Founded over 250 years ago in 1760, Lloyd’s Register is a maritime classification society and independent risk management organisation with 7,500 employees and offices in 247 locations in 186 countries. Core to the Group’s work is the enhancement of the safety of life, property and the environment, at sea, on land and in the air. It helps ensure supply chains are safe, responsible and sustainable by providing risk assessment and mitigation solutions, as well as management systems certification, to companies operating high risk, capital intensive assets.

The Goal

Facing price erosion in an increasingly competitive marketplace, Lloyd’s Register’s senior EMEA Finance team knew they had to address the variable service levels and defects in their core processes in order to achieve the company’s double digit growth plans.

They also recognised the opportunity to streamline and consolidate the transactional processes of the 61 Finance offices in the 48 EMEA countries that Lloyd’s Register operates in. Our task was to design the future state model that would meet their standardisation, lower cost and increased productivity targets, as well as provide all the data and evidence that they needed to make an informed decision about the future Finance set-up.

The Achievements

  • All transactional processes were mapped and data analysed to identify sources of variation and waste at each and every step.
  • Key metrics were benchmarked against world class performance and opportunities for achievable performance improvements were identified.
  • A scalable, end-to-end future state operating model was designed, supported by an associated benefit case and roadmap for implementation. This model was implemented within 12m of concept.

The Journey

Firstly we needed to undertake an assessment of the existing operation. To do this, we selected 7 of the 48 EMEA countries to be used as a representative sample and with whom we:

  • Held interviews with internal customers, leaders and employees to understand customer requirements.
  • Conducted workshops to map the current state processes, identify issues and ascertain causes of pain within the existing set-up.

Having established a clear understanding of the current state model, we then:

  • Evaluated and understood the levels of variation and waste.
  • Carried out data and organisation analysis to benchmark performance, determine the reasons for variation and identify best practices.
  • Consolidated the conclusions of the current state and defined improvements and opportunities with supporting calculations on their impact.
  • Transferred our skills of analysing current processes to the EMEA project team.
  • Obtained sign off from the involved countries before embarking on the future state design process to ensure their buy-in was maintained and all stakeholders remained involved.
  • Evaluated different options for the new organisation model and facilitated discussions with key stakeholders to agree on the most appropriate route.
  • Prepared a future state design and a phased implementation roadmap.

The design was improved and the new live Finance Shared Service Centre is generating a cost saving of £3.5M p.a.