A $20 billion global leader in HVAC, refrigeration, fire and security solutions launched a phased initiative to enhance its financial processes and performance by standing up a unified Global Credit Policy and establishing regional credit functions. At the same time, the company needed to align order-to-cash (OTC) operations across three international Shared Service Centers—each operating independently, with no centralized leadership or standardized strategy. The broader challenge was to extend these improvements to global sites not yet integrated into the Shared Services model to drive consistency, reduce risk and improve cash flow worldwide.
SolomonEdwards conducted onsite OTC assessments across the three Service Centers, analyzing end-to-end processes, data integrity and reporting from a fragmented landscape of ERP systems. The team identified critical gaps in dispute management, credit holds and reporting accessibility and recommended the development of a real-time Global AR Aging Report. To drive execution, SolomonEdwards established a 12-month Program Management Office (PMO) based at U.S. headquarters, uniting finance leadership from all global regions (APAC, EMEA, LATAM, NA) and Shared Service Centers.
The PMO organized work into focused sprints under multiple program towers, including Creditworthiness of the Global AR Portfolio, Collateral Controls, Reserve Policy, Collections Process, Tools and Systems, Dispute Management, Cash Application Controls, Delegation of Authority, Organizational Structure and Data Integrity. Each project charter was designed with a clear path to adoption across both integrated and non-integrated legal entities, ensuring enterprise-wide alignment and measurable results.
The initiative uncovered a key systemic issue—poor customer master data—as the leading cause of global AR delinquency. In response, SolomonEdwards delivered the client’s first global AR Aging Report originating in their BI system, establishing a new standard for credit governance and actionable reporting. The project built the first cohesive strategy across the three Shared Service Centers, fostering collaboration and consistency. As a result, the client saw a 10% reduction in global past-due AR and resolved $280M in disputed receivables—setting the stage for broader adoption at non-integrated sites and future scalability across the enterprise.
