Grupo Energia Bogota

Grupo Energia Bogota (GEB) is a Latin American multinational company. Their public sector presence spans Colombia, Peru, Guatemala and Brazil. GEB is an electrical power and natural gas firm that participates in all areas of the energy chain. This includes the generation, transmission, distribution and commercialization of electrical power. GEB also transports and distributes natural gas.

As Grupo Energia Bogota continued its sustained growth, back office support processes needed to support its international operations. This had to be done without locating resources to each subsidiary. They had to seek greater association with the business to provide more analysis and strategic support for decision making.

Based on these strategic objectives, GEB engaged Chazey Partners to establish the foundations for the creation of a well-documented, scalable and automated multi functional Shared Services organization. The goal was to achieve operational excellence, improve efficiency and achieve higher levels of operational effectiveness. In scope processes included Finance, Human Resources, Procurement, Administrative Services and Technology. Project duration was 5 months and during this time, GEB asked Chazey to provide support in 8 specific work streams as described below:

Benchmarks: Chazey prepared different presentations to educate and generate company awareness to ensure a common understanding on Shared Services. We also evaluate the performance of GEB’s support processes through a set of efficiency and productivity metrics in the Utilities industry.

High Level Shared Services Definition & Design: We conducted end to end process workshops to assess the level of standardization with the different regions.  This also involved analyzing and defining what will be the corporate structure to operate a Shared Services (internal unit, new company or even an association with a BPO). We conducted stakeholders interviews with key stakeholders to help us recommend the change management strategy to execute the transformation plan.

Location Analysis: We helped GEB evaluate 3 brownfield locations (Colombia, Peru and Guatemala) to define the operational hub for the new shared services operation.

Future Operating Model: This involved the conceptual redesign of the processes and how the ERP and the technology enabler should be optimized to become a world-class shared service center. This also included the identification of activities that could be potentially automatized through Robotic Process Automation (RPA).

Detailed Financial Model: The detailed financial model provided the economic justification and reason for change added to the actual execution plan. This also included the baseline identification and high-level design of the charge back process to allocate cost to the client business units.

Shared Services Governance Model: We provided our methodology and experience to define a governance structure that formalizes how the new Shared Service Center will interact with its key stakeholders, business units and departments. This also included a set of key service metrics to track process performance within the shared services organization.

Risk Analysis: Chazey Partners worked together with GEB in the assessment of risk management to identify potential roadblocks and evaluate a plan to minimize its effect during the project.

Legal and Tax Assessment: We provided knowledge and experience of our tax and legal advisers.  We presented a written report detailing the legal and tax viability of the implementation of the new shared service center at GEB.