Situation
Our client had undertaken a number of acquisitions with minimal integration. As a result, the finance functions remained decentralised which led the PE sponsor to have concerns around the lack of visibility and potential unsuitability of processes across the organisation.
We were asked to undertake an initial diagnostic of core finance processes (P2P, O2C, Expenses and Petty Cash, Month End Close, Reporting and Planning) for efficiency, effectiveness, risks and gaps and identify improvement recommendations.
Swan Actions
- Prepared an initial diagnostic view of current finance function, roles, responsibilities, processes and systems based on interviews with 20 key personnel across 4 business units
- Documented key process activities
- Identified process controls, gaps and risks
- Identified system inefficiencies and risk
- Captured key process metrics and volumes where available
- Identified actions for improvement, categorised and prioritised
- Prepared a draft action implementation plan
Outcome
- The client gained a detailed understanding of the current status
- Finance organisation charts with high level summary of roles and responsibilities
- Indicative comparison of processes across the business units
- A high level summary of key finance function activities for each process and business unit
- A draft finance manual structure and overview of process documentation available across the business
- The client instigated improvements in line with the recommended actions
Client Testimonials
Swan Partners are fast workers, down to earth and sensibly priced. I have not met people in 25 years of doing transactions who do it better.
– CEO, FTSE250 Insurance Company
The team’s support was invaluable throughout the acquisition process and I would recommend to anyone to use them in the future.
– CEO, FTSE250 Oil & Gas Company
