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1. Secret No.7: Be
Tenacious
It Helps to Have the
Skin of a Rhino – don’t
Be Defeated by ERP
and Re-Engineering
Complications
Péter Villányi
Avis Group Business Support Centre
18th March 2009

2. Agenda
• Avis - Background
• Avis – Shared Service Centre
History
• Financial Systems
Transformation
• The Next Generation
2

3. Avis – Background
Avis Europe is a leading car rental
company in EMEA and Asia
Avis Europe
• 8 million rentals annually
• 14 corporate countries with 1,800 locations
• Licensee network across 94 countries with
1,200 locations
• Combined annual revenue €2.1bn
• Around 18% market share in Europe
(includes Budget 3%)
Budget Europe
• Coverage across 63 countries in 800
locations
• Combined revenue of €450m
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4. Avis : Shared Service Centre History
• Opened call centres in 2000 (Manchester, Barcelona)
• Opened Business Support Centre, in Budapest, for finance
and administrative services in January 2004:
– Scope: Accounts Receivables and Payables, Financial
Accounting, Customer Services, Databases, IT
– Markets: UK, Germany, France, Spain, Italy, Netherlands,
Austria, Switzerland, Belgium, Portugal
– Headcount: currently 340
– ERP: none – access to country legacy systems and CODA
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5. The Keys to Implementation Success – classic list
• Top Management Support – 93%
• Recruitment in the SSC – 70%
• Change management mentality during project - 66%
• Early & Effective communication to affected persons – 57%
• Gaining Quick Wins – 40%
Source – The Hackett Group, ‘Fourth Annual European Shared Services Organization Study 2005’
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6. Solutions to Reality – Customer Focus
Organizational Buy-In Corporate strategy, with C-
level sponsorship, or if in doubt
mandate it!
Absolute clarity from start,
Scope included in signed off strategy
Clear Customer Relationship
Managing customers Model, include pricing and
of the centre issue escalation!
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7. Solutions to Reality – Operations / Process Focus
Business systems or Process re-engineering required
processes suitable to a specifically to address
SSC approach (ERP) document exchange – ERP
nice, but not essential
Planning – program Comes back to business strategy
linked, communicated & – this solves most things, but
achievable across total still requires right talent
business Many ways to do this across
different cost perspectives – in
the SSC or in country, or mix.
Transition approach Need to be flexible! PMO &
correct methodology vital
Simple / clever processes
essential – success then in KT
Getting quality at the right and People, supported by
mark effective customer relationship
model
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8. Solutions to Reality – People Issues
SSC & location skills / Essential to have right start up
experience experience for a SSC (not just a
finance operation), same for
location. Buy-in carefully!
Manage attrition Reflects success in other areas:
scope, reward, management
and vision
Change / Project Enabler to establish the SSC, but
Management resource also the change in business.
Buy-in carefully!
Recruitment Success driven by project
methodology – timing, roles,
mechanics
Reward & Motivation Survey + skills based, plus career
management
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9. Solutions to Reality – Financial Issue
Issue:
– Business Case in place / achievable
(Hackett Survey: 15% of SSC survey respondents expect >
40% cost saving, 34% > 20%, 34% expect saving > 11%)
Solution:
• Ensuring the business case is do-able – customers, business,
systems, volume driven
• Managing hidden costs of implementation
• Controlling the business case
• Benefit realization program starts very early
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10. Final Conclusions on SSC implementation
SSC Opportunity assessment
Business case
Organization Buy-in
Planning, CRM, Transition, Key People, Communication
Recruitment, Reward, Quality
Quality Management, Attrition, Benefit Realization
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11. New system solutions
• Flexibility vs. standardisation
• One system cannot deliver best practice on all processes
• Process by process approach
– Financial and Supplier processes
– Customer supporting processes
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12. Financial Processes - Reality check
• Achieved efficiencies when first set up
• Finance system was outdated and unsupported
• Needed to move systems to achieve more efficiencies
• Requirement for up to date technology
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13. Objectives of the project
Aim to drive further efficiencies through the organisation with
new finance system:
• Reduced processing costs & errors
• Meets local country requirements
• Integration with local business systems
• Standardisation
• Easy to use
• Improved efficiency, less cost
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14. Evaluation
Key criteria for new finance system:
• Not ERP
• Single instance
• Capability to support local countries
• Latest technology but proven
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15. Evaluation
Chose Financials from CODA
• Latest ‘Neon’ release
• Proven international capabilities
• e-Procurement
• Process control
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16. The Roll-out
• Live Oct 2007
– Germany, Portugal
• Live Jan 2008
– UK, Holland, Belgium, Luxembourg
• March/April 2008
– Austria, Switzerland, France
• May 2008
– Italy, Spain, European HQ (~40 entities)
– Inter-company processes
• Strong functional support for a year
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17. Roadmap for the Next Generation initiatives
BSC Next
BSC Next Generation
Generation
(current status) BSC
Program
• Benefit from labour • Is not just about the BSC • Transfer additional
cost arbitrage • Improve process and service and volumes
services E2E • Centre of Competence for
• Combined effort by BSC continuously improving
and countries service quality and
• Provide a basis for increase service
expanding BSC services efficiency
• Build competence for • Efficient , harmonized and
continuous service effectively managed E2E
improvement processes
• Increase Partner
Satisfaction both in the
countries and in the BSC
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18. Overview of the Next Generation projects
Receivable • Improve Avis capability to collect outstanding debt more quickly
Project and reduce cash flow and interest on payments
Process Improvement
Database • Increase efficiency by an automated workflow
Projects
Project
• Improve Customer Satisfaction by improving quality of data
CODA Phase II • enhancements to the current CODA version
FAC Project
CODA Phase II • enhancements to the current CODA version
P2P Project
Roles & • End to end view of back office processes. Using RACI charts at
Responsibility startegic, tactical and operational levels
Enabling Initiatives
Training and • Define the job requirements of all key process roles, identify
Skilled Res. training needs and deliver training more effectively and efficiently
Quality System • Using Lean Six Sigma tools to define process quality goals
& KPIs
• Set up quality KPIs
Process • Standard framework for process mapping and procedure
Management documentation 18