Mark S.

Experience

• 

  Somerfield

  Jul 1998 - Jan 2010

  Responsible for setting stores Sales budgets at the start of the year and then to report and monitor stores performance and trends against these budgets and the cost budgets. To identify trends / changes in performance to highlight opportunities to increase sales and reduce costsProvide financial analysis within all areas of performance and data to answer queries from all levels of the field from the Retail Director down to the Store Managers. Resolution of these queries create a change in behavior (a reduction in waste) or a change in budget (Competition Impact)Created a Zone Period Performance Reporting Pack that mirrored the Total Somerfield level Pack and provide and interpretation performance of each period. This included creating a league table of performance intended to create competition between the stores / RMs to increase performance. This reporting pack was quickly adopted by the other Zone Managed a finance graduate, this graduate had a reported history of poor performance that had not been addressed. The graduate was managed through a performance improvement plan, however as the graduate did not want to improve he was managed him through the discipline process resulting in him leaving the business.Key Achievements:o Brought a higher level of spreadsheet/reporting literacy to the Role that enabled the overhaul of existing reports to provide greater insighto Created a control process for tracking the amount of budget allocated to a store following a refit. This made the refit teams more accountable for spends and controlled their costso Designed a model that took the top level reporting of the Period Performance and broke this down to smaller geographical segments (Regional Manager level) this gave greater insight as to where attention needed to be focused o Passed 2 additional Management level Exams for CIMA Show less Reported on stores sales performance by maintaining and improving the existing weekly and periodic reports. This meant working with external customers (Stores and field teams) to ensure that customers had reports by the agreed deadlinesSomerfield often report using Like for Like, (comparing current sales values with the year before to eliminate seasonality). Fuel prices move too much for this to be a fair comparison and therefore established a method of creating Like for Like using Fuel Volume, this had not been done before and is now used by the business as a standard method of measuring fuel performance.Had the opportunity to manage a project through to launch through the development of a process for stores to log competition impacts via a website and a process for evaluation. This was used to establish whether a store should have their sales budget changed to reflect the change in the market.Also responsible for a Retail Finance Graduate, which meant coaching them up to the level expected of the role. This Graduate struggled to get to the level required, however through constant monitoring and coaching was able to successfully improve the graduates level of performance.Key Achievements:o Created a Competition Impact process, website and suite of reports to monitor impactso Coached the under-performing graduate back up to the level of performance requiredo Developed a set of reports for forecourts that included creating a Like for Like Fuel Volume not seen by the business beforeo Reviewed Stores Sales by Hour to identify opportunities to increase trading hours to increase saleso Passed 2 Management level Exams for CIMA Show less Developed a Database to produce a suite of reports that monitored competitor pricing via the Internet. These reports were used to monitor price moves and helped to support the Pricing Policies for both fascias (Somerfield & Kwiksave) by benchmarking against the competition. This enabled the business to remain competitive and through providing our price moves to our marketing department meant that we could display our price moves in store and this lead to an improvement in price perception from our customers. This was confirmed through external surveys.Responsible for the monitoring and appraisal of ad-hoc pricing initiatives (matching the milk prices of a competitor) and establishing whether enough additional sales were made to cover the reduction in price and therefore make this a successful imitative. Show less

  • Retail Finance Manager

    Sept 2008 - Jan 2010

  • Retail Finance Analyst

    Aug 2007 - Sept 2008

  • Promotional Analyst

    Mar 2005 - Jul 2007

  • Pricing Analyst

    Jul 2001 - Mar 2005

  • Treasury Administrator

    Jul 1998 - Jul 2001
• 

  Lloyds TSB

  Jan 2010 - May 2010

  Finance Analyst (Temp Contract)

  In this role I designed a excel model that spread property costs across RBS branches using a conurbation I calculated using a described method. This was a temporary contact role

