GWF: Unlocking working capital through new levels of transparency, accountability, and insight into a critical financial process
A repeatable and scalable transformation model
As part of preparing for a broader transformation journey, leading food company George Weston Foods Limited (GWF) adopted SAP Signavio solutions to bring new levels of transparency, accountability, and insight to a critical financial process. In doing so, the company surfaced hidden inefficiencies, reclaimed working capital, and set the course for a future ERP migration.
| Industry | Region | Company Size |
| Consumer products | Sydney, Australia | >7,000 employees |
in value identified in goods received but not invoiced.
of working capital released in 12 weeks, delivering immediate value.
reduction in clearing process cycle time.
Business and Technology Director, George Weston Foods Limited
Enabling transparency and local accountability across business units
George Weston Foods Limited (GWF) is a food manufacturer known for some of Australia’s and New Zealand’s favorite fresh bread and bakery products as well as dips and deli meats. Its brands include Tip Top, Abbott’s Bakery, Burgen, Golden, Yumi’s, DON, and KR Castlemaine. It’s also a major name in flour, milled products, and animal feed through its MAURI brand and a leader in cleaning and hygiene solutions through its Jasol portfolio.
Operating five businesses in Australia and New Zealand for more than 50 years, the company is a wholly owned subsidiary of diversified international food group Associated British Foods plc.
As part of its strategy to sustain growth and build on its heritage and trusted brands, GWF looked to modernize its source-to-pay process as a critical first step in a broader transformation journey. Previously, the company’s procurement reconciliation process was fragmented, manual, and far from transparent, with balances for goods received but not invoiced (GRNI) managed through spreadsheets, with no system-led visibility.
GWF sought to bring new levels of transparency, accountability, and insight to this process while maximizing scale, collaboration, and the delivery of long-term value. Beyond resolving aged purchase orders and GRNI balances, the company needed to embed a smarter, enterprise-led approach to financial governance.
Business and Technology Director, George Weston Foods Limited
Building a repeatable framework for enterprise-wide process excellence
GWF resolved that its transformation required bringing together procurement, finance, and operations functions around a single, shared goal. It began by adopting SAP Signavio Process Transformation Suite as the foundation for its source-to-pay initiatives. The suite provides a collaborative environment to reimagine how purchase order reconciliation, GRNI balances, and legacy data processes are governed, executed, and managed across the business.
Danny Walsh, business and technology director at GWF, says that a number of factors influenced this decision: “Native integration with the SAP ERP application, real-time process mining capabilities, and intuitive collaboration tools would enable GWF to bring business and finance teams together around a single source of unified data.”
To achieve its objectives, GWF focused on process mapping and data transparency using the SAP Signavio Process Insights solution, creating a collaborative ownership framework with cross-functional teams working together to implement “quick wins.” SAP Signavio solutions also enabled GWF to prioritize both high-value records and long-tail inefficiencies, including thousands of low-dollar aged purchase orders and legacy plant maintenance orders.
With clear ownership, local enablement, and insight-led tools, GWF built a transformation model that supports future initiatives. At the heart of the approach was early stakeholder engagement, aligning business units around a shared view of the process and creating momentum for joint ownership.
Business and Technology Director, George Weston Foods Limited
Releasing immediate working capital and unlocking huge value potential
In what began as a practical goal to bring clarity and structure to a reconciliation process that had grown complex over time, GWF’s adoption of SAP Signavio in its source-to-pay initiatives delivered so much more. With SAP Signavio, GWF’s teams gained a shared view of what needed to change and the tools to bring those changes to fruition. By combining data insight with strong engagement across procurement, finance, and operations, GWF turned a cross-functional challenge into a business-led transformation.
Through Signavio Process Insights, GWF identified over 24,000 aged purchase orders and resolved them by analyzing root causes like blocked approvals and outdated release strategies, allowing it to release more than A$850,000 (US$550,000) in working capital. What’s more, GWF can now target a broader opportunity of A$53.4 million (US$34.6 million) in stranded GRNI value.
Meanwhile GWF reduced reconciliation cycle times for GRNI as well as the differences between goods received and invoices received for purchase orders by 70%, enabling a faster close, clearer reporting, and more-confident decision-making.
GWF is also benefitting from stronger controls and audit readiness, allowing it to deactivate a legacy job that was generating 2,200 obsolete plant maintenance orders monthly. It has also closed more than 600,000 redundant orders, eliminated a decade of hidden data debt, and improved system hygiene.
Business and Technology Director, George Weston Foods Limited
Preparing confidently for its future move to advanced ERP
GWF’s solution, which was intentionally designed to be more than a one-off fix, is considered a strategic investment in building a repeatable framework for enterprise-wide process excellence.
On top of the tangible outcomes already achieved, GWF has built a foundation for scalable, insight-driven transformation across the enterprise, enabling cleaner systems and stronger governance in readiness for its move to SAP S/4HANA.