Case Studies
Major Newspaper Publisher: Promotions & Finance Re-engineering Project
Client contact: Director of Commercial Enterprise
Parkwell staff: 2 consultants
Objectives and project background
Our client’s promotions and finance processes had evolved inefficient and non-value-adding overheads which did not support suppliers or facilitate market development.
Parkwell was engaged to assist in re-engineering the processes and developing a bespoke management information (MI) system.
Anticipated Benefits
- Head-count savings within Finance as the efficiency of the monthly process to be increased markedly.
- Improved MI that provides Marketing with campaign performance data and Finance with month-end reconciliation data.
Scope & Boundaries
- Determine the strategy for contractual relationships with suppliers.
- The decision had to be taken having considered the views of Finance, IT, Customer Service and Marketing.
- The IT department had limited availability to support system development, but the system needed to provide Marketing with robust and meaningful MI.
- The new processes and systems had to go-live at year-end.
- Contractual recommendations would need to recognise supplier credit risk.
- Parkwell provided the project managers whilst the client provided key staff from throughout the business.
Deliverables
- A detailed strategy document.
- Detailed to-be process documentation.
- Template contractual documents.
- A system that supports the MI needs of both Marketing and Finance.
- System training plan.
- Supplier training plan.
Project Conclusion
The re-engineered processes and system went live and delivered immediate benefits. Marketing was able to take informed decisions on campaign performance, relationships with suppliers improved and Finance were able to streamline the month-end process and realise head-count savings.