PremierFirst Vehicle Rental UK Limited in Control
PROACTIS delivers greater visibility and control over
spending to the UK's largest car rental organisation.
Profile
PremierFirst Vehicle Rental UK Limited operates under the brands
Alamo, National Car Rental and Guy Salmon to make up the UK's
largest car rental organisation. It has won numerous accolades,
including "Best Daily Rental Company" an impressive 11 times and is
part of a worldwide organisation that has 3,800 locations in over
80 countries.
Its UK operation has more than 160 branches, some 37,000 cars
and processes in excess of 123,000 invoices annually. Gaining
visibility of expenditure across so many branches was a real
challenge.
Challenge
Traditionally, PremierFirst operated a central purchasing
function from its head office that sourced, ordered and approved
invoices for each of its branches. Its Accounts Payable utility was
also managed centrally using a Smartstream AP ledger system. In
addition, its purchase-to-pay process involved a series of manual
procedures with limited use of departmental databases. This
resulted in a lack of control over spending, delayed payment of
invoices and limited visibility of information for the management
teams.
Why PROACTIS?
PremierFirst needed a cost effective, automated purchase-to-pay
software solution that would enable it to concentrate on more
value-add activities related to its core businesses. The key
benefits it was searching for included:
- Tighter control on business expenditure
- Greater visibility of actual spend and committed
expenditure
- Better understanding of purchasing spend among management
teams, through reports that could be created quickly and
reliably
- Improved negotiation of supplier contracts
- Increase in overall efficiencies and cost savings
"The new system needed to cover the full process of raising
a purchase requisition through authorisation, order generation and
receiving, invoice matching and the recording, authorisation and
accounting for employee expenses," says Kevin Patterson, Head
of Procurement IT at PremierFirst.
Following its invitation to tender, PremierFirst selected spend
control specialist PROACTIS to implement a complete purchase-to-pay
solution. Its new system allows the car rental organisation to see
when and where products have been bought and if it is getting the
best price.
"Visibility of costs was crucial to our final
decision," says Patterson. "We needed to centralise
control of our purchase activity to increase efficiency and save
money."
Results
The PROACTIS software application is helping PremierFirst
control spending and streamline procurement by providing a fully
functional eSolution. Through the software provider's spend control
and spend analysis, it can automate workflow and authorisation of
requisitions and orders, receipts, invoice registration and
matching, internal supplies and stores management, and obtain full
visibility of all costs and expenses.
The product's management and analysis capabilities turn
transaction data into powerful information, enabling PremierFirst
to make fully informed purchase decisions on regular orders and ad
hoc items.
The PROACTIS purchase-to-pay solution has been rolled out across
the UK to PremierFirst's 160 branches. There are now some 500 spend
control users, a comparable number of spend analysis (reporting)
users and 700 employee expense users.
PROACTIS has enabled PremierFirst to work more effectively with
large suppliers who can maintain their own catalogues online. The
system's management and analysis tools also allow PremierFirst to
compare suppliers' prices, ensuring it is getting the most
cost-effective product on the market.
"We are utilising the full range of automated services that
PROACTIS offers," says Patterson. "Electronic invoicing
has reduced the time taken to match purchase orders and chase
unpaid bills."
"Most importantly, we have gained excellent visibility of
our accounts and supplier relationships," he continues.
"Automating these processes has alleviated the frustrations and
problems inherent to paper-based, manual process systems."
Patterson concludes: "We are highly impressed with the
PROACTIS system and keen to embrace more of the value it offers in
the near future. The PROACTIS team offer us excellent advice and
support and I am looking forward to taking the project to the next
level."
