Alain Aksil is the director of corporate credit at GLS France. Prior to implementing AvantGard technology, he was faced with the challenge of devising a way of improving productivity, reporting and overall performance within his decentralized accounts receivables operation.
Setting the Scene
GLS France is a subsidiary of the GLS Group, the European holding of Royal Mail (UK Postal Services). The GLS Group, with its head office in the Netherlands, is a network of express and logistic operators with presence in 34 European countries. GLS France is the third largest in the French market for express transportation. The company has about 7000 customers in all business sectors (optical, medical, spare parts, public sector, etc.) and transports more than 2.5 million parcels per month.
Challenges
GLS France's accounts receivables team, under the direction of Alain, the director of corporate credit, was charged with the task of reducing the payment cycle time (invoice to cash) with the ultimate objective of improving overall daily processes within the treasury and collecting on owed funds in an organized and efficient way. Determining new practices and procedures that could help to better manage claims and disputes raised by customers was another priority for the company, as these outstanding issues were often preventing the timely payment of invoices.
Another goal that GLS France had was reducing bad debt through better analysis and following of customer payment habits and behavior. GLS France hoped that by making these improvements, they would see tangible results in the form of lowered days sales outstanding (DSO) and improved bottom line financial results.
SunGard's AvantGard provides efficient management of a decentralized structure. In the transportation business, efficient management of claims and disputes is crucial for good financial results and customer satisfaction.
AvantGard Helps
For many corporations, claims, deductions in payments and other charge backs are difficult to manage or quantify because the associated data is poorly organized, and often references already distributed documents, spreadsheets and contracts. Fortunately, by implementing workflow technology this dilemma can be combated.
Aware of this challenge, GLS France decided to take a proactive approach to deduction management by searching for technology that could introduce automated tools that could serve to better manage this process. After a through evaluation of providers, GLS France decided to implement AvantGard Receivables to improve productivity, reporting and performance in the account receivable environment.
AvantGard Receivables is SunGard's fully integrated, Web-based order-to-cash solution that enables companies to achieve significant financial and operational benefits. The solution drives automation, workflow and collaboration across the order-to-cash cycle, with detailed analysis and reporting capabilities for decision support.
GLS FRANCE's Experience
With the increasing availability of more sophisticated document management and business process technology, such as that offered by AvantGard Receivables, companies such as GLS France are now able to more aggressively address the requirement for sophisticated claims management.
In fact, following the implementation of the AvantGard Receivables solution, GLS France has experienced numerous positive results. The solution has improved the efficiency and effectiveness of their credit operation, resulting in a reduction of DSO by 22 days, increased free cash flow from €4 M to €17M, decreased staffing requirements by 20% and improved claims resolved prior to due date from 12% to 84%.
GLS France anticipates that the tight controls and strong dispute management capabilities of AvantGard Receivables will support them in realizing further improvements and goals within their credit operations as time goes on. Alain comments, "SunGard's AvantGard provides efficient management of a decentralized structure. In the transportation business, efficient management of claims and disputes is crucial for good financial results and customer satisfaction. AvantGard is helping us to better manage claims and disputes and is increasing organization collaboration for their immediate resolution of claims and disputes."
