International
ISS undertook a global transformation to unify its operational, communication, and financial processes across 60+ countries, replacing decades of fragmented local practices with a single digital operating model.
Inchcape Shipping Services (ISS) is one of the world’s largest maritime service providers, coordinating vessel movements, port operations, financial settlements, and customer interactions across 60+ countries. As the organisation scaled, ways of working evolved locally rather than by design, creating significant variation in processes, a heavy reliance on manual finance activity, and critical job communication fragmented across personal inboxes. This drove operational risk, inconsistency, and inefficiency, and limited ISS’s ability to operate as one global network.
ISS therefore committed to a multi-year programme to establish a unified digital operating model across three core capabilities: global port-call operations, team-based communication and customer engagement, and an automated procure-to-pay (P2P) control environment. Enfuse Group was selected to lead the transformation, with a clear business objective: reduce Disbursement Account (DA) turnaround time to improve cashflow, while strengthening control, scalability, and customer experience; one of the most comprehensive operating model reinventions in the maritime industry. Crucially, delivery was designed for adoption across a diverse global workforce, supporting varying levels of digital literacy and aligning change to cultural and local operational realities through tailored training, local champions, and structured hypercare.
The programme delivered material commercial outcomes, with income up 8% year-on-year while running costs increased only 4%, translating into 28% overall profit growth and 30% growth in profit attributable to the group. These commercial gains were enabled by step-change operational improvements: 50% of P2P flows were fully automated despite industry constraints (including handwritten invoices, port-specific tax complexity, limited standardisation, and vendor monopolies), and DA turnaround time reduced by an average of 4 days globally (up to 9 days in North America), directly shortening the cash-conversion cycle and improving liquidity. In parallel, embedded automated controls (including duplicate invoice detection, screening, and rules-based approvals) strengthened operational control and reduced fraud and compliance risk, creating a more resilient, scalable foundation for future growth.
View the profile in the MCA Members Directory.