GBS_Annual_Report2018_V12.1_SCREEN

Glanbia Business Services 

2018 Update

Exterior of the recently 

opened GBS offices located 

in Aurora, IL, USA

Welcome 

What We Do 01 

Who We Are 02 

Business Solutions Overview 04 

Case Study Glanbia Connect 06 

Case Study Digital Media: ThinkThin 09 

Case Study Business Intelligence 10 

Technology Services Overview 12 

Worker of the Future 14 

Technology Services: Big Data 15 

Human Resources Overview 16 

Case Study Project Atlas 19 

Pure Ambition 20 

Financial Shared Services Overview 22 

Case Study Enabling Customer & Vendor Relationships 24 

Case Study Information Security 26 

Global Service Desk 28 

Case Study Delivering Mobile Solutions 30 

Case Study Trusted to Enrich Lives 32

Glanbia Business Services 2018 Update 

Welcome 

to the Glanbia 

business services 

update 2018 

Here you’ll see the 

many initiatives 

we have underway 

to digitise Glanbia 

across a number 

of areas such as; 

Global Recruitment 

processes—Project 

Atlas, Glanbia 

Nutritionals ‘one face 

to the customer’— 

Project Solas, and 

developing global 

templates for our 

e-commerce 

platforms in 

Performance 

Nutrition— 

Project Best. 

These initiatives 

provide world class, 

scalable platforms to 

support the global 

reach that our 

businesses aspire to. 

Within Glanbia Business Services we 

see it as our role to ‘Digitise Glanbia 

to drive new value’. 

Moving into the digital world has 

many advantages, from the use 

of robotics in our Shared Services 

Centres to integrating our business 

processes with vendors through the 

Ariba network. We’ll also see our 

organisation advancing customer and 

consumer engagement with further 

deployments and penetration of our 

social and analytical technologies. 

Security continues to require 

increasing vigilance by all of our 

employees, with threats arriving 

from potentially anywhere across 

the globe. We’ve partnered with Dell 

to provide 24/7 incident detection 

and quarantine. Also, the arrival of 

GDPR—General Data Protection 

Regulation—across Europe brings 

stringent obligations on organisations 

and people to ensure that we’re 

only gathering relevant information 

and using it for its intended purpose 

with the consent of the individuals 

involved. 

Of course, the environment is also 

changing for our workers as we 

develop the ‘Connected Worker’ 

where employees will collaborate 

globally, generate virtual teams and 

are enabled to work at any time in 

any place. 

Through 2017 and into 2018, we’ve 

strengthened our Service Delivery 

teams across IT and Shared Services 

to ensure we’re communicating 

appropriately with key stakeholders, 

driving higher service levels and 

ensuring that we meet our business 

needs and expectations. 

I hope you enjoy reading this 

publication and I’d welcome any 

feedback. 

Sincerely, 

Tony Minogue 

General Manager, 

Glanbia Business Services


What we do 

Business Solutions 

The Centres of Excellence in Business Solutions 

covering Finance, Supply Chain, Manufacturing 

& Operations, Analytics & Reporting, Customer 

Engagement and HR all work with functional leaders 

from across the Group to advise on how technology 

can be used to deliver a competitive advantage to 

their business. 

Technology Services 

The Global Technology Services teams design, 

build and run our enterprise wide infrastructure, 

including our data centres, global networks and 

application development. This Infrastructure 

underpins our mission critical systems which fuel 

Glanbia’s growth ambitions every day. 

Financial Shared Services 

Our Financial Shared Service Centres use the latest 

technologies and world-class processes to deliver 

efficiencies and value to our Business Units in 

Accounting & Financial Services, Accounts Payable 

& Receivable, Indirect Tax and Payroll. 

Digital Media 

The Digital Media team are a full service 

internal agency offering a range of services 

including digital strategy, creative, technology 

and analysis. We can help you plan, design, 

build, execute and optimise your digital 

presence. 

Information Security 

The Glanbia Information Security function is 

responsible for establishing and maintaining 

Glanbia’s security strategy and programme of work 

to ensure information assets and operations are 

effectively protected. 

1


Fergal Wall 

Director of Global 

Business Solutions 

Geoff Roche 

Shared Services Director 

North America 

Tony Minogue 

General Manager 

2


Declan Sweeney 

IT Programme Manager 

Alan O’Brien 

Director of Global 

Technology Services 

Niamh Hayden 

Head of Human Resources 


3


Business 

solutions 

overview 

The Business Solutions Team are 

organised into seven ‘centre of 

excellence’ groups that work with 

the business functional leaders from 

across the Group, to advise on how 

technology can be used to deliver a 

competitive advantage to the business. 

Decisions about where to invest in 

IT are made jointly by the business 

and IT working closely together. 

