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Time back to the business
30% of finance team hours freed from chasing paper and errors
Cost savings unlocked
$200k annualised savings identified within three months
For OCS Australia and New Zealand, finance was becoming a roadblock. The facilities services and cleaning supply company employs 5,500 people locally and more than 200,000 globally, with operations covering everything from janitorial services to building maintenance. But behind the frontline workforce, the finance team was drowning in paperwork.
Accounts payable was the biggest culprit. Invoices would arrive incomplete, receipts went missing, and managers spent 30% of their working week chasing information.
For ANZ Finance Director Debby Wong, that statistic wasn’t acceptable. She says not only was it diverting her team’s attention away from more strategic work, but that type of work is just plain boring.
Finance was becoming a roadblock
Manual and disconnected finance processes aren’t just inefficient – they can be damaging. Errors creep in, staff waste hours on low-value work, and leaders lose sight of the numbers that matter most.
For OCS, it wasn’t just invoicing that caused headaches – expense claims were no better. Employees were expected to hold on to receipts for weeks, and finance staff were often left tracking down documentation.
Supplier onboarding was managed through a patchwork of emails and spreadsheets, making it difficult to track OCS’s requirements around ESG, health and safety and modern slavery.
“We’re a net-zero carbon business, but it was almost impossible to check if our suppliers aligned with that,” Debby says.
Every new contract or supplier added to the administrative load, stretching the 35-strong finance team even thinner.
If we could automate the repetitive work, we could keep jobs here in New Zealand and Australia – and give people careers that matter.
Debby Wong
ANZ Finance Director
OCS
A platform for the future
When OCS began looking for a solution, the leadership team wanted more than just automation. They were determined to preserve jobs in New Zealand and Australia, resisting the common industry trend of offshoring repetitive tasks to lower-cost labour markets.
“A lot of companies send this work to the Philippines or India,” says Debby. “But we love this country and want to keep jobs here.”
The Esker Accounts Payable Platform lets them do just that.
Debby explains that the decision to partner with Fujifilm Process Automation to implement Esker wasn’t just about technology. It was also about ‘resetting’ the entire finance function so it could scale with future acquisitions.
“We chose Esker because it was user-friendly… and we could see Fujifilm was investing in AI, which attracted us.”
Immediate and ongoing ROI
It took less than a week for Debby to hear that Esker was working its digital magic.
“People gave us good feedback that they don’t lose receipts anymore,” she says about the new automated expense claim process. Employees can now submit their receipts straight away, and payment is processed within a day or two.
Within the first three months, OCS identified $200,000 in annualised savings, which is being reinvested into expanding automation across the business. The finance team is also reaping the benefits, shifting 30% of their time from chasing paper and endless emails to strategic tasks that are more interesting – and more meaningful to the business. “It’s not about reducing headcount – it’s about adding value, both to the team and to the customer.”
With Esker integrated with SAP and Power BI, OCS can provide clients with detailed reporting on what they purchase most often and highlight cost-saving opportunities. “We work with them as partners, not just suppliers,” says Debby. “We share the benefits of the savings, and they can see the data for themselves.”
Esker has also made it easier to perform compliance checks for ESG, health and safety and modern slavery by building that information into the system. “We know from day one that we’re working with sustainable, ethical partners.”
More automation, new acquisitions
OCS is now in a position to acquire new businesses and continue to grow without scaling staff. The finance team is still busy, but instead of being bogged down by monotonous data entry, they’re working with AI-driven tools and gaining new skills.
What’s next on the agenda? For Debby, the vision reaches beyond finance – and the next cab off the rank is HR.
“AI is the future,” Debby says. “It’s not about offshoring to save costs – it’s about keeping jobs here, making them more interesting, and positioning OCS as a forward-thinking company in every sense.”
STRONGER COMPLIANCE
Supplier onboarding now embeds ESG, H&S, and modern slavery checks
IMPROVED EMPLOYEE EXPERIENCE
Expense claims simplified, staff redeployed into more meaningful roles
ADDED CUSTOMER VALUE
Integrated reporting gives clients instant insights into savings opportunities
SCALABLE
GROWTH
Finance team can support acquisitions & expansion without extra staff
Debby Wong
ANZ Finance Director
OCS
We have unique needs and Fujifilm listened to what our business actually required.
We want the same seamless experience for our frontline staff as we’ve created for our suppliers and finance team.
Why Fujifilm & Esker?
- Reduce Operational Cost
- Increase Productivity
- Local Implementation & Support
- Eliminate Errors & Non-Compliance
- Improve Supplier Relationships
- AI-Powered Processing
- Multiple ERP Integration
- eInvoicing & PEPPOL Compliant
FUJIFILM Process Automation are your local, New Zealand based experts ready to help you on your Esker journey. In fact, we’ve been implementing Esker solutions for Kiwi’s for over a decade now.
AI-Powered processing speeds everything up and it’s smart OCR recognition can even detect and convert handwriting. Fraud protection? Yep, Esker can even detect an invoice with a differing bank account your ERP is expecting, then give your team an alert before it goes any further. That’s just a few reasons why we love Esker, get in touch to hear many more.