Recent news

August 2024

• I added a new web page to track my studies in programming

June 2024

• I posted about frameworks to help structure transformation programs
• I posted about gathering information for transformation projects
• I wrote an in depth guide to assessing an organisations operations

March 2024

• I created a quick reference for the Responsive Web Design course by freeCodeCamp.

August 2023 to March 2024

• I worked with a global recruitment company on the assessment of the operations of potential acquisitions
• I travelled around Asia including Tokyo, Bangkok, DaNang, Kuala Lumpur and Singapore
• I studied VBA, HTML, CSS and JavaScript.

June 2022 to July 2023

• I moved back to the Scottish Highlands and lived in the hills above Loch Ness
• I spent a year buying, fixing and selling classic cars, including a 1989 Renault Alpine GTA, 1985 Toyota Landcruiser HJ60, 1985 Toyota Celica Supra and 1978 Pontiac Firebird Trans Am.

September 2020 to April 2022

• I led the global design and pilot implementation of SAP S/4HANA Central Finance and CO-PA for a global consumer goods company.

Articles

Successful business transformation relies on a good understanding of the current state of an organisation. It helps with everything from idea generation to project delivery. This article discusses what triggers asssessments, how they can be approached and how they apply to different business areas and capabilities.

The chart of accounts is a central information structure for financial and management reporting. In this article, I look at the history behind the chart of accounts, discuss the implications of setting it up in SAP (from R/3 to S/4HANA) and provide recommendations on the approach to an optimised design.

In this article, I briefly discuss the approach to cost reduction and highlight ten typical cost-saving opportunities.

Over the years I have noticed a pattern where project managers tend to focus on methodology more than on people. In this article I provide some suggestions on how to better manage people during project work.

There is a resurgence in large organisations investing in SAP upgrades with the launch of S/4HANA. But what exactly is S/4HANA and what is HANA? I will review the history and technical concepts behind the solution and provide some tips for implementation.

Finance aims to record all financially relevant activities of a business and provide reporting and analysis for external bodies and for management. In this article I breakdown the record to report process and look at a number of ways to improve it.

Blockchain aka distributed ledger technology is one of the most hyped technologies of recent times. Despite the popularity, it is a specialised solution and only suitable for specific use cases. Understanding how it works under the hood makes it easier to identify the right use-cases with genuine benefits. This article explains how blockchain works.

Services

This is a brief summary of the service areas I have experience in whilst working with clients and employers in the past.

Global business services

• Design of global business services and shared services organisations. This includes organisation model, processes and systems
• Improvement of global business services and shared services organisations
• Developing business cases for shared services
• Leading the transition of work to shared services
• Process and systems improvement projects within a shared service environment
• Outsourcing partner selection. The creation of requests for information, requests for proposal and the management of the evaluation and selection process.

Strategy

• Leading the development of strategic plans such as 3 or 5-year strategic plans
• Leading the development of annual plans
• Leading future operating model design for finance functions
• Leading future operating model design for shared services
• Building the business case and financial model for transformation.

Finance function effectiveness

• Developing finance maturity models
• Leading and improving financial closing and annual report creation
• Leading the design and implementation of fast close
• Leading process and systems improvements as a process owner of record to report
• Leading process and systems improvements as a process owner for purchase to pay
• Leading process & systems improvements as a process owner for cost accounting
• Applying lean and six sigma to finance processes
• Modelling finance processes. This includes deep knowledge of BPMN.

Systems development

• Design of business applications architecture
• Project management of business systems implementation
• Expert in requirements gathering, fit-gap analysis, solutions development, testing, training and production start up
• Leading custom development of stand alone systems
• Design of IT service management processes. Experienced with ITIL and COBIT
• Design and management of IT outsourcing agreements.

Enterprise Resource Planning design and implementation

• Defining ERP / business application strategy and application architecture
• SAP ERP implementation (multiple full lifecycles)
• Configuration of SAP ERP systems
• Leading custom development within ERP systems.

Process improvement

• Development of process decomposition frameworks / process taxonomies
• Detailed process modelling down to task level with BPMN
• Application of Lean and Six Sigma improvement methodologies to various processes
• Authoring process manuals, task descriptions, roles and responsbilities etc.

Post acquisition integration

• Leading large scale post acquisition integration projects; including commercial integration (trade terms, pricing), people integration, business systems integration, process alignment / harmonization
• Leading design and implementation of carveouts

Commericals

• Business development in a consulting environment
• Economic and market analysis (pricing, competitors etc.) for strategy projects
• Leading the successful response to requests for proposal
• Creation of requests for proposal
• Design and management of transition services agreements
• Assisting legal teams with contract creation (providing functional expertise).

