Background
The customer is a Business Service unit that provides financial and accounting services to companies within a large media group. The group has expanded considerably in the last year through a series of corporate acquisitions and will continue to change and develop. To ensure the Business Service will be able to provide efficient and effective financial and accounting services for the whole group, with its wide corporate diversity, there was an urgent need to replace the financial system and rationalize the processes.

Assignment
Preera was assigned the task of helping the Business Service create the requisite conditions for providing a superior level of service at competitive prices by negotiating the purchase and acquisition of a new financial system. In real terms, this meant managing the project by evaluating and determining the needs of the business operation, drawing up specification requirements and negotiating the actual of a new financial system.

Implementation
Throughout the entire project Preera worked in close collaboration with all members of staff involved in order to create and establish consensual targets for the future regarding improvement in procedures, processes, working methods and the desirable level of systems support.

In the initial phase of the assignment, two workshops were held in which all personnel involved were assembled and the aim was to create a consensus for the task ahead. Working teams were then formed and given the task of mapping out current procedures, processes, working methods and systems. Under the supervision of Preera, the teams were able to produce a plan of action applicable for procedures, processes and working methods and determine a number of priorities regarding the technology and information requirements.

Based on the plan of action defined, the priorities identified for the technology, the need for information and the functionality, a specification of requirements was drawn up with the pertinent User-Case as applied when negotiating for the new financial system.

Under Preera’s supervision, selected systems suppliers were invited to demonstrate systems specially adapted to suit the business operation’s processes and the demands and requirements stipulated jointly by Preera and the Business Service. Based on the demonstrations, relevant data were acquired and used as the basis for deciding the choice of supplier.

The assignment is now in its final phase and the support provided by Preera is now limited to the business negotiations with the chosen supplier.

Long-term effects
The assignment is still an ongoing process, but the assumed effects are:
• A higher degree of flexibility that will enable the Business Service to meet the demands and requirements exacted by the different companies within the group.
• Simplified working methods and the rationalizations of procedures and processes.
• Cost efficiency with low running costs.
• Simplified administrative routines and reduced dependency on consultants from the systems supplier.