Case Studies
A UK Clearing Bank: ITT Process
Client contact: Director of Finance Systems
Parkwell staff: 3 consultants
Objectives and project background
A UK clearing bank was considering replacing its accounting systems with an ERP system throughout the UK and setting up an offshore business process outsourcing (BPO) facility.
The projected investment was considerable and the bank required our assistance to determine who would be the most appropriate implementation and BPO partners.
In conjunction with Group Procurement we were requested to run an invitation to tender (ITT) process.
Anticipated benefits
Sizable savings from setting up a shared service offshore BPO facility. The savings would arise from making the finance processes more efficient and then off-shoring them.
One of the key challenges was to identify how much could be outsourced. Traditionally, transaction processing activities, for example, accounts payable, have been outsourced; but the bank also wished to look at the management reporting, financial reporting, regulatory reporting and analysis work performed around the group to determine if any if these activities could also be outsourced.
During the evaluation process it was found that many of the traditional outsourcers had limited experience in this area.
Scope and boundaries
The scope included the following:
- All UK businesses.
- The UK’s finance shared service centre
- All finance processes.
The project included the following major steps:
- A high level definition of the requirements for finance and BPO.
- The development of appropriate ITTs.
- An ITT evaluation process for an implementation and a BPO partner.
- The management of a discovery phase for the successful potential implementation and BPO partner.
- Contractual negotiations.
The project team reported to a steering committee chaired by the Group Finance Director and consisting of the IT Director and the Finance Directors of all the major businesses.
Deliverables
The deliverables were as follows:
- An ITT for an implementation partner.
- An ITT for a BPO partner.
- Evaluation matrices
- Evaluation reports and presentations for the steering group.
The project successfully selected an evaluation and BPO partner.