Organisation Context:
FFP is a group-wide initiative to modernise the finance function across the group by ‘re-inventing’ finance and building capability to support growth and add value to customers and stakeholders. Finance is a key enabler of the ‘North Star strategy’ launched by the Group’s Executive Leadership team. FFP’s vision and goal is for finance to be a trusted strategic partner to the business that operates with an agile and analytical mindset to enable better decision making through timely, accurate and actionable insights. The A&R workstream is a critical component within FFP that includes the ‘end to end’ transformation of Finance Operations, Insurance and Operational Accounting, General Ledger and Close Processes, and Financial Reporting (including both Internal and External Reporting). A&R has several Business Units within scope across Asia, plus a Global design and platform, with the aim to leverage global solutions and platforms including the latest Oracle technology. This will support the overall transformation outcomes set out by FFP, aligned to the North Star Strategy with Finance as a key enabler for value creation.
Role Purpose:
The Group Manager, Global General Ledger LBU Enablement role is focused on facilitating the successful adoption and benefit realisation of the Global General Ledger within Local Business units. This will be achieved in a number of phases including: 1) Ensuring a clear understanding and measurement of business readiness, aligned to programme best practice, 2) Enabling tracking and resolution of implementation challenges required to ensure our stated business outcomes are achieved & 3) Facilitating the tracking and reporting of business outcomes yielded as a result of the transformation activity, resulting in our stated workstream and programme objectives.
This role is an important independent lens which enables the CFO teams to hold themselves and the FFP team accountable for the transformations we committed to as well as identifying, prioritising, escalating and resolving issues that will inevitably arise as we move on the journey. This role will initially be part of a broader “value capture” element of the A&R workstream, in partnership with our implementation partner (KPMG), however over time it is envisaged that this role will absorb more direct responsibility, reducing our reliance on third parties and lowering the cost associated with achieving these objectives.
This role will be a member of the Accounting & Reporting Delivery lead team, within the Future Finance Programme. It will have a secondary line of responsibility into the broader value capture responsibilities at an overall programme level.
Key Accountabilities
- Business readiness and adoption of Global A&R initiatives for the Business Units within the scope of FFP. This includes accountability for supporting project delivery of successful business outcomes, including;
- Speed & Efficiency – reducing the working day timetable (‘WDT’) is a widely recognized objective and a key benefit within the FFP business case. For example, a reduction in the WDT implies increased automation, reduced manual work and consequently increased job satisfaction
- Quality & Controls – improved control environment to ensure work is done right, first time, measured through a reduction of 50% of end user computing and manual tools currently used within Finance.
- Empowering People – improve the working lives and experience of our people so that engagement, satisfaction, and retention are all improved.
- Finance Operating Costs – drive standardisation and simplification to create operating cost efficiencies. Improve operational efficiency measured through a reduction of at least 60% in accounting system setups and the quarterly $ run rate.
- Value Creation – shift focus of activity to value creation with a targeted a reduction from 80%+ down to <60% of time spent on manual work. This capacity can be used for enhanced A&R analytics and insights e.g. expenses, product analysis.
- Business readiness and adoption of the ‘end to end’ A&R solution including training, communications and change management deliverables. This includes accountability for managing testing across multi-disciplinary teams and providers, as well as working in partnership with programme and business stakeholders.
- Ensure that A&R workstream values and philosophy are implemented at every stage of design and delivery. The workstream values and philosophy include:
- Lead with People, enabled by Technology
- Service Mindset
- Business Led Design
- Simplify, automate, enhance and eliminate!
- No Pre-Definition of Design
- Speed-to-Value with Quick Wins
- Manage the overall business readiness and adoption strategy. This will require close collaboration with key business, technology, and other stakeholders.
- Track, monitor, and successfully execute the business readiness strategy.
- Identify, escalate, and support the resolution of business readiness risks as appropriate to enable all BUs to enter key transition stage gates and go-live according to plan.
- Assess the impact of change through analysis of key impacts, identification of key stakeholders, assessing change readiness across the organisation, and driving the resolution efforts to ensure successful adoption and business readiness.
- Collaborate with cross-functional teams, including Finance, IT, and Project Management, to ensure business needs are fully defined and understood across different audiences. Work closely with these teams to address any gaps or conflicts and ensure a holistic and integrated solution.
- Define and measure success metrics and monitor the change progress, track milestones, and report on business readiness status to Change management lead, project leadership and stakeholders.
- Provide regular updates on key metrics, risks, and mitigation strategies. Escalate any issues or delays to Change Management lead and project leadership for timely resolution.
- Support A&R workstream and programme wide communication efforts by management and delivery of key communications according to the business readiness and adoption strategy.
- Identify training needs across the organisation, and design and deliver comprehensive key-user and end-user training programs with the goal of maximising understanding and proficiency of new systems and processes.
- Managing the development and roll-out of training materials to BUs as appropriate, support BU trainings and facilitate the testing and validation with business expectations.
- Support the definition of dry run detailed plan and execution protocols, including issue tracking mechanisms, remediation planning, sign-off and closure documentation.
- Contribute to lessons learned and best practices documentation to support FFP A&R initiatives. Capture and document key insights, challenges, and success stories from the current project to inform future projects and drive continuous improvement.
Performance measures
- Business readiness and adoption in supporting business outcomes, including;
- Speed & Efficiency, for example, measured via WDT improvements.
- Quality & Controls, for example, measured via reduction in manual work.
- Empowering People, for example, measured via increase staff engagement.
- Finance Operating Costs, for example, measured via increased standardisation.
- Value Creation, for example, measured via capacity shift to analytics.
- Business readiness and adoption to ensure safe A&R workstream delivery, including;
- Timeliness, ability to execute and meet key milestones.
- Quality, ability to effectively engage and address stakeholder feedback.
- Financial management, ability to deliver on budget and ensure value for spend.
- Ways of working, ability to foster, cultivate and promote the required ways of working leading to strong team and stakeholder engagement.
Core requirements:
· At least 10+ years of relevant Business Readiness or related project experience within similar projects, preferably in the insurance industry.
· Proven track record of business readiness and solution adoption delivery, within relevant and similar projects.
· Experience with and knowledge of change management principles, methodologies and tools.
· Solid experience with change adoption and project management.
· Experience in business readiness and solution adoption across multiple teams and locations and phases.
· Basic technical understanding of finance data, systems, and processes i.e. relevant domain knowledge.
· Excellent communication skills, both written and verbal.
· Strong problem solving and decision-making skills.
Preferable requirements:
· Preference for Insurance industry experience, including relevant finance transformation experience.
· Preference for experience and understanding of Oracle Cloud ERP solutions landscape which includes both general ledger and sub-ledger design and processes.
· Experience of Global delivery teams and approaches including multi-location teams and managing delivery capability both on-shore and off-shore.
· Relevant project and change management certifications would be an advantage.
