce has created a Global Process environment,
with standardised and centralised processes across
the world. In addition to its’ UK centre, it has Finance
Service Centres in Indianapolis and Singapore to
service the needs of its North American and APAC
businesses. It recently opened a new service centre
in India and Sam, in his current role as Global Process
Owner has oversight of all four service centres,
reporting to the Head of the Global FSC who in turn
reports to the Deputy CFO and Group Controller.
To give some idea of its size, up to £1 billion of sales
are collected by the UK FSC team in a typical month.
The UK Accounts Receivables department comprises
a team of around 40 people delivering a range of
services from risk analysis and invoicing, through to
debt reporting and collections:
“AR used to be collections only, but over time
we have evolved our services to include credit (for
example credit vetting) as a result of our own internal
process improvements. We are also expanding our
billing capability with a vision of creating a centralised,
co-located ‘billing to cash’ operation working as one
team.”
Sam says that he is currently looking at the potential
of automation: “We are looking at what constitutes best
practice in robotics and artificial intelligence and how
much further we can automate our processes. Cash
allocation, for example, is a very time-consuming task,
and if it can be better automated then that frees up
more time for our people to spend on collections or
similar activities where we can demonstrate greater
value.”
PERFORMANCE BENCHMARKING
An important part of Sam’s role is in benchmarking his
team’s activities with other best-in-class organisations.
It was with this in mind that he sought the Quality
in Credit Management accreditation (CICMQ) from
the CICM which was achieved in June of this year:
“It started as a way of benchmarking the team,” he
explains.
“I went to a CICMQ best-practice event hosted
by Veolia and met Brian Morgan and Chris Sanders
who both impressed me with their passion for credit
management. We thought we were doing good things
but wanted an outside opinion and confirmation.”
As well as obtaining the CICMQ accreditation, Sam
is also a keen advocate of professional development
and a number of the UK FSC team are now engaged
with various levels of CICM qualification. In this he is
ably supported by the Accounts Receivable Operations
Manager, Stephanie Hayes MCICM.
Before I depart for the day, Sam takes me across
to the Rolls-Royce Heritage Centre. I admit to having
a personal interest in wanting to go, having written a
number of books on military aviation and being more
than familiar with certain of the more famous Rolls-
Royce ‘brands’ such as Merlin, Griffon and Pegasus that
powered some of the greatest aircraft of their time.
It’s also a chance for a gratuitous photo call of Sam
standing in front of today’s massive Trent derivation
before it is finally time to leave. I hope I’ll be invited
again.
26 January / February 2017 www.cicm.com
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