Bus Group outsources back office

New systems support de-merger

Bus group outsources back office systems

London bus operator East London Bus Group has outsourced key back office systems after separating from its parent firm.

The company has opted for new financial management, human resources (HR), payroll and time and attendance software to be managed by a third party for two years. It will then make a decision whether to bring the services back in-house.

East London, which carries more than 300 million passengers a year on 1,250 services, was purchased from Stagecoach last year. It has been relying on Stagecoach’s centralised back office systems until last week.

‘When we bought the business Stagecoach agreed to continue providing the services until we could go it alone,’ said East London Bus Group’s chief financial officer Paul Cox. ‘But we wanted control of our own destiny as soon as possible.’

Netstore will manage financial management, HR and payroll software from CedarOpenAccounts, and duty allocation applications from Grampian.

The agreement also includes service level agreements, disaster recovery and helpdesk, system monitoring and Bacs payment processing.

‘Having our own managed systems gives us greater flexibility,’ said Cox. ‘But we also wanted a tried and tested system that could be implemented rapidly.’

Opting for a managed service is not unusual when one company de-merges from another, says Butler Group outsourcing analyst Alan Rodger.

‘It provides an instant solution rather than spending significant amounts of time establishing new systems and going through complex testing,’ he said.