The Customer

Grayling is the world’s 2nd largest independent PR agency. A global communications network founded in 1981, it delivers data-driven strategies for Public Relations, Government Affairs, Investor Relations and Event Management. Grayling operates from 54 offices in 26 countries worldwide across Europe, North America, the Middle East and Asia. Grayling has an enormous international reach and provides fully integrated communications across every major market. 

The Challenge 

A global, multi-office agency ERP implementation. Not only was the rollout truly international – 26 countries and over 700 users – but there were limited resources and a very quick turnaround to get our solution integrated. 

Grayling’s mandate for a global system required:

  • fast, accurate globally consolidated data with consistent profit and loss, profitability, job, time & resourcing reporting
  • ability to track global client revenues in real time, providing a single source of truth ​
  • Timely and cost effective deployment through largely self managed implementation and training

The Solution

Accountability acted as an extension of the Grayling team to drive the development needed for Grayling’s operations that were using disparate systems across multiple regions. Most legacy systems had specific compliance and operational demands, so we ensured these were integrated without losing their functional requirements.

“Given the users were spread over 26 countries with multiple languages, we developed a self-managed implementation and training process so the entire Grayling workforce was ready to use the platform once the setup was complete.”

David Guthrie, Accountability Chief Customer Officer

The Results

“We’ve become so used to dealing with multiple systems that it was hard to imagine how big an impact a centralised, integrated solution would have. So far, we’ve had great early success across all regions with Accountability’s implementation.” 

James Holland, Grayling Global CFO

Accountability gave Grayling a true consolidated reporting system. This has been crucial when providing financial information to its parent company Huntsworth PLC. More importantly, it has also given Grayling executives more confidence when planning for the future.

“Having a complete company overview is vital for a global agency like ours. It means we know exactly what’s happening all the time, across all markets. That definitely makes decision making a lot easier.”

James Holland, Grayling Global CFO