By Fergal Wall 

Director of Global Business Solutions 

IT: Enabling the 

Business Strategy 

In some cases, there are formal 

structures already in place 

across Glanbia such as Finance, 

HR, Procurement and Quality 

Leadership groups. In other areas, 

GBS brings leadership groups 

together from Supply Chain, 

R&D, and soon a group wide 

Manufacturing forum. These forums 

identify opportunities to exploit 

IT solutions and define business 

cases for consideration by the IT 

Investment Committee. Attended 

by Finance Directors from each 

division, the Investment Committee 

assesses project justification, 

selection, and prioritisation. Where 

applicable, a group wide IT program 

will be approved, to maximise 

the investment impact. Recent 

examples of this were the Ariba 

procurement solution and Success 

Factors, the HR solution suite. 

Working in this fashion ensures that 

IT is fully aligned to delivering on the 

business strategy.


Digitising Glanbia’s 

Sales Channels 

Digitisation in action 

across Glanbia 

The idea of digitising the business 

is not necessarily new. Earlier 

digitisation efforts focused primarily 

on business operations, for example 

EDI. What’s different in this current 

trend towards digitisation is that in 

addition to business operations, 

the focus is also on digitising the 

channels companies use to market 

and sell products. GBS are driving 

many initiatives to digitise Glanbia’s 

sales channels, supporting the 

growth of the business in the 

following areas: 

Creation of new revenue streams 

Reduced customer acquisition costs 

Increased lifetime value 

of a customer 

Increased customer retention rate 

Glanbia Nutritionals’ new website 

is a great example of how this 

type of investment is leading to 

new revenue streams from new 

customers. The site has been 

translated into fourteen languages, 

generating 300 new sales leads per 

month. The international focus of 

the website now caters for a wide 

audience of potential international 

customers. 

In Performance Nutrition, the 

continued roll-out of Enterprise 

Class Web Content Management 

and Digital Commerce Solutions 

for their branded websites (Project 

BEST) has enabled the US-branded 

sites to allow consumers to register 

on the site. The business is now 

building a valuable database of 

consumers to target in future 

marketing campaigns. 

Glanbia Connect, a digital 

touchpoint and e-commerce 

hub, connecting Glanbia Ireland 

to its Farmers, Suppliers and 

Shareholders, is an industry-leading 

example of creating revenue 

streams from customers outside the 

normal catchment area. 

The digitally connected customer 

is one of the trends driving our 

business. The Business Solutions 

team are a key enabler in aligning 

Glanbia to our consumer and 

customer needs. This tight 

partnership between the business 

and IT, to exploit these and the 

many other opportunities, is key to 

our continued success. 

5


CASE STUDY 

Glanbia 

connect 

Glanbia Connect is the digital go-to 

destination for Glanbia Ireland’s farmers, 

both customers and suppliers, offering 

24-hour access to all their Glanbia 

business online, expert advice, news 

and events and now with a new and 

improved online store. 

Challenge 

The challenge was to deliver 

a best in class E-commerce 

platform for Glanbia Connect 

that would offer a seamless 

experience to customers online, 

as well as support the retail 

branch network of 50+ stores. 

The goals were to increase the 

number of products online to 

5000+, significantly enhance 

the customer usability online 

and develop an integrated 

and robust order fulfilment 

infrastructure 

6 

Solution 

Project Mercury enabled the 

redevelopment of the online store 

within Glanbia Connect and was a 

highly collaborative project between 

Agribusiness and GBS. The project 

saw the integration of three major 

platforms to achieve this solution: 

Hybris (E-commerce), SAP (Enterprise 

Resource Planning) and CORE (the 

retail point of sale system) as well as a 

number of smaller integrations. 

The new store, now Ireland’s biggest 

online farm store, launched in 

December 2017 with more than 5,000 

products online. Glanbia Connect 

customers across Ireland can now 

shop the entire range online for home 

delivery or check stock availability in 

real time in their local store, with the 

option to click and reserve online. New 

features include customer specific 

pricing and personalised product 

recommendations. 

Results 

For the first time, Agribusiness can now sell 

the majority of its product range online, to 

both existing and new customers, with fast 

and efficient delivery throughout Ireland. 

Two technically complex pricing engines 

and a number of technology platforms 

were aligned to deliver a seamless 

customer experience for both B2B and 

B2C customers, without compromising 

website speed or usability. The end product 

is unique in the Irish market and allowed 

the business to leverage existing branch 

stockholding for order fulfilment, reducing 

working capital requirements. 

The solution allows us to offer a 

personalised, omni-channel experience 

for all our customers. All sales employees 

now own their customers’ sales, however 

they are made or paid. This takes away any 

conflict between the online channels and 

our physical stores and ensures that the 

online store is positioned to support all our 

sales channels.