Change management

• Leading transformation programs with executive committees
• Development and implementation of people impact assessments and communication plans
• Using change tools with stakeholder groups, customer groups and user groups (e.g. voice of the customer, Prosci ADKAR).

Experience - summary

I work as a freelance management consultant. My focus is on operational improvement programs. I cover process, organisation design, systems and data. I also have experience in strategy which includes corporate planning and acquisitions. Past employers and clients include the following.

Experience - detail

I started my career as a graduate at Procter & Gamble where I spent 7 years working as a member of the global projects team. During this time my focus was on developing global business services (GBS). I started out as a systems analyst working on projects to:

• Implement a global standard SAP R/3 solution across Western Europe, Eastern Europe and Africa. My focus was on a standard finance template design known as 'global core finance'
• Transition work from various countries to the EMEA shared service centre
• Develop new solutions in purchase to pay and cost accounting space
• Run process improvement initiatives for the shared service centre.

I then went on to act as a project and program manager, leading the following:

• IT outsourcing for application development and maintenance covering supply chain systems across EMEA
• Three full lifecycles of SAP R/3 implementation covering a global standard solution in finance, supply chain, customer relations management and HR
• Tax restructuring projects for a move to a regional entrepreneur, local commissionaire and toll manufacturing model
• Post-acquisition integration; covering commercials, people, process, systems and data
• Supply chain systems upgrades.

Following Procter and Gamble, I moved into management consulting where I've worked for over a decade. I've helped clients with their global business services, shared services and outsourcing initiatives and their business systems landscapes. This often involves the design of target operating models, building business cases or deeper process and systems improvement work. I've worked both for major consultin firms and on a freelance/contract basis.

Recently I've been involved in several key strategy projects incluing:

• Leading the development of a new core finance solution; including SAP CFIN, CO-PA (margin analysis) and Material Ledger
• Leading the development of a 5-year corporate strategy with executive committee members
• Leading supply chain strategy reviews
• Developing new operating models.

Experience - key skill areas

Experience - client and employer history

September 2020 to March 2022

Danone: Interim Finance IT programme manager

Remote/Paris

• Finance IT programme manager
• Finance process/systems expert for design assurance

Globally, Danone have a distributed landscape of ERPs, with multiple SAP and non SAP systems. This program aimed to design and build a new global core finance solution leveraging SAPs central finance to aggregate and standardise finance data and reports on a real-time basis. The project had further objectives to enhance reporting by introducing improvements in valuation (SAP material ledger) and profitability analysis (SAP CO-PA/margin analysis).

I joined the program, working for operations IT to both act as programme manager/director and to bring finance systems expertise to ensure the global design was fit for purpose. I led a team of 20 people (Danone IT, Accenture, SAP and freelancers).

June 2019 to November 2019

PersolKelly: 5 year strategic plan development

Tokyo/Pan-South East Asia

• Engagement manager
• Lead for maintenance, digital and back-office optimisation workstreams

Working with the executive committee, and leading a team of 5 Deloitte consultants I managed PersolKelly's 5-year strategic planning process. This covered 12 markets across Asia Pacific.

Over a period of five months and multiple day-long workshops with the executive committee, we reviewed economic, market and internal performance data and through deliberation developed the 5 year plan. This included:

• A baseline plan focussing on organic growth
• Identification of $200m of target acquisitions covering the service and market segments showing high prospects for growth
• A digital business start-up plan covering two recruitment apps, one for permanent placement, and one for temporary staffing
• A centralisation program with an estimated $50m savings over a 5 year period.

May 2018 to June 2019

Unilever Japan: Supply chain strategy review & 3rd party manufacturing negotiation strategy

Tokyo

• Engagement manager
• Subject matter expert for supply chain and negotiation

Led a supply chain strategy review. As part of this, we reviewed demand, supply and production planning as well as procurement processes. We delivered a detailed analysis based on data from SCM systems and provided a tactical QlikView based dashboard to support better management of 3rd party contract manufacturer performance.

We also created a negotiation playbook for dealings with key 3rd party manufacturers, this included identification of gives and takes, critical minimum requirements, and discussion options for key negotiation sessions. Resulted in multi-million $ risk exposure reduction.

June 2017 to June 2019

Deloitte Japan, Strategy and operations consulting

Tokyo

• Consulting senior manager

As part of business development responsibilities, I led $3.7m in sales within 9 months (3 engagements). Delivered various client projects. Created and led an international community. Developed and delivered blockchain technical training.

