10 Minutes with Vodafone’s Bobby Abraham: Defining the Finance Revolution & Tips on Reducing Operating Expense

Bobby Abraham, Executive Vice President & Global Head of Finance SSC's at Vodafone Group Plc SSON: How did you get to your current position? BA: As a senior member of Vodafone’s Global Finance Operations, I am responsible for driving the Vodafone Group Plc’s mandate of maximising the shared services growth potential through a mix of right sourcing strategy and Finance transformation. In my role, I lead our Global Finance Shared Service Centres globally to achieve Hackett World Class Benchmarks. Under my leadership, the finance shared service centres continue to increase their footprint and finance activity penetration across Vodafone Operating Companies in 21 markets globally. Prior to Vodafone, I led large people organisations in the areas of business leadership and in Country Manager and Transformation roles at Aviva Canada, based in Toronto; Aviva Europe Plc, based in Dublin; and The Royal Automobile Club (RAC) in the UK. Prior to that I held various roles as Operations Director in 24/7Customer Inc (A CRM Company headquartered in Palo Alto, USA) and Citicorp N.A. (a division of Citibank N.A.). SSON: Which of your previous roles best prepared you for leading finance transformation at Vodafone? BA: The last two roles with Aviva in Ireland and in India have been a natural stepping-stone to the position that I currently hold. Experience in Service Delivery and commercial dialogue has been fundamental to understanding the intricacies of relationships between local market retained teams and Shared Services, besides extensive experience in handling Senior CXO level stakeholders. SSON: How has the "global" part of your title translated into more value for Vodafone? BA: Having ‘global’ in the job title has really helped to leverage synergies in the operating environment and gain more traction when building from a one location SSC to multiple locations that deliver multi-functions, as well. It has also ensured that when looking at creating location-agnostic teams, there really is a global benefit to Vodafone in getting the best value and the lowest cost. SSON: What is the best thing about driving finance transformation? BA: Transformation in Finance is a continuous journey. The first couple of years focused on the implementation of our EVO Programme to the local markets. EVO is Vodafone’s single largest transformation program that covers Supply Chain, Finance and HR. We then took a view to retrofit the initial local markets with the latest upgrades. My team has grown in size, experience and knowledge and can now add a lot more value to the business. Our latest activities are around ensuring that we truly measure the value of every individual in the team to make sure that our internal customer (the local market CFOs) gets the quality of service they need to make better business decisions. SSON: What’s your favorite slogan that defines the finance (r)evolution? What does it symbolize? BA: Traditionally, Shared Services tend to look for critical mass to enhance the size of their operation. This sometimes becomes a catalyst for accepting messier processes into Shared Services than would be preferred. The demand then shifts to reducing operating costs and driving a leaner process effective framework. That’s when these slogans make perfect sense: "No More Mess for Less – Get more with the same before you aim for Get More with Less" "Simplify before Standardize" "Efficiency before targeting Effectiveness" I would always recommend that we look to simplify before we drive standardisation as an agenda. SSON: What are 3 tips on reducing operating expense? BA: Here are mine: Measure outliers Know your people and what they do when they ‘clock in’ Explain to people the rationale for operational leverage [inlinead]

10 Minutes with Vodafone’s Bobby Abraham: Defining the Finance Revolution & Tips on Reducing Operating Expense

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10 Minutes with Vodafone’s Bobby Abraham: Defining the Finance Revolution & Tips on Reducing Operating Expense

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