Agribusiness can now 

sell the majority of 

its product range 

online to both existing 

and new customers. 

By Eimear Coleman 

Digital Media Technical Lead 

7


The GBS team have their 

finger on the pulse when 

it comes to all things 

social and digital. Their 

holistic approach to 

digital marketing is helpful 

because they think big 

picture. Communication 

has become more 

streamlined this year 

due to our weekly “live” 

video conferencing social 

check-in meetings. 

Nora Witt 

Senior Brand Manager, 

thinkThin 

8


CASE STUDY 

Digital Media 

thinkthin 

thinkThin TM is a premium quality 

protein rich food business based 

in Los Angeles. It was acquired by 

Glanbia in 2015. The marketing team 

had been working with an external 

agency on their social media buying 

strategy. They partnered with GBS 

Digital Media to deliver strategic social 

media buying at a competitive price. 

Challenge 

The thinkThin Marketing team along 

with their lead creative agency, 

High Wide & Handsome (HWH), 

challenged us with developing a 

paid social media strategy for the 

brand in 2018. 

By Laura O’Carroll 

Digital Media 

Centre of Excellence Manager 

Solution 

The Digital Media team worked 

to develop a relationship with the 

thinkThin team and came up with 

a proposal to migrate the social 

media advertising to a central 

solution in GBS. They developed a 

media strategy for both Facebook 

and Instagram and appointed a 

dedicated account manager. The 

thinkThin team made the decision 

to move the business to the Digital 

Media team in Jan 2018. 

Results 

The thinkThin team has direct 

access to internal experts that are 

immersed in their brand. thinkThin 

Marketing, HWH creative agency 

and GBS Digital Media work 

together to constantly evolve the 

media and creative strategy to hit 

the targets set. We are delivering a 

world class service with substantial 

cost savings versus an external 

agency. We have also been given 

the opportunity to create a video 

show reel for thinkThin and to 

devise an Adwords strategy for their 

core brands and the launch of a new 

brand- thinkKIDS. 

9


CASE STUDY 

Business 

intelligence 

Empowering 

sales teams 

through 

mobile 

technology 

Building on an existing strong 

partnership with GPN, the GBS 

Business Intelligence & Analytics team 

developed a set of goal-oriented 

sales dashboards. Using third-party 

distributor data, the GPN sales team 

were empowered with insightful, 

relevant, and timely information. 

By Paul Forde 

Business Intelligence 

& Data Analytics 

Centre of Excellence Manager


Challenge 

The GPN commercial team collect a 

large volume of data related to their 

sales transactions. The challenge 

was to convert this data into 

actionable information, and make it 

easily accessible and consumable 

by the sales teams so that they 

could drive sales performance on 

the ground. 

Solution 

The dashboards developed through 

this GPN/GBS partnership help to 

drive the performance of the GPN 

sales teams and the performance 

of their customers’ stores. 

The easy accessibility of information 

encourages joint planning with 

customers during in-store visits, 

using a data visualisation tool 

(Tableau) on iPad to access data at 

an individual store level. The GPN 

sales team regularly collaborate 

with customers by using the data to 

address gaps or suggest relevant 

purchases based on market trends 

and recent sales patterns. 

Results 

At management level, a suite 

of detailed weekly and monthly 

dashboards provides efficient 

period-on-period comparisons, 

allowing the rapid assessment of 

promotional effectiveness, internal 

and external incentive management, 

product performance, and product 

availability. 

As part of a larger project to streamline our route 

to market in the US, GPN and Distributors began 

to partner and collaborate at levels unseen in the 

past. Distributors and GPN are sharing retailer 

purchases of GPN and competitor products to 

better understand how to capitalize on market 

trends through efficient and effective tactics. 

Shawn Hebert 

Senior Director, 

Sales Operations & Consumer Affairs 

11


Technology 

services 

Overview 

In Global Technology Services (GTS), 

we select, implement, and manage 

the day-to-day IT services that keep 

Glanbia connected to deliver better 

nutrition for every step of life’s journey. 

Our skilled IT staff in all of Glanbia’s 

major locations provide technical 

support, IT Operations and advise 

on technology solutions. 

GTS are the best point of contact for 

any IT issues or queries you may 

have, whether it’s a small question 

about Microsoft Excel, or assistance 

hosting a large conference—we 

are here and ready to help. 

We are constantly seeking out 

opportunities to extend the digitally 

connected Glanbia organisation, 

help organise communities to meet 

and drive knowledge sharing. 

Support 

Our support experts look after over 

120,000 contacts from Glanbia staff and 

external parties every year. Our Global 

Service Desk, located out of Ireland and 

North America, is open 24/7 and our 

satisfaction rate exceeds 95%. Our aim is 

to fix the majority of calls to our Global IT 

Service Desk at first contact. 

