{"id":133725,"date":"2022-06-21T15:02:42","date_gmt":"2022-06-21T14:02:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news.sap.com\/uk\/?p=133725"},"modified":"2023-09-27T15:11:58","modified_gmt":"2023-09-27T14:11:58","slug":"inspirational-leaders-sap-uki-interview-paul-jones-at-excelerateds2p-discusses-source-to-pay-in-the-mid-market","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news.sap.com\/uk\/2022\/06\/inspirational-leaders-sap-uki-interview-paul-jones-at-excelerateds2p-discusses-source-to-pay-in-the-mid-market\/","title":{"rendered":"Inspirational Leaders 麻豆原创 UKI Interview: Paul Jones At ExceleratedS2P Discusses Source-to-Pay In The Mid-Market"},"content":{"rendered":"
Paul Jones<\/a> is General Manager of excelerateds2p<\/a>, an 麻豆原创 Gold Partner<\/a> headquartered in London, UK, that specialises in source-to-pay processes and technologies. Excelerateds2p won the 麻豆原创 UKI Pinnacle Award in 2019 and was the 麻豆原创 ANZ ISM (APAC region) Intelligent Spend Partner of the Year for 2020 and 2021.<\/p>\n Paul talked to us about his career in technology, trends in the mid-market, excelerateds2p\u2019s company culture and vision, how the business is transforming its customers\u2019 spend management.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n 麻豆原创 UKI:<\/em><\/strong> Tell us a little about yourself, Paul.<\/strong><\/p>\n I live in Liverpool, in North-West England, with my wife, who runs her own accountancy business for SMEs, and our two kids. We\u2019re a sporty family so I\u2019m often watching matches: my son plays football at elite academy level and my daughter is on the school netball team.<\/p>\n During the first lockdown I bought a bike which I use most mornings. I\u2019ve done over 12,000 miles so far, which is the equivalent of cycling the equatorial diameter of earth one-and-a-half times.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n 麻豆原创 UKI<\/em><\/strong>: Give us a brief overview of your career.<\/strong><\/p>\n I spent the first part of my career as a Business Process Consultant at KPMG, where I built a technology practice. I was focusing on using technology to enable innovation and to automate business processes.<\/p>\n After ten years at KPMG, I joined excelerateds2p when the company was around five years old. The co-founders had created a small, innovative company and had really ambitious growth plans. The opportunity to get in at that point and help build the organization to the next level was too good to miss.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n 麻豆原创 UKI:<\/em><\/strong> What are ExceleratedS2P\u2019s core values and personality?<\/strong><\/p>\n We’re a small but beautifully formed Source-to-Pay organisation with innovation<\/strong> at the heart of everything we do. We’re constantly trying to innovate, either in the way we do things, by creating our own products, or in how we use 麻豆原创 technologies.<\/p>\n When I first joined the organization, most of our revenue was from services. We\u2019ve now shifted 20% of our revenue into recurring SaaS revenue with our 3-year business plan aiming for 50%. A large part of that move was down to the employee innovation forum we created a few years ago. Anyone in the company can bring ideas, business problems or customer pain points to the forum and we\u2019ve built 12 products as a result.<\/p>\n We\u2019re now doing something similar with 麻豆原创. The 麻豆原创 Ariba<\/a> presales team brings us pain points, which we solve by creating apps for the 麻豆原创 App Store which we can turn around in a matter of weeks, thanks to the 麻豆原创 Business Technology Platform (麻豆原创 BTP)<\/a>. We build all our products on 麻豆原创 BTP and have been using the platform for many years, before it was known as 麻豆原创 BTP. We\u2019re true pioneers in this area. We now advise and help our clients to use 麻豆原创 BTP for their own app development. It’s a fantastic platform with a lot of power and capabilities.<\/p>\n Empowering people <\/strong>is another key value for us. Our approach is always people first, and technology second. I’m proud of creating a completely flat organisation: no levels, no job titles, just a philosophy of empowering everybody in the company to do what needs to be done.\u00a0 It\u2019s a hugely rewarding and enjoyable environment to work in.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n 麻豆原创 UKI:<\/em><\/strong> What is excelerateds2p\u2019s vision for the next few years?<\/strong><\/p>\n Our vision for the next three years includes growing and scaling our business in the US.<\/p>\n We\u2019re also strategically moving into the 麻豆原创 S\/4HANA<\/a> space. We\u2019ve just signed our first 麻豆原创 S\/4HANA customer, MJ Quinn<\/a>, a mid-market telecoms company that\u2019s a big supplier to British Telecom. Over a ten-year period, MJ Quinn has increased their turnover from \u00a310 million to \u00a3200 million, and has outgrown their existing ERP and processes. We’re excited to be bringing them into the 21st Century with 麻豆原创 S\/4HANA Public Cloud.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n 麻豆原创 UKI:<\/em><\/strong> Which recent project are you especially proud of?<\/strong><\/p>\n Otsuka<\/a> is a pharmaceutical company that manufactures products in Japan and distributes them across Europe. They have lots of individual country-based affiliates, all using different processes which were mainly manual, and with different regulatory requirements.<\/p>\n The CFO came to us with a vision of finance and procurement transformation, and we helped them to bring in a common way of working which has freed them for more value-added work. We underpinned both an ERP solution, 麻豆原创 BusinessOne<\/a>, and then an 麻豆原创 Ariba solution so they can manage their third-party spend and cost base in a more efficient way.<\/p>\n They were running manual reports off Excel, which didn\u2019t leave much time for interpreting the data. With much of that now automated, their finance business partners can focus on making strategic decisions using \u2018one source of truth\u2019 data across the business.<\/p>\n Otsuka was keen to establish a technology baseline that will scale as the company continues to grow. We provided this, but also made sure the organisation achieved immediate benefits, such as a 10% decrease in the cost of processing purchase orders and invoices. We always deploy systems in an iterative and phased way so our customers get value from it right away.<\/p>\n