In our January 2022 newsletter (the first of it's kind), we introduced you to our commercial team, provided feedback from our customer survey and introduced some of our new sustainability programs.
As the weather gets nicer and we move deeper into spring (and Q2...), we wanted to provide you with some more insights, ideas and (hopefully) helpful thoughts!
From manual to automate: How Finance improved processes…
Image: From left to right: Danny Murphy (Finance Assistant), Kelly Hoy (Management Accountant), Jainuma Limbu (Finance Assistant), Scott Holland (Head of Finance), Julie Robinson (Credit Controller), Diana Rodriguez (Finance Assistant).
Our “Meet-the-Team” for April, is with Finance, led by Scott Holland. Scott joined us during the pandemic, and in the last 2-years, Scott has been transforming the department.
In 2020, they were a team of 9-people who were burdened beneath almost 800 open tickets, all for accounting transactions from Xenith systems to/from Customers/Vendors and internal queries. They managed tickets from XLS spreadsheets, with lots of manual data entry, which is, as everyone knows, prone to human error.
The NPS reports from 2019, 2020 revealed that our financial processes were impacting customers and stakeholders, too, so that change was necessary.
Fast-forward to 2022, and with the support from the operations department open tickets have reduced by almost 70%.
Scott never increased headcount, but he did change the roles and responsibilities of now a team of 6. Every team member spends at least 50-hours per month, on improving the firm’s financial outlook. Subsequently costs have gone down, productivity and profitability have shot up.
The team is new and energised, with career-growth opportunities available.
They continue to identify other manual processes for automation, improving their job performance and offering intellectually varied work, beyond the dull, mind-numbing role for invoice/data processing.
Where possible, Xenith’s approach to data, is to use robots instead of people and then use those people differently. Robotic processes can repeatedly “Get. Change. Put.” data accurately into workflows. Returning more time to the humans for analysing data, creating meaningful insights to financial data/metrics and helping make business judgements from executive-level dashboards.
Automation enables the team to focus where Scott and the business need it most and help drive organisation objectives and strategy.
Scott, with leadership, moved to the cloud. Migrating to a new ERP platform last month, Oracle’s NetSuite, plus adding Vantage, for contract billing/management, and Readsoft online for invoice processing.
There’s been so much good, localised news around sustainability. We’ve been involved first-hand, supporting Clients in activating their digital strategy and shifting away from heavy manual, paper-based processes.
We polled our clients, and many of you have committed to be carbon-free by 2025!
That is AMAZING!
We’re here to help you, and your green team have a bountiful harvest. So, let’s keep the growing season going…3-years will fly-by and 2025 will arrive before you know it. Wherever you begin, here are 2 seed programs to help:
PrintReleaf – Plant as you Print
PrintReleaf allows you to contribute to reforestation projects around the world based on your print usage. Essentially, the more you print, the more you plant.
If you didn’t catch our Sustainability posts, here we recognize our Client trailblazers:
Estee Lauder:
Since 2010 Estee Lauder’s leadership were on a mission to reduce print volumes. More than a decade later, they did exactly that.
They reduced printing by 73%, saving 1,100 trees annually. Well done! That is 50% of a woodland (according to ForestResearch.gov.uk) 🙏 Grateful for the journey.
Loud & proud applause for Gardiner & Theobald LLP!
They are embracing foundations for the UK to become, “cleaner, greener and more beautiful”. It’s all in keeping with their brand, a global leader in green technologies and finance.
Since 2018, they saved 548 trees. G&T is leading the change they want to see in the World. Well done, Hasan Ahmet, Michael Urie.
Demand for PrintReLeaf is growing organically. Nearly 170 trees have already been reforested globally, by Xenith clients, across Madagascar and Ireland.
Congratulating our recently planted Clients: CMC Group, Haysmacintyre, Haworth Tompkins, James Allen Girls' School
If you need motivation, ideas, or want to share your sustainability journey, please let us know. (Winterising all gardening puns now 😊)
Puzzle
Can you guess, Who?
Who were the brains, when travellers needed visas, and enabled the U.K. Home Office to transform their paper processes…
Digitising the process for handling 49 million paper documents, distributed through secure workflows
Also reducing carbon emissions from transporting 400 million pages, across the globe (+ back again)
(Hint: it starts with an X, ENds wIth…TH)
Company with a vision… Company kick-off
Xenith’s leadership started the year with a rousing event, followed by our Annual party. (Like many, our Christmas party was delayed by a couple years, and months.) Hard to believe the party was 1-month ago.
With all the turbulence since 2019 and as a relative new hire, it inspired me listening to our corporate vision and targets for the next 3-5 years.
Many years of agile delivery, pivoting plans and quick-fire changes, it was refreshing to hear leadership communicate a clear vision on goal-setting. The corporate objectives and alignment re-established the team’s foundation, harnessing our strategic vision.
Following on from leadership’s wake, HR trained on systems and tools to measure performance, adding the lens of accountability to goal setting for the individuals, and teams executing them.
Lots to keep us focused. Good luck @TeamXenith!
Events
With a world open to events again, Xenith is preparing for a hip-happening summer 2022. If you’d like to add input, you can, here.
Save the date: Thursday 14th July, 2022
Every newsletter you can contribute…We are listening.
Reply with your feedback including:
Aplril 2022 Newsletter: Most enjoyed reading ___________________________________ Stories you’d like to hear more about _______________________ Story you skipped (Zzzzz) _______________________________
Or share the email by forwarding it to any colleagues or peers you think might be interested.
