Turning a finance system replacement into an enterprise-wide operating backbone

The organisation delivers high-volume, multi-site operations for corporate, public-sector and institutional clients across more than fifty countries, combining on-site services with digital platforms, workforce management and supply-chain processes. When I joined, the ERP initiative was scoped as a replacement of the finance system and nothing more.

Delivery was consultant-led. Organisational changes had been announced, but the underlying processes and data models had never been harmonised. Operations continued to work exactly as before. The programme was on course to automate the existing fragmentation at considerable cost, with benefits that would have been mediocre at best.

What we did

With my team and the support of my network, we redefined the entire scope of the ERP. The programme shifted from a finance initiative to an end-to-end enterprise transformation, integrating finance, purchasing and operations as a single design problem rather than three sequential ones.

• Redefined programme scope from finance replacement to enterprise transformation
• Integrated finance, purchasing and operations into one target process model
• Established harmonised data models across the operating countries
• Installed a single governance rhythm shared by business functions, operations and IT
• Replaced consultant-led delivery with a joint business–operations–IT leadership team

Where it landed

Decisions were made in the language of the business and grounded in operational reality, because the people accountable for operations were in the room where the design was settled. The ERP became an enterprise backbone rather than a finance ledger with a wider licence footprint.