Head - Accounts Receivable - Chemicals/BPO/IT

Head AR

- The candidate will be responsible for the global AR function within Financial Shared Service, scope includes Invoicing, cash application, collections and dispute resolution. Develop strong relationship and facilitate close interaction between the receivables team and key stakeholders in the organization. Be directly responsible for the regional AR team performance and ensure collection targets are met.

- Provide guidance and direction to the regional stakeholders to clear bottlenecks and improve collections. Train and coach, the collection team, set clear objectives and monitor overall team performance. Create a transparent work environment, analyses & publish key performance metrics to the stakeholders periodically. Ensure to build a competent skilled team and improve performance. Have through understanding of our business process identify process gaps and recommend best practices.

Job Scope (Key areas of responsibilities and impact):

Accounts Receivable Management:

- Oversee the overall performance of the accounts receivable team and ensure all SLAs and KPIs are met in accordance to the agreement.

- Monitor and track timely billing, cash application, reconciliation and month end close procedures.

- Supervise the regional collections team in FSS, partner with business and regional finance stakeholders and ensure collection targets are met.

- Prepare the weekly/monthly KPI reports and provide insights on collection trend and progress, proactively highlight challenges/risks and suggest innovative solutions.

- Continuously coach and train the collections team, review performance and provide guidance.

- Develop the monthly performance dashboard and other AR metrics as requested by the stakeholders, actively participate in the monthly reviews with finance heads.

- Ensure adherence to collection policy and initiate appropriate actions to ensure full compliance to the AR policy.

- Continuously evaluate the collections process and recommend best practices & approach including other alternatives.

- Evaluate and recommend proper accounting policies and procedures for O2C.

- Closely engage with business and finance stakeholders to agree on actions required to clear aged receivables.

Process and Governance:

- Ensure high quality process documentations are developed, reviewed, and updated periodically.

- Drive process compliance across the AR function and establish a method to monitor and capture deviations to standard processes.

- Support internal and external audits, be the bridge between auditors and delivery teams. Coordinate action plans and closure of actions.

- Support new migrations, evaluate scope, review process documentations, validate controls and ensure the documents are of high standard.

- Evaluate the current governance structure and establish a strong governance model

- Prepare and review the service level agreements, define services, accountabilities, and performance measurements.

- Periodically conduct refresher training for the associates on policies, procedures, processes, systems, and tools.

- Periodically assess training requirements and ensure adequate trainings are provided to upskill employees.

- Facilitate negotiations of service level agreements and KPIs, document and obtain signoff from relevant parties.

- Continuously challenge business process and deliver measurable improvements

- Bridge any gap between functional departments and maintain strong communications across all aspects of the organization, escalate and get things done.

- Monitor change requests and ensure such change requests are prioritized and implemented

Performance Management:

- Set standards and performance benchmarks that support organization and regional performance objectives, define KPIs.

- Create management reports and presentations and share reports for regional reviews.

- Conduct periodic reviews with the regional/industry finance team and highlight business performance, key issues & risks and provide recommendations to resolve issues timely.

- Obtain periodical inputs/feedback from regional stake holders on overall AR performance. Initiate actions on the feedback and ensure customer satisfaction scores are high.

- Benchmark performance, develop performance metrics and publish performance reports periodically to ensure transparency and visibility in achieving performance levels.

Continuous Improvement:

- Continuously challenge the existing process and strongly recommend efficient ways of performing.

- Re-engineer the AR process, improve cash flow and reduce aged receivables.

- Stay abreast on industry best practices, implement and share learnings.

- Automate processes for better efficiency and improve overall quality of our deliverables

- Collaborate with functional teams, business units, finance, IT and leverage cross functional synergies.

- Drive standardization and simplification of processes and ensure the end-to-end process is compliant to global policies and regulations.

- Closely coordinate with the RPA team, identify opportunities for automation and provide solutions.

- Be the brand agent and ensure to periodically publish articles on achievements and value creation

- Develop the continuous improvement framework and drive the CI culture among employees

Relationship Management:

- Be a change agent and proactively communicate to all stakeholders on the impact of change and corrective actions.

- Engage with key personnel in the regions and build a trusting relationship, provide leadership support in coordinating with FSSC team and the regions.

- Effectively collaborate and communicate with the stakeholders and ensure client satisfaction

- Address customer concerns and complaints.

- Understand customer requirements and expectations and be the change agent

- Be a good communicator with excellent communication skills and maintain the core values of the organization.

- Continuously measure customer satisfaction.

Employee Engagement:

- Build a high performing team, coordinate with HR in hiring the right resources and oversee onboarding of resources.

- Provide regular insight to the employees on regional performance, business requirements and set the right performance expectations.

- Actively engage with employees and provide regular performance feedback.

- Periodically assess training requirements and ensure adequate trainings are provided to upskill employees.

- Conduct workshops, ideation sessions to engage employees in the transformation and continuous improvement journey.

- Recognize and reward high performing employees, create succession and career plans.

Major challenges :

- Managing multiple stakeholders and driving change

- Professional guidance to management and business on improving collections, resolving disputes, change management.

Key Decisions:

- Decisions

- Recommendations

- Recruitment of right skills

- Operating Model

- Process change

Key interactions:

- Internal

- External

- Regional CFO

- Consultants

- Head of Finance Shared Service

- Customers

- Regional Management Team Members

- Finance heads

- Business heads

- Other functional departments eg: IT, HR, etc

Skills & Knowledge :

Educational qualifications: B.Com/ M.Com/ MBA/ ICWA/CA

Relevant experience :

- 20+ years of experience in the finance domain, in which at-least 5 years in Accounts Receivables

- Should have managed big teams, multiple stakeholders and geographies

- Experience in managing continuous improvement and robotic process automations

- Excellent in communication, should have the ability to write articles and create presentations

- Should have strong analytical and interpersonal skills.