Deloitte UK, internal

• Independent adviser

Developed a new target operating model for finance. This included applying effort analysis, the voice of the customer analysis and led to the creation of a process taxonomy, organization design, business case and roadmap.

December 2015 to November 2016

Standard Chartered Bank: Annual report

London

• Group reporting project manager

Project managed the group finance annual close & annual report creation (finance content). Delivered an on-time, accurate full year annual report to the market with no material revisions.

Returned the following year to assist with the half-year report and also project manage a fast close project.

June 2013 to December 2014

Deutsche Bank: Process governance

London

• Process governance lead for purchase to pay
• Process governance lead for record to report
• BPMN (modelling) standards owner
• SME / consultant for Lean continuous improvement.

Process governance owner for source to pay. In both roles delivered end to end mapping of the banks processes covering inputs, outputs, process steps, systems and controls. Also coached change projects on continuous improvement.

November 2012 to February 2013

Johnson Matthey: Global standard SAP program

Royston/London

• Independent advisor

Led the strategy phase of a global SAP ECC 6.0 implementation project covering finance, sales, logistics, manufacturing. Delivered a successful negotiation on the contract and statement of work for 3rd party systems integrator.

September 2008 to June 2012

PwC UK finance effectiveness technology consulting

London

• Consulting senior manager
• SAP strategy practice lead for finance.

Business development and project management / SME support for various projects focussing on finance and finance systems.

September 2008 to June 2012 (with PwC)

Heineken: European Shared Service Program

Amsterdam

• Finance systems lead

Finance systems lead for Heineken's European shared service centre design & business case. Delivered a multi-million $ saving target operating model (resource model, organization design, process taxonomy, systems architecture and roadmap).

September 2008 to June 2012 (with PwC)

Lehman Brothers: Administration team

London

• Transition services lead

Transition services agreement design & management for Lehman Brothers covering the sale of Equities and Investment Banking to Nomura. Ensured trades could be executed in order to deliver returns to creditors.

September 2008 to June 2012 (with PwC)

BBC Worldwide: Enterprise performance management program

London

• Finance systems architect / advisor

Enterprise performance management solution architect for BBC worldwide.

September 2008 to June 2012 (with PwC)

Diageo: Enterprise performance management program

London

• Finance systems architect / lead

Finance systems lead for a new planning & reporting model for Diageo. Delivered design for improved ExCo decision making (application architecture, chart of accounts, profit/cost centre hierarchies, SAP New GL design).

June 2007 to February 2008

Accenture UK

London

• Consulting manager

Manager, finance & performance management consulting.

June 2007 to February 2008 (with Accenture)

AXA Europe

London

• Finance systems architect / lead

Finance systems lead for AXA’s European shared service centre design & business case. Delivered a multi-million $ saving target operating model (resource model, organization design, process taxonomy, systems architecture and roadmap).

June 2007 to February 2008 (with Accenture)

Lloyds TSB SAP program

London

• Finance systems architect / lead

Finance systems lead, design of a major UK bank’s SAP-based application architecture.

September 2000 to March 2007

Procter & Gamble Global Business Services

London

• Systems manager

Global supply chain SAP ECC 6.0 / Unicode program manager. Delivered a successful upgrade. Managed 4 regional projects incl. more than 100 resources.

Gillette post-acquisition integration program manager for Russia. Covering all aspects of integration; systems (SAP), process, people, commercials. Delivered $20m one time savings and $8.5m year-on-year savings. Managed > 50 people and $1.4m delivery partner contract.

Romania SAP upgrade, regional shared services & tax restructuring project manager. On-time delivery with multi-million year on year savings. Managed > 50 people.

SAP fast-track project approach lead. Designed a method to implement SAP in 4 months.

EU enlargement project manager. Delivered business continuity & compliance with respect to tax, import/export and intrastat reporting changes for the expanded EU of 25 states.

Pharmaceuticals business SAP R/2 - SAP R/3 upgrade project manager. Delivered a successful upgrade incl. Ground-up redesign of the chart of accounts, project and cost objects.

IT outsourcing governance lead. Successful design & monitoring of the governance for application development & support (DevOps) covering EMEA finance and supply chain.

European SAP R/3 implementation, shared services and tax restructuring systems analyst. Led the finance workstream for multiple countries across EMEA.

General ledger and purchase to pay process & systems owner for EMEA.

2nd level IT service management, the definition of ITIL / COBIT standards.