We also support the employee 

onboarding process by providing 

equipment and access to systems and 

services, usually prior to an employee 

joining the organisation. 

By Alan O’Brien 

Director of Global Technology Services 

12


Build 

Connect 

Maintain 

GTS has a significant development 

capability, combining programming, 

test, and electronic services. 

We design, build, and deploy 

e-commerce, cloud, mobile, and 

traditional systems, all connected to 

our core SAP business engine. 

Our teams have developed 

solutions for mobile access to milk 

intake data, customer relationship 

data, HR data, and employee 

productivity data. In addition, we 

provide secure, single sign-on 

access to mobile and internet based 

systems such as Ariba, Concur and 

Success Factors. 

Finally, we electronically connect 

a large number of suppliers, 

customers, banks, warehouses, 

and other third parties with our SAP 

systems in order to automate as 

many business process transactions 

as possible. 

Our collaboration services give 

Glanbia employees the ability 

to connect anytime, anywhere, 

from any device we provide. 

Whether it’s sharing documents, 

drawings, or knowledge, we provide 

a suite of simple yet effective 

programs to allow groups and 

individuals to meet online and share. 

Programs such as Skype for 

Business, Yammer, Sharepoint, 

OneDrive, and OurGlanbia make up 

part of our collaboration ecosystem. 

We connect millions of instant 

messages, hundreds of thousands 

of voice and video calls every year 

and give Glanbia staff options to 

avoid disruptive and costly travel. 

Connectivity, through our single 

global network and mobility 

services, is provided seamlessly 

and efficiently by our network 

team and partner organisations. 

We connect hundreds of plants, 

sites, stores and remote locations 

every day across Glanbia. 

Our highly skilled and dedicated 

maintenance teams are made up of 

designers and operators in a wide 

variety of technology fields. 

Out in the field, our Operations 

staff could be dealing with servers, 

networks, phone systems, PCs and 

laptops, as well as building systems 

to keep the plants producing our 

products. 

We also have a group of technology 

professionals that design, build, 

manage and maintain our core SAP 

systems, email systems, Skype 

systems, servers, global networks, 

and data centres. 

Behind the scenes, there are many 

others that work every day to keep 

the lights on through maintenance 

works, security operations, 

equipment replacements and other 

valuable programs. 

13


WORKER 

OF THE 

FUTURE 

The worker of the future 

will be empowered to 

host, manage, and drive 

small, medium, and large 

collaboration events from 

almost any location, at any 

time, from any device. 

Training, support and 

roadshows will be provided 

to all workers to ensure 

that everyone knows how 

to operate their devices, 

use their collaboration 

technology, and knows 

the etiquette for joining or 

hosting a meeting online. 

Meetings will be 

recorded and transcribed 

automatically, actions will 

be captured and stored 

automatically, conversations 

will be translated in real time 

for non-English speakers 

and all meeting data will be 

stored and easily accessible 

by the host team. 

Office desks and meeting 

rooms will be equipped 

with furniture, speakers 

and microphones to 

maximise the collaboration 

experience during short or 

long meetings, workshops, 

or other events. 

14 

Conference rooms will be equipped 

with smart screens that will run the 

meeting for you, welcome you to 

the meeting, connect with other 

rooms for you, and provide smartboards 

that can be worked upon in 

multiple locations. 

Workers will be equipped 

with devices that easily 

connect employees and 

external parties on a 

single virtual platform, 

with robust audio and 

video technology.


Technology 

services 

Big DATA 

6 million 

Collaboration minutes that will 

be supported in 2018 across our 

Skype and conference room audiovisual 

technology solutions. 

100 million 

Emails enter the Glanbia system 

annually. Approximately 75% 

of these are rejected as spam 

or viruses by our screening and 

filtering technology. 

10 million 

Instant messages will be sent 

across Skype for Business in 2018, 

allowing instant collaboration 

between employees in a manner 

expected by the digital employee 

in a connected organisation. 

95% 

The average satisfaction rate 

with our Global Service Desk 

across 2017. Rates are taken from 

responses to interactions with the 

service, all of which are offered an 

opportunity to respond. 

4,000 

Number of leavers, movers, and 

joiners processed annually by our 

user admin team. 

120,000 

Contacts made with our Global 

Service Desk in 2017. Our Service 

Desk is available 24/7/365 for 

priority calls. 

15


Human resources 

overview 

Supporting Glanbia globally, GBS has in excess 

of four hundred people spread across fifteen 

locations. Central to the success of GBS is our 

ability to attract, develop, engage and retain 

talented people to enable us to respond to 

the growing demands of the business. 

