Assistant Finance Manager – R2R, Management Reporting

Unilever is a business founded in 1890s with a strong belief in social purpose, and our unique heritage still shapes the way we do business today.

We are one of the world's leading consumer goods companies, making and selling around 400 brands in more than 190 countries, €51B in revenues and a global presence across Europe, Americas, and Asia/AMET/RUB. Over 2.5 billion people use our products to feel good, stay healthy and make their lives easier. That's about a third of the global population choosing from household names such as Lipton, Knorr, Dove and Hellmann's, and local brands like Bango in Indonesia and Suave in the US.

Unilever’s Purpose is to make sustainable living commonplace, and this is underpinned by The Unilever Compass: Purpose-Led, Future-Fit is our new, single growth strategy based on three beliefs; Brands with purpose grow, Companies with purpose last, People with purpose thrive. Our vision is to be the global leader in sustainable business. We will demonstrate how our purpose-led, future-fit business model drives superior performance, consistently delivering financial results in the top third of our industry.

Our sustainable living brands are inspiring people because they do good for society, environment, and contribute to the UN Sustainable Development Goals. Our sustainable living brands grew 46% faster than our other brands and accounted for 70% of total growth.

Unilever is focussed on delivering to the 5 fundamentals of growth as outlined below:

Unilever Operations (UniOps) is a global organization focussed on simplifying and digitizing Unilever’s operations for unlocking growth and creating value by making our processes and systems simpler, integrated, and easier to work with. We are redesigning and digitally rewiring our operations to enable Unilever to grow profitably and sustainably in the future. We also want to transform the experience of working at and doing business with Unilever – making it easy, user friendly and more like the one click world. We are fully digitizing to transform the way information and insights flow across the business and functions.

This means freeing our people’s time and talents to focus on growth; thus, uunlocking capacity and delivering Fuel for growth by increasing people’s ability to focus on customers and consumers through’ delivering a truly Future Fit Operations across our multi stakeholder model.

Within UniOps, the Commercial Experience [ComEx] has always been a pioneering organisation - providing financial services across Unilever such as Record to Report (R2R), Source to Pay (P2P), Global Control Service Centre (GCSC), Supply Chain Finance Services (SCFS), Zero Based Budgeting (ZBB), Treasury, and Parent & Holding Controls (TRC). 

Within ComEx team , Management Reporting team caters to the management reporting for Actuals & Forecast by aligning across multiple cross dependent teams like R2R, TRC, SCFS. The MR Reporting is being done through 4 platforms across countries i.e Fusion – India,SL, Nepal ; U2K2 – AAR ex India/SL/Nepal; Sirius – Europe & Cordillera – Americas.

Current role requirement is to establish the Fusion platform for MR within ComEx which are currently being managed by the respective Country Finance teams

Main Accountabilities

This position is for the role of managing end to end operations of monthly Management Reporting for Unilever. This position is expected to deliver the reporting requirements through Third Party Service Providers (3PSP). Person in this role is responsible for managing operations at best in class cost & service standards i.e: Timely & quality reports and Global consolidation for actual results and Forecast. The role specifically includes the following:

• Drive process standardization consistently across all countries and Business models. Own the action plan to resolve GPM exceptions, if any
• Define & own month end close calendar compliance. Clearly calling out milestones & deliverables for each of the process block
• Focus on continuous improvement in operational efficiency by identifying opportunities for process simplification / standardization
• Monitor and Support 3PSP for completing annual re-statement processes on time
• Single Point of Contact for Management Accounting & Reporting processes for business and 3PSP users
  • End to end process knowledge: from transaction booking to Reporting
  • Conduct periodic refresher training on MR processes
• Identify the process exceptions; define action plan to drive it to close on the exception
• Partner with business contacts to close on process exceptions, if any
• Collaborate with cross functional teams to resolve operational issues in service delivery [i.e: IT / MDM / GCAD / FET/R2R/SCFS etc..]
• Focus on Continuous improvement which results in efficiency in operations and Cost
• Drive actions in consistently delivering Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) and Service Level Agreements (SLAs) targets; Drive process [GPM] compliance score at 95% + and compliance score at +98% & Customer Feedback at 4.8/5
• Lead the Country Governance. Ensure to Document the internal process & WOW. Be the face to business & UL OCs.
• Be the Subject Matter Expert and single point of contact for both business teams and 3PSP
• Partnering with project team in different phases of transformation:
  • Design Phase                : Providing input on operational complexity of process / process steps
  • Deployment phase    : Lead the change management amongst business and 3PSP users

Skills/ Experience:

The successful candidate for this role will bring an ideal mix of experience across the core areas of finance operations, a deep understanding of finance processes and have an ability to implement digital transformations.

Key skills and proficiencies required for this role are:

• Qualified Accountant or a person possessing Masters degree in finance and accounts with  3-5 years of working experience in Financial accounting & Management Reporting
• In-depth functional knowledge & working experience in Record to Report processes in SAP is mandatory, preferably in SAP-Controlling modules. Ie. Cost centre accounting; Internal Orders and Profitability Analysis modules
• Ability to network and influence cross functional stakeholders with a proven record in delivering consistent & quality of service in Month End Close processes, reporting and Consolidation
• Ability to work with cross cultural teams and possessing excellent command over English & Spanish (only for the resources planned for America) including written, oral and presentation skills
• Deep problem-solving skill and an ability to have a clean slate approach to demystifying the problem on hand
• Ability to network and influence cross functional teams to secure their support in resolving operational issues
• Excellent communication and stakeholder management skills
• Understanding and excellent application of analytical tools – Power BI; Microsoft Excel and proficiency in using Power point would be highly desirable.
• The ability to cross the bar on Unilever stands of leadership
  • Inner Game – Personal Mastery, Purpose & Service and Agility
  • Outer Game – Talent Catalyst, Consumer Love, Business Acumen and Passion for High Performance.

Direct Reports

Key Interfaces

Direct line management of 3PSP. The candidate will also be required to demonstrate stakeholder management across peers and superiors.

• Third Party Service Provider [3PSP]
• Group Chief Accountant Department [GCAD]
• Global Performance Management [GPM] Teams
• Country Controllers & Finance Excellence Teams
• Operating Centre leads for the key processes
• FR/SCFS/IT/ MDM/I&A teams
• Audit Teams [SoX / Corporate audit]