Financials revamp for British Council

The British Council is extending its use of financial management software to obtain a centralised view of resources and improve business processes.

The organisation, which promotes cultural and educational partnerships between the UK and other countries, is to replace the autonomous financial administrations in the 110 countries in which it operates with a handful of regional hubs.

The hubs will standardise processes and build on an international SAP finance management system that the council implemented in the spring (Computing, 6 April 2006), says Justin Gilbert, overseas change programme manager at the British Council.

‘We want to move to a regional structure, which gives us the potential for greater efficiencies in corporate accounting and business processes,’ he said.

The move to an estimated four financial hubs will also fit in with the government’s wider policy of consolidating costs and driving efficiencies through the use of IT, says Gilbert.

‘We are building this on top of the SAP rollout, with the aim of having the London head office managing the hubs centrally,’ he said. ‘We can drive greater standardisation of processes, so every region will not end up reinventing the wheel when it comes to accounting.’

The project is expected to be complete by 2010.

‘Structuring things so we have relatively few standard processes with a single banking solution to talk to is not going to be possible in the short term,’ said Gilbert. ‘But if we standardise the 80 per cent of the business that can be done, we will still get tremendous efficiencies.’

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Further Reading:

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British Council consolidates IT