Over the last number of years we have 

enhanced our offering to the business 

providing dedicated Centres of Excellence 

in IT and delivering more efficient automated 

services in Shared Services. Our people have 

been central to the success of this. Partnering 

with the business units we provide guidance 

and leadership in our areas of expertise. Key 

to our success is the development of our 

people and attracting talent into GBS. 

By Niamh Hayden 


Head of Human Resources 

16


Developing our People 

Recognising the changing nature of work 

and fast pace of change in technology, GBS 

continues to encourage and create a culture of 

life-long learning and development. Our GBS 

Leadership Framework and IT Career Framework 

help to guide development discussions and 

assist people in planning their careers in GBS. 

Attracting Talent 

In addition to the development of our people we 

also recruit new skills to strengthen our talent 

pool. To support our strategy we have introduced 

new roles in Manufacturing & Operations, BI 

Analytics, Financial Analysis, and Digital Media. 

The introduction of Success Factors, our 

global talent acquisition solution, has improved 

the experience for internal and external 

candidates and for hiring managers through 

an integrated and enhanced process. Success 

Factors allows us to reach out to global talent 

in a more direct and targeted approach. 

Looking to the Future 

To support Glanbia into the future and respond 

quickly to business requirements and the 

emergence of new technologies, our ability to 

be able to remain agile and learn and develop 

new capabilities will be a priority. 

17


Key Data H1 2018 

723 

Roles filled 

10,363 

Total applications 

14 

Average Applications 

per hire 

36 

Average time 

to fill (days) 

Glanbia Careers Site Metrics 

Talent Community 

Q1 2018 

Q2 2018 

Application 

starts 

12,185 

12,673 

Applications 

completed 

10,226 

11,005 

Conversion 

83.9% 

86.8% 

28,660 

Talent Community members registered 

in H1 2018 

Total 

24,858 

21,231 

85.4%* 

*Application conversion up 2.9% from Q1 2018 to Q2 2018 

Visits 

Talent 

community 

Conversion 

Target Spend Reduction 

Q1 2018 

Q2 2018 

Total 

136,961 

139,414 

276,375 

12,185 

12,673 

24,858 

8.9% 

9.1% 

9% 

30% 

Target agency spend reduction 

per annum 

Monthly Metrics 

131 

131 130 

113 

116 

102 

30 

34 

40 41 

44 

37 

Jan 18 

Feb 18 Mar 18 April 18 May 18 June 18 

32.6% 

Hired 

Days to fill 

18

CASE STUDY 

project atlas 

Transforming 

talent acquisition 

To compete in today’s talent-driven market and to 

enable Glanbia’s ambitious growth strategy, we need to 

continue to attract the best people to work in Glanbia. 

The goal of Project Atlas was to deliver a talent acquisition and 

onboarding experience for candidates that reflects Glanbia’s 

purpose, vision and values and drives talent attraction, 

engagement and retention to support our business strategy. 

Challenge 

Prior to the investment in Project 

Atlas, there were inconsistent talent 

acquisition practices, inadequate 

and disparate recruitment platforms 

and inefficient processes across 

our business. In addition, there 

was a lack of focus on candidate 

experience and overall brand/social 

presence which were having a 

direct impact on our ability to attract 

candidates, to share talent globally, 

and build our recruiting brand. 

By Tony Wiseman 

HR Systems Centre of 

Excellence Manager 

Solution 

In order to improve our talent 

acquisition practices, Glanbia 

invested in a global talent 

acquisition platform to manage the 

recruitment process from beginning 

to end. A talent acquisition platform 

is comprised of three modules: 

Recruitment marketing career site 

Applicant tracking system 

Onboarding system 

The platform is powered by SAP 

Success Factors. 

Results 

Project Atlas has increased our 

talent acquisition capability in 

Glanbia by: 

Delivering one Glanbia careers site 

for talent attraction that offers an 

improved, consistent and engaging 

experience to candidates attracted by 

our strong Purpose, Vision and Values. 

Enhancing our ability to engage 

with candidates through mobile 

and social channels. 

Developing harmonised and 

consistent talent acquisition policies, 

processes and operations. 

Improved analytics on the 

effectiveness of our career site, 

recruitment spend and talent 

acquisition processes. 

19


Pure 

Ambition 

Managed by GBS, the Pure 

Ambition graduate programme 

plays a vital role in Glanbia’s 

overall talent and leadership 

development strategy. The 

programme is viewed as a 

strategic investment and key 

enabler for the business, with 

the primary objective of growing 

talent and supporting the 

development of a sustainable 

leadership pipeline for the future. 

It has gone from strength to 

strength with over 100 associates 

on the programme today. 

2017 Highlights 

Launched mentor programme for 

final year associates to support 

them in their successful transition 

into their longer term careers at 

Glanbia. 

91% retained of our final year group. 

