The challenge was to deliver a state of the art customer experience.
The core challenge was to provide a globally consistent contract-to-invoice service across four lines of business – Dynamics, Commercial Operations, Enterprise Services and Original Equipment Manufacturers Operations – that together represent over 90% of Sona’s global revenues.
Sona had previously used seven vendors in five locations across four continents. Processes had become fragmented; meaning quality and service were inconsistent. This lack of standardization was adversely impacting operating costs, productivity and customer satisfaction. For several years now Sona has worked strategically with innovations as a means of developing new solutions, products and services. In line with this vision, Success was approached to find new payments solutions to offer Sona customers on their website, including open invoice and partial payments options.
Because Sona is present in many countries and serves customers from around the world, one of the challenges was to provide a common solution that would work across multiple markets with local variations.
The Process.
In a five-year agreement worth £130m ($200m) Sona, for the first time, entrusted the processing of 90% of the company’s worldwide revenues (more than $3bn in FY2011) to a single global partner.
The scale of this global BPO relationship was unique in managed services, covering six locations worldwide (Dublin, Reno, Fargo, Singapore, Manila), and involving 1,100 employees, 15 languages and more than 4,000 processes.
To manage the complexity and risk, Sona and Success established a managed services model, covering the whole ‘contract to invoice’ chain. The solution was rolled out to a number of European countries where Success had partnered with the client to deliver it based on local demands (for example, ELV in Germany and MLK in France).
The solution proposed by Success incorporated an online ordering process for trips, offering open invoice as a payment method, along with various part payment options. This new offering was complemented by real-time risk assessment and validation of customers.
Results which exceeded expectations.
- A successful transition and operational excellence.
- Completed one of most successful transitions in Sona’s history
- Scored an ‘A’ in Payfast’s operational excellence measures
- In excess of 20% cost savings over the term of the contract, totaling $40m
- A more dynamic, flexible, BPO structure able to adapt to Sona’s evolving global business
- Continuous roll-out of solution – Sweden, followed by Germany, Denmark, Finland and Norway.
- One single point of contact for client – one country responsible for implementation and client communications base upon local knowledge on legal and business related issues.