Cash & Liquidity Management
Published  6 MIN READ
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Delivering Value Through an Offshore Shared Services Group

by James Axelby, Manager of Cash & Working Capital Management, Cable & Wireless

The success of the SSG and its ability to satisfy the SLA was as much about the people as our systems and processes.

Cable & Wireless was first established 130 years ago and is now a FTSE-100 company with a global presence. The past few years have seen their ups and downs, resulting in substantial developments both in how the company conducts its business externally and our business practices internally. In particular, a major catalyst for change was in November 2005 when Cable & Wireless acquired Energis, the UK’s third largest fixed telecoms operator in the UK. The company’s share price fell to below £1 per share and the company dropped out of the FT-100. To recover from this, we knew we had to change the way we operated, not only in how we marketed our products and services, but internally, to become a highly competitive and efficient organisation, ready to withstand the changing market pressures. We therefore launched a company-wide programme with a view to integrating, recovering and transforming our business.

One of the outcomes of this programme was the formation of a shared services group (SSG), operating out of UK and India to support UK and European financial operations. The offshoring programme first started in August 2006 which was soon followed by an evaluation of potential business partners to support the SSG. Between January and May 2007, we transitioned our transaction processing to the SSG and from April to October 2007 our Reporting & Planning function.