Industry: Retail
Category: Financial Management

EG Group: Streamlining Finance Operations for Three Acquisitions

Petrol Station

  • Industry: Retail
  • Employees: 55,180 globally
  • Turnover: $30.6bn
  • Website: www.eg.group

Challenges

  • Implementing consistent processes for three new business acquisitions all using different finance systems
  • Complex and inconsistent processes for finance consolidation led to challenges when trying to gain a centralised financial overview of each business
  • A need to quickly expand and extend the core SAP platform to the three new businesses

Solutions

  • RISE with SAP S/4HANA Cloud, Private Edition

Benefits

  • Consistent processes introduced with a clear policy to adopt and not adapt
  • Streamlined financial consolidation
  • One single source of truth for data and financial processes across the three newly acquired businesses
  • Introduction of new and enhanced functionality including SAP Multi-Bank Connectivity and Advanced Bank Statement Automation

We were looking for an agile partner who could react quickly on the back of our three newly acquired businesses, and run an accelerated implementation to get them all set up on the same finance system.

Moazzam Raza Group IT Programme Director, EG Group

EG Group is a leading independent convenience retailer which has established partnerships with global brands, as well as a focused portfolio of proprietary brands. The business has an established pedigree of delivering an excellent Grocery & Merchandise, Foodservice and Fuel proposition in the UK&I, Europe, North America and Australia. Committed to delivering an outstanding customer experience, EG Group continuously strives to innovate and improve its offerings, ensuring that customers can access essential goods, fuel, and a variety of food and beverage options all in one convenient location. Some of EG’s brand partners include, ESSO, BP, Shell, Starbucks, KFC, Subway and Greggs, as well as proprietary brands LEON and Cooplands. Operating 6,612 sites and employing over 55,000 employees, the company serves more than 1.3bn customers annually.

The relationship began when EG Group sought a UK partner capable of quickly onboarding three new business acquisitions onto their SAP finance platform simultaneously. As a flagship RISE with SAP customer in the UK, EG Group had already been working with SAP who then recommended NTT DATA Business Solutions as the perfect match for their project.

The three companies being onboarded were Cooplands Bakery, Leon Restaurants, and 145 KFC restaurants acquired from the Herbert Group. The project involved significant work building the finance solution and then extracting data from three different sources, remapping it and loading to their centralised SAP platform in their Private Cloud environment.

The team also recommended and added SAP Multi-Bank Connectivity (MBC) functionality to enhance the finance solution for the three newly acquired businesses. MBC now provides automated connectivity between EG Group and its banks, increasing visibility and control over financial transactions by providing real-time notifications for tracking payments, approvals, and cash flow. The new enhancement means EG Group can now verify bank payments, debit and credit charges, cheques, track account fees, identify potential fraud, and track receivables faster. Another notable upgrade made as part of the project was Advanced Bank Statement Automation, which creates templates for reprocessing rules based on past patterns of manual actions during bank statement reprocessing.

 

Moazzam Raza, Group IT Programme Director at EG Group, said: “We were looking for an agile partner who could react quickly on the back of our three newly acquired businesses, and run an accelerated implementation to get them all set up on the same finance system.

“The team did just that, and have delivered exactly what we asked for quickly, smoothly and within budget. The team from NTT DATA Business Solutions were easy to work with and when we asked for additional work or change requests, they were responsive and got things moving in the right direction quickly. We’re particularly pleased with the enhancements that have been implemented. So much so, we’re looking to retrofit them into our core SAP platform.”

Kiran Patel, Director of Projects and Programmes at NTT DATA Business Solutions, said: “It was a pleasure to work with such an engaged team at EG Group, who were so receptive to the new SAP finance system and were genuinely looking forward to the benefits it would bring to the business.”

Why NTT DATA Business Solutions?

  • Agile M&A SAP capabilities with a strong track record of rapidly deploying SAP to meet customer requirements
  • Experienced and knowledgeable consultants who understood the business requirements and provided valuable recommendations for enhancements to the system
  • Value for money: Presented a plan with 3 rapid go-lives at an attractive price point in line with budget expectations and aligned to our critical project timescales
  • Able to mobilise quickly and form critical partner relationships

About NTT DATA Business Solutions

25
countries
30
years of experience
6000
customers worldwide