Won Best Training and Development 

Programme at the 2017 Grad 

Ireland Awards. 

2018 Priorities 

Establish executive led global 

steering group to evolve and 

improve the programme. 

Define a global early career talent 

framework working collaboratively 

with stakeholders across all 

business units globally. 

Embed our Employee Value 

Proposition through a global 

marketing re-brand. 

By Rose Mary Hogan 

Head of Graduate Recruitment 

& Development - EMEA 

20

The Pure Ambition 

graduate programme 

supports the 

development of 

a sustainable 

leadership pipeline 

for the future. 

21


Financial 

Shared Services 

Overview 

New GBS office, Aurora, USA 

On April 11 th , the GBS Executive and wider GBS team 

hosted Siobhán Talbot and Mark Garvey at the official 

opening of their new offices in Aurora, IL. 

Our Shared Services Centres located 

in Dungarvan, Ireland and Aurora, US 

support the Glanbia organisation with 

a wide range of financial services. 

Using the latest technologies and 

following world class processes, 

our Shared Services teams deliver 

efficiencies and value in Accounting & 

Financial Services, Accounts Payable 

& Receivable, Indirect Tax and Payroll. 

Our expertise and innovation in the 

above areas enable our Business Unit 

partners to focus on their primary 

goals and drive business growth. 

In addition to it being a celebratory event, it reiterated 

the commitment of GBS to Glanbia’s continued growth 

in North America. It also highlights the significant value 

of GBS as an enabler and contributor to the overall 

expansion and success of the group. 

The new GBS facility comes complete with standup 

desks, collaboration rooms, state of the art video 

conferencing solutions and an updated canteen. The 

open floor plan fosters a collaborative environment 

and overlooks a large pond and walking path. 

In the spirit of Winning Together and Performance 

Matters, there are additional open offices and desks 

available for visitors and future growth within GBS. 

Please stop by if you are in the area. The new office 

is located at 4255 Meridian Parkway, Suite 151, 

Aurora, IL 60504. 

By Geoff Roche 

Shared Services Director 

North America 

22


Financial Services 

Indirect Tax 

Accounts Payable 

The Financial Services team 

conduct a huge amount of 

transactional and analytical 

activities—general ledger account 

reconciliations, bank reconciliations, 

Capex management, fixed asset 

accounting, cash flow forecasting, 

and monthly reporting are just some 

examples of these activities. 

The team is expanding quickly in 

all regions to support Glanbia’s 

continued growth—enabling our 

business partners to focus on these 

growth activities. 

Accounts Receivable 

The Accounts Receivable team 

supports the business units in 

the order to cash process while 

mitigating risk. The team manages 

customer master data, credit 

reviews, customer status, credit 

insurance, cash collections, ledger 

reviews, reporting, and analysis in 

partnership with our business units. 

The team leverages technology to 

enhance AR Credit and Collection 

processes and build business 

relationships with partners. We 

commenced our digital journey 

with the introduction of Hanse 

Orga, the SAP application to 

automate the process of allocating 

cash from our customers. 

The Tax teams are responsible for 

Valued Added Tax (VAT) worldwide 

and Sales/Use tax in the U.S. 

as well as customs taxes, real 

and personal property taxes. 

The teams support our business to 

ensure taxes including VAT returns, 

sales & use tax, customs, and 

property are correctly calculated 

and filed with the tax authorities. 

The team is also responsible for 

monitoring all tax law changes and 

proactively making any changes 

necessary for the Glanbia entities 

to remain in compliance. 

The Tax teams continue to provide 

expert services, proactively 

facilitating Glanbia’s expansion 

into new markets and ensuring 

accurate tax liabilities. 

Payroll 

The Payroll Services process and 

pay our employees across UK & 

Ireland and many of our expanding 

international markets ensuring our 

employees get paid accurately and 

on time. 

The Payroll Services will continue 

to expand, enabling our North 

American and International markets 

to grow, and ensuring a compliant 

and accurate payroll service is 

delivered. 

The Accounts Payable and Business 

Support teams drive efficiency 

and add value in transactional 

processing of vendor invoices, 

managing master data, reconciling 

vendor statements, promptly paying 

our suppliers, and providing overall 

support to our most important 

customers; Glanbia business units 

and the vendor community. 

We too are digitising our processes 

with the adoption of Ariba 

and the automation of Vendor 

Reconciliations. 

23


CASE STUDY 

Enabling 

Customer & 

Vendor 

Relationships 

Customers and vendors are the heartbeat 

of all businesses; therefore, developing a 

healthy relationship with them is crucial 

to the continued success of Glanbia. 

Challenge 

GBS are driving many digital 

initiatives to make it easier for our 

Business Units to do business 

with Glanbia’s wide network of 

customers and vendors. 