• 

  BT

  Apr 2010 - Jul 2023

  Leads 52 people running a range of accounting functions (including Fixed Assets & Stock, Intercompany trading, General Ledger, Systems Integrity Insight, Revenue Debtors & VAT) to deliver BT UKs month end results (including processing of revenue averaging 250 million transactions and £1.4 billion per month). • First point of escalations for senior stakeholders any of the processes performed within my teams.• Partner with BT's UK divisions and maintaining core accounting processes and controls.• Create and maintain a Centre environment where occupational health, people & talent management, people care, and retention are visibly seen as important.• Since the decision that the Bristol GFSS site would close by July 23, currently responsible for the waves of transition and delivery of the work to new sites.• Successfully led my teams in adopting new SAP ERP reporting into their GFSS processes, resulting in adoption by other parts of BT. Created working examples of suggestions (AFO reports & excel modelling) enabling teams to visualise the benefits and modify the example created • Delivered savings of 108k P.A. and filled vacancies on the floor at no extra cost during a wave of great churn. Achieved by identifying an opportunity to move one of the processes to a different site and then used displaced team members to fill the open vacancies.• By closely monitoring the teams, was able to react to a decline in work in a particular team then by combining this with a process improvement making it more efficient was able to move to a different site delivered savings (£141k P.A.).• Dealt with various serious HR cases including a performance issue case which resulted in the employee’s dismissal, this was a tough challenge but right thing for BT.• In Jan 22 delivered the message to my teams that the Bristol site would close, and our roles would disappear, received great feedback from the affected individuals that this was delivered this with transparency and empathy. Show less Supported the FSSC Site lead with the day to day running of the FSSC and delivery of month/year end consisting of 9 teams split into finance functions (approx. 90 people). Partnering with BT's UK divisions and maintaining core accounting processes and controls.• New automation of a process brought a need specialist role into the teams, this was a risk as it was unsupported. When this person left for a new role, outsourced to a third part which provided more stable support and created a saving (£37k P.A.).• Discovered that the controls around processing a journal differed within different parts of BT, created a standard 11-point journal checklist for all journals over £1m and accruals over £500k, presented this to the Financial Controllers and Controls team and gained approval make this mandatory and to roll this out across all BT UK. This brought consistency and reduced the risk of audit failure for missing back up.• Created an environment where the managers of my teams could offer ideas to deliver savings and improvements to processes themselves, this resulted in several efficiencies as well as empowered the managers. Show less Following the acquisition of EE by BT Group the EE Fixed Assets and Accounts Payable teams were TUPE’d into Bristol FSSC. Managed these new teams into the FSSC setting new expectations and facilitating their adjustment into a new business hierarchy and work culture. Looked for opportunities to adopt the Best of Both between BT & EE for common process.• EE & BT Fixed Assets teams were in 2 different locations, brought these together into the same location to created one team and delivered a headcount saving of 1 FTE (£46k P.A.)• Moved the new teams balance sheet reconciliations from a SharePoint based tracker onto the BT Core process strengthening the controls and brining consistency.• Brought the new teams into BT’s control structure creating consistency within the FSSC teams allowing the BT controls team to have a standard approach for testing existing and new teams. Show less Responsible for the management of the Internal Trading team (of 10) to ensure quality of service and the accurate completion of month end deliverables to agreed challenging deadlines. Led on business initiatives/re-organisations, which impacts the internal trading of BT A Subject Matter. • Expert for Internal Trading having knowledge and understanding of the mechanics of internal trading and was able to communicate to customers as required. Because of this challenged historic practices on cost distribution with a focus on both accuracy and efficiency optimize performance across the team and create a culture of continuous improvement.• Process owner for the team’s SOX controls. Ensure activities are performed in accordance with the team’s IT SOX controls and lead contact for audits on these controls. Show less

  • Senior R2R Process Delivery Manager UK GFSS, Group Functions

    Jan 2019 - Jul 2023

  • BT Bristol Finance Shared Service Centre (FSSC) Deputy Site Lead - Senior Finance Manager

    Jul 2017 - Jan 2019

  • BT Bristol Finance Shared Service Centre (FSSC) – EE Lead – Senior Finance Manager

    Jul 2016 - Jul 2017

  • FSSC Internal Trading Financial Manager

    Mar 2014 - Jul 2016

  • Group Finance Shared Service Centre Bristol, UK – Internal Trading

    Sept 2013 - Jul 2016

  • Finance Analyst - Group Finance Shared Service Centre Bristol, UK - Revenue Reporting

    Apr 2010 - Sept 2013
• 

  UNLIMITED

  Sept 2023 - now

  Head of SSC (Shared Service Centre)