Digital transformation was high on the agenda for companies in the financial services sector long before the outbreak ofCOVID-19,但许多公司都难以兑现its promise.
During the Workday Elevate Digital Experience, Robert Bloor, group financial controller at Equiniti, spoke to Peter Gamble, regional vice president and country leader, UK & Ireland at Workday, on how his firm overcame back-office complexity to achieve organisational agility. Equiniti’s deployment ofWorkday Financial ManagementandWorkday Human Capital Managementwas key to that success.
Here are some highlights from their conversation.
Can you give us some background on Equiniti and what the company does?
Equiniti is a FTSE-listed business that was carved out of Lloyd's Bank in 2007. We provide back-office services for listed companies, allowing them to manage dividend records for their shareholders and make payments. The common theme is around money transmission and management of records, both fairly complex service areas.
We employ about 5,000 people. Around 500 are in the U.S., and just under 1,000 in Chennai, India, where all our back-office services for IT, finance, HR and operations are supported.
What were the drivers that challenged Equiniti to change the way it operates?
Because we’re dealing with money transmission and the management of records that underpin that, it’s a fairly complex, B2B environment. Digital is a hugely important element of that, becausedata privacy and security are crucial. We have to be very mindful about how we process and manage that information because the compliance landscape is continually evolving.
The driver to transform the way we think about finance and HR came in 2017 when we announced the decision topurchase a businessfrom Wells Fargo, as a carve-out, and it came with no system of record—no HR, finance, or payroll. There was no framework, and as a condition of the purchase, we had to provision that. It was all very logical, because as a bank, Wells Fargo didn't want to be providing those types of services on what would have become a third-party basis. And they wanted us to be able to take that on straight away.
We’re talking about a timeframe of around 16 weeks to deploy Workday across Equiniti, including the newly acquired business. Our IT team was already heavily focused on extracting the core operations of the company we were spinning out from Wells Fargo. We wanted to take finance and HR off-premise, to be managed in the cloud.
Talk us through how you thought about choosing the right technology and partner to meet the needs of the business.
我们经历了一个相当详细的过程识别ify the most suitable provider. That wasn’t just who could deliver on time but also who could provide the best level of service for us. We had been led to Workday through our association with the U.S. part of our business. There were a lot of gaps with our existing vendor, and we were looking for a partner who could help us leverage the shared service environment we have in Chennai and create a true global business services provision. With Workday, we now have the technology to do that.
What do you think your transformation and journey will allow you to do in future that was not possible before?
I think the value of what we’ve done has been brought into sharper focus by theglobal pandemic. The tapestry of working arrangements is so very different today. We’re now able to see the how and where people are working, and the differences in how people are getting the job done. It’s all underpinned by the ability to collaborate, and that essential human interaction needed to solve problems.