VFS Global: Supporting diplomatic operations in more than 160 countries on a modern finance cloud foundation
A trusted finance foundation fit for rapid growth
A pioneer in using innovative technology solutions to simplify cross-border mobility, VFS Global Group recalibrated its finance operations globally using SAP Cloud ERP capabilities, part of SAP Business Suite. This modern-technology cloud foundation paves the way to a smarter future with enhanced productivity, efficiency, consistency, and transparency.
| Industry | Region | Company Size | Partner |
| Professional services | Dubai, United Arab Emirates | 13,600 employees | KPMG |
planned productivity gain for revenue accounting procedures.
less time expected to be spent on accounts payable tasks.
enhanced accuracy in finance reporting expected.
Chief Financial Officer, VFS Global
| Industry | Region | Company Size | Partner |
| Professional services | Dubai, United Arab Emirates | 13,600 employees | KPMG |
planned productivity gain for revenue accounting procedures.
less time expected to be spent on accounts payable tasks.
enhanced accuracy in finance reporting expected.
Chief Financial Officer, VFS Global
Improving innovation agility to meet rising customer expectations
As a global leader in trusted technology services that empower secure mobility for governments and citizens, VFS Global embraces technological innovation including generative AI to support governments and diplomatic missions worldwide. The company manages nonjudgmental and administrative tasks related to applications for visas and passports as well as consular services for its client governments, increasing productivity and enabling them to focus entirely on the critical task of assessment.
With a responsible approach to technology development, adoption, and integration, the company prioritizes ethical practices and sustainability while serving as the trusted partner to 71 client governments. Operating over 4,000 application centers in 167 countries, VFS Global has efficiently processed more than 523 million transactions since 2001.
Amid a dynamic and unpredictable market shaped by political and macroeconomic uncertainty, VFS Global continues to remain at the forefront of agility and future-readiness, focusing on innovation to stay ahead of evolving client and customer expectations. In addition, aiming to ready the business for a future initial public offering (IPO), the company needed to reshape its finance operations that had become unwieldy due to rapid growth. Fragmented processes with substantial manual effort offered limited transparency and automation in key areas.
Key to success would be the ability to launch new AI-enabled products and business models while improving efficiency and productivity. To enable this transformation, VFS Global partnered with SAP and KPMG to transform its technology landscape.
Setting a new benchmark in finance process optimization and automation
Intent on accelerating innovation with modern technologies and AI to meet the increasingly complex needs of governments and citizens, VFS Global chose to build a modern cloud foundation (see figure) for its finance transformation. It selected SAP Cloud ERP capabilities, a key component of SAP Business Suite, with embedded AI. It also adopted capabilities of the SAP Business Data Cloud solution, including the SAP Datasphere and SAP Analytics Cloud solutions, with the SAP Cloud ALM solution optimizing application landscape management. Using SAP Integration Suite on SAP Business Technology Platform (SAP BTP) allows the company to integrate these solutions with the cloud ERP and other third-party solutions.
With SAP Cloud ERP providing the core of VFS Global’s integrated finance operations, the company is streamlining its processes for financial accounting, global taxation, central invoice management, treasury and cash management, and more. The solutions can potentially reshape global reporting and consolidation, lease management, and document reporting and compliance processes.
Given the scale of the transformation spanning more than 160 countries, VFS Global partnered with KPMG to lead the implementation, while engaging SAP Services and Support for strategic advisory and value-assurance expertise. KPMG orchestrated a “big bang” approach for the initial rollout across 30 countries in Europe in just seven months, achieving agility with controlled milestones set by the SAP Activate methodology. The subsequent deployment across the remaining 120 countries was planned as a phased rollout over 12 months, with SAP Preferred Success services supporting both the implementation and ongoing operation.
SAP Cloud ERP forms the modern cloud finance backbone in VFS Global’s sizable landscape and is integrated with applications running as services on SAP BTP, along with various third-party applications. This ecosystem includes SAP Cloud Identity Services and the SAP Advanced Financial Closing solution to harmonize closing calendars across the group and provide monitoring of period-end closing activities. There’s also the SAP Profitability and Performance Management Cloud solution for advanced business-centric modeling, as well as SAP Datasphere and SAP Analytics Cloud.
In addition, the integrated landscape includes SAP SuccessFactors HCM for core HR and talent management and SAP Ariba and SAP Concur solutions for sourcing, procurement, and travel expense management.
Chief Financial Officer, VFS Global
Recalibrating finance operations for an AI-enabled future
In line with its vision to shape the future of cross-border security through technological innovation, VFS Global’s modern cloud finance upgrade is set to yield transformative benefits across the organization. This includes enhanced productivity, greater efficiency and consistency, and improved transparency and compliance.
SAP Cloud ERP provides modern finance purchase-order-based procure-to-pay processes and direct integration with banks to bolster operations with tighter application integration and automated work flows. Not only does this automate repetitive tasks, but it also reduces many manual processes, unlocking productivity and efficiency. The transformation also gives rise to more-accurate and accessible data to accelerate decision-making and contribute to the company’s growth.
In terms of core finance processes operating on the new integrated and automated landscape, VFS Global’s finance team can expect to spend much less time on invoicing and achieve a faster financial closing process. Increased automation naturally reduces the need for manual effort and associated human errors, driving efficiency and potentially reducing the overall cost of finance operations.
In addition, with the adoption of SAP Datasphere and SAP Analytics Cloud, VFS Global can expect data integrity and AI-driven data and insights that yield more-accurate forecasts. The “just ask” feature in SAP Analytics Cloud empowers users to interrogate the data using natural language. And with preconfigured planning scenarios in SAP Analytics Cloud, managers can analyze data at a granular level for more-accurate cost center and profit center planning. The solutions also pave the way for strong data governance in line with future IPO plans, minimizing risk and reducing auditing costs with compliance tools.
Head of Corporate IT, VFS Global
Breaking new ground with a modern cloud foundation
With the first stage of implementation in Europe complete, VFS Global is now continuing a phased rollout of SAP Cloud ERP and other solutions across the remaining approximately 120 countries in its global network.
At the same time, the company is looking to expand its SAP solution ecosystem. This includes plans to configure SAP Signavio solutions for business process transformation and SAP LeanIX solutions to transform enterprise architecture management.
In addition, with SAP BTP and the SAP Business Data Cloud solution, VFS Global has established a flexible data intelligence foundation to develop new AI-enabled solutions for customers. The new solutions will also help it drive further operational excellence across its global network.
Featured partner
KPMG is an SAP gold partner with more than 7,300 consultants specializing in SAP solutions across its global network of member firms. The consulting firm took a leading role in the implementation of SAP Business Suite for VFS Global, including preparing the new environment, system configuration and development, data integration and migration, and implementing a pilot rollout.