Remember the last time you worked with a character who was more of a ‘force’ than a person?  It may have been 5 minutes ago.  It may have been 5 months ago.  But they stick in the mind don’t they.  Their drive is compelling and their energy motivating.  One such force is Amy Aves, Senior Director Global Procure to Pay Strategy at Oracle.  She spoke at a conference we held recently about what’s going on in Oracle Purchase to Pay.  Her story was how Oracle took their 80 AP centres to one global shared services centre.  “There would indeed be pain” she conceded, ”so to make it bearable do it quickly… like ripping off a well stuck plaster.” 

So in 1998 Oracle had all these AP centres.  In addition to this they also ran off 65 ERP instances.  Now, along with their one SSC, they also have one instance of Oracle and one P2P owner per region, and remarkably only two P2P processes globally. They are fierce about deviating from these two, and won’t unless there is only a requirement by law to do so. They also have a very strict view on No PO No Pay.

The results are hugely impressive.  Their invoice transaction costs range from $4.25 (paper exception costs) to $0.44 (electronic straight-through invoice) and from a marco perspective, Oracle enjoys an impressive operating margin of 40.8%.  Amy puts this success down to 4 key factors. 

Number One: They created a Global Process Organisation separate from the operations.  This kept a momentum on the project goals, and meant that the ops people could press on with paying invoices, whilst the Process Organisation could focus on improvements and policies.

Number Two: Amy and the team put a lot of time and attention into standardisation – from local processes to the documentation they compiled, explaining the importance of implementing workflow in a certain way etc.  This was great for communication and education.  When company rules are written down they are tougher to break.  Regarding processes, they standardised locally and then centralised.  With the 44 or so acquisitions that took place between ‘05 and ‘08 they took the view that they would standardise themselves and the acquired company first before they integrated. 

Number Three: They had AMAZINGLY strong senior level support from the CEO, CFO and CIO.  This meant there was very little resistance and all employees took the change seriously.  The whole project had real credibility because of this support.

And finally Number Four: they moved fast and stayed the course.   Remember my earlier comment about ripping off a plaster?  Oracle kept real momentum during this project and it seemingly paid off.  Because there were global policies, there was stricter control, and an ability to get decisions made and applied quickly.  

So with all this success is there anything Amy and the team wouls have done differently?  If she had a crystal ball back then she would have hired a Transition Manager to be based on site in India whilst they were migrating their operations to India.  Had they done this Amy believes they would have been a few months ahead on their continuous improvement initiatives, and for someone who does everything with real urgency, these few months would have gone a long way.