CM October 2021

INTERVIEW
AUTHOR – Sean Feast FCICM
Nigel immediately set about making
changes: “I think I have always been a
transformational person at heart, seeking
ways of making things better.
“At 20th Century Fox I was able
to drastically reduce the volume of
documentation that our customers had to
process, getting it down in one case from
more than 30,000 documents to less than
1,000. By having fewer documents, we
created fewer issues, and improved our
efficiency and performance considerably.
Our customers were also happier.”
Moving to the Home Entertainments
business, Nigel found the challenges faced
by his new customers to be similar to those
at Hornby: “In Home Entertainments we
had physical products – in those days
DVDs, VHS etc – and there were always
issues with returns, disputes and pricing.
Being a fast-moving consumer goods
(FMCG) business, I focused on reducing
disputes and in doing so made significant
business improvements, so much so that I
was asked to look at the issue globally and
they created what was effectively a new
position, Director of Credit.”
OUTSOURCING ISSUES
It was during his time at 20th Century Fox
that Nigel also began looking seriously at
outsourcing, working first with a Business
Process Outsourcing (BPO) partner onsite.
“It was a way of managing overhead,
since the BPO was paid by a third-party
and we could ‘flex’ when we needed to.
Then we looked to centralise our Order to
Cash (O2C) into a single site and created
a new hybrid model that seemed to work
very well.
“We outsourced certain elements to
countries with a lower cost base, and
retained those services that were more
customer facing. So many of the backroom
services (billing, cash, applications etc)
were managed in India, whereas any
customer-facing roles were managed
from Poland, Guatemala and China where
they had multiple language skills.”
Nigel admits that outsourcing meant
that some of his former colleagues had to
be redeployed or lost their jobs, but he was
pleasantly surprised at how positively the
move was received: “It was an example of
how good people are with change,” he says.
“They have the capacity to understand
that businesses and technologies evolve,
and I received fantastic support from my
teams, even those who had to leave.”
PROFESSIONAL HANDOVER
The acquisition of 20th Century Fox
by Disney in December 2017, meant
that Nigel also found himself surplus
to requirements, though not before
completing a professional handover and
knowledge transfer. His departure from
20th Century Fox after more than 20 years
gave him time to pause and reflect. It
also came shortly before the COVID-19
pandemic first took hold, giving Nigel
even more time to consider his future
plans which included setting up his own
consultancy.
In February of this year, he successfully
applied for the role of Senior Director
(Global Process Owner – Order to Cash)
at NBC Universal Media. In some ways,
it is similar to the job that had kept
him employed for two decades, but on
a considerably larger scale: “It’s been
interesting to see how the concept of
‘home entertainment’ has shifted,” he
explains. “People have wanted to watch
television and be entertained at home
through Amazon, Netflix and other
streaming services, often in preference to
going to the cinema.”
It is, of course, still early days for Nigel
at his new company, and because of the
pandemic, he has not yet had the chance
of meeting all of his team. He is, however,
excited by the challenge. He is similarly
excited and interested to see how the
world of credit is evolving: “Order to Cash
is becoming far more automated and new
technical innovations and ways of doing
business are creating different jobs and
governance roles that were not needed
before.”
Automation, Nigel believes, is
generally a good thing, but there needs
to be a balance: “Implementing any new
technology or process has to be done
properly and should not be rushed,” he
says. “It’s not about ticking boxes; you
have to have the right levels of control
in place, and you still need intelligent
oversight by people who can understand
what’s good, what’s bad, and when things
are going wrong.
“In a changing world focused on forever
improving processes and efficiencies, you
will always need good people to keep you
on track.”
Advancing the credit profession / www.cicm.com / October 2021 / PAGE 23