The Ariba network for vendors 

and EDI solutions for customers 

are two such platforms that have 

straightened trading relationships 

with our external Business Partners 

as well as introducing efficiencies 

that allow our business teams in 

Glanbia to concentrate on more 

value adding activities. 

Solution 

What is EDI? 

Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) 

is the computer-to-computer 

exchange of business documents 

(sales orders, delivery dockets, 

invoices, etc.) in a standard 

electronic format between business 

partners. 

What is SAP Ariba? 

The Ariba Network platform is a 

cloud-based B2B marketplace 

where buyers and suppliers can find 

each other and do business within a 

single, networked platform. The first 

phase of Ariba was implemented in 

Glanbia in 2017. 

By Richie Cody 

Operations 

Delivery Manager 

24


Some EDI customers in North 

America & EMEA with whom 

Glanbia have a current or 

planned EDI relationship: 

Results 

Ariba 

Ariba enables Glanbia to manage our 

supplier performance and spend in a very 

robust and effective manner, enabling our 

Procurement teams to make strategic 

decisions quickly, thus speeding up the 

end-to-end purchasing process. Between 

September 2017 & July 2018: 

1,750 Glanbia suppliers have registered 

on Ariba. 

€17.5m has been spent with vendors on 

the Ariba platform (this figure only includes 

invoiced POs) 

EDI 

Automates paper-based tasks and allows 

staff to concentrate on higher-value tasks. 

Eliminates data errors. 

Enables different IT systems in different 

organisations to exchange data. 

Improves transaction speed. 

Operates 24/7/365. 

In 2017, we exchanged a total of 1.5 million 

documents with our EDI partners. 

4,869 purchase orders have been raised 

on Ariba.


CASE STUDY 

Information 

security 

Key Figures Jan—July 2018 

Glanbia’s mission critical systems and 

networks do not operate as an island. 

Being a highly digitised organisation 

integrated with trading partners and 

selling direct to consumers through 

internal channels introduces significant 

risks in terms of cyber security 

attacks and regulatory compliance. 

Cyber attacks can disrupt operations 

and cause considerable financial 

and reputational damage to even 

the most resilient organisation. 

15,879,812,969 Total events scanned 

306,072,209 Events of security interest 

135,380 Attacks defended (100%) 

1,150 High alerts 

453 Escalations requiring investigation 

Challenge 

Our IT and security controls 

generate millions of events every 

day that can be used to identify 

malicious or unauthorised activity 

on our networks. Making sense of 

these events and finding the one 

indicator that can help prevent an 

attack is no longer a task that can 

be done manually. 

The ever increasing number and 

sophistication of attacks also makes 

it impossible to constantly detect 

security attacks against our web 

sites and IT services. 

26 

Solution 

Glanbia needed to implement 

a Security Information & Event 

Management platform. Through 

our strategic partner, Secureworks, 

a suite of monitoring services to 

detect malicious activity 24/7—and 

perform proactive risk detection— 

was implemented for core 

infrastructure and critical services 

such as SAP and E-commerce 

websites. 

This service is monitored around 

the clock by Secureworks and any 

suspicious activity is immediately 

escalated to counteract any 

targeted attacks against Glanbia. 

Results 

The security monitoring service is 

integrated with over 500 devices 

and 25 websites across Glanbia. 

Each month the service evaluates 

approximately two billion events to 

identify security-related warnings, of 

which approximately 10,000 security 

attacks are detected and automatically 

blocked. These events include attempts 

to gain unauthorised access to the 

Glanbia network, and attempts to install 

malicious software on Glanbia PCs and 

servers. 

Each month, approximately 100 events 

are converted into actionable alerts and 

escalated into Glanbia or managed by 

the Secureworks team. Those events 

out of the billions evaluated are the 

needle in the haystack that must be 

found to maintain a secure and resilient 

operating environment for Glanbia.


Each month the service 

evaluates approximately two 

billion events to identify 

security-related warnings. 

By Hugh Roberts 

Information Security Officer 

27


Global Service Service Desk Desk 

Who and what 

do we support? 

All Glanbia IT users 

Services we support: 500+ 

Users we support: 6,500+ 

Computers (laptops and desktops) 

we support: 4,500+ 

Mobile devices supported: 2,500+ 

How do we provide support? 

We have a 24/7 Global Service Desk with 35 

people across multiple regions — EMEA, NA and 

AsPAC. 

We are the single first point of contact for all IT 

issues and requests. 

We provide technical support, user 

administration, corporate support and IT 

assistance for projects. 

We do this with a multi-channel model. We give 

our users the flexibility to choose between selfservice, 

phone, email, IM or the IT Tech Hub to 

obtain IT support. 

By Mary Kearney 

Global Service Desk 

Manager


Always available to 

provide support for all 

Glanbia Users’ I.T. needs. 

Facts & Figures 

User Administration 

Total number of contacts to the Service Desk in 

2017: 121,464. 

33% of these contacts had their issues resolved 

on the same day. 

Total number of Phone calls received in 2017: 

38,488. 

Average time it takes for the Service Desk to 

answer the phone: less than 30 seconds 

We provide every employee with a unique user ID 

for access to their applications and IT services. 

We process every IT access account for 

Glanbia; this includes every person who 

joins, leaves or moves within Glanbia. 

In 2017 the User Administration function 

processed 2,307 new accounts, removed access 

for 1,687 accounts, and transferred access for 

1,361 accounts 

Customer satisfaction as measured through our 

survey: average 95% 

Service Excellence 

We benchmark the Global Service 

Desk against industry standards. 

We are members of the Customer 

Contact Management Association of 

Ireland and the Help Desk Institute 

in the U.S.; recognised at industry 

level for our standard of service. 

29


30


CASE STUDY 

Delivering 

Mobile Solutions 

Close collaboration between the Glanbia 

Nutritionals Commercial team and the GBS 

CRM Centre of Excellence has delivered a 

set of Mobile Apps which have introduced 

efficiency improvements, risk controls 

and improved customer experience. 

Challenge 

A key objective of Solas 1 was to unburden 

the Commercial team in Glanbia Nutritionals 

North America to enable them to focus on the 

continued growth of the business. 

Solution 

Five mobile apps were developed in-house by 

the GBS Programming team in conjunction with 

the GBS CRM Centre of Excellence. The 

Commercial team in GN can access these 

apps through their iPhones, iPads and via their 

desktops. 

Results 

The delivered mobile apps 

include: 

Account Management App: 

provides sales managers with 

access to the accounts that 

they are directly responsible 

for based on Territory 

Management. 

Contact Management 

App: provides access to the 

contacts associated with the 

sales accounts and the ability 

to create new contacts as 

they need. 

Visit App: 

Track visits with customers 

and prospects alike. Visits 

submitted through the app 

are distributed through 

predefined workflows to 

relevant parties. 

Sample Request App: 

allows sales managers 

to request grain, dairy, 

straight and flavour 

samples. Automated 

notifications are triggered 

to sales managers when 

samples are dispatched. 

Quotation App: 

allows sales managers to 

quote customers through 

their phone using near realtime 

pricing and allows this 

quote information to generate 

relevant pricing in SAP. 

By Eddie O’Leary 

CRM Centre of Excellence 

Manager 

31


CASE STUDY 

Trusted to 

enrich Lives 

Glanbia’s vision is to be one of the 

world’s top performing nutrition 

companies, trusted to enrich lives 

every day. It is a statement of 

our ambition as a company and 

trust is an essential component 

of us progressing towards the 

aspirations set out in our vision. 

Challenge 

The necessity for Glanbia to meet 

and exceed expectations for quality 

and food safety places extensive 

demands on our people, processes 

and business solutions. Completing 

these activities through traditional 

means poses significant challenges 

for our Quality and associated 

business functions. Transforming 

and improving our business 

processes along with implementing 

organisational and cultural change 

will only get us so far in meeting 

the future needs of the Glanbia 

business. 

Solution 

The introduction of world-class 

platforms such as Labware 

LIMS (Laboratory Information 

Management System) and Intelex 

(Environmental, Health, Safety & 

Quality System) enables Glanbia 

to meet the ever increasing 

expectations for higher standards 

of quality from our customers, 

consumers, regulatory bodies and 

the industry. 

The implementation of these 

platforms enables step changes 

in the business capabilities of our 

quality functions and the company, 

while their presence and effective 

use gives us new insights and 

added confidence in how we 

operate our business and produce 

our products every day. 

32 

By Paddy Ennis 

Manufacturing & Operations 

Centre of Excellence Manager


The introduction of 

world class platforms 

gives our customers and 

consumers confidence 

in how we produce our 

products and operate 

our business. 

Results 

LIMS 

Introduction of more efficient 

laboratory processes and workflows, 

leading to increased productivity and 

utilisation of laboratory resources. 

Elimination of paperwork in processes 

and improved data integrity. 

Increased integration with other 

Glanbia enterprise systems, 

external laboratories, and laboratory 

instruments. 

Enhanced reporting capabilities and 

improved product quality—enhancing 

customer/consumer confidence. 

Intelex 

More efficient EHSQ processes and 

workflows. 

Elimination of traditional paper-based 

processes. 

Improved transparency and visibility 

of process data. 

Real-time access to a centralised 

EHSQ data repository. 

Improved ability to compile required 

corporate and regulatory reporting. 

33

BUSINESS SERVICES 

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