In this ‘Brief Encounter’, Ken Deeks of The Amber Group interviews Bill Keneally, Chief Financial Officer at GTA and asks

“What does Celaton mean to you?”

“Celaton’s inSTREAM technology has made a big difference to our organisation, and in so many different ways. For a start, we get what we want from the product, and that’s accurate and efficient transaction processing on a global basis. This in itself produces a number of clear benefits. Firstly we can do things quicker, and that means cheaper, so we save money. Secondly, our ability to pay our suppliers quickly is important. Keeping suppliers happy in our business is revenue enhancing; it means that we get more choice of hotel rooms, and that means we can provide more choice and therefore a better service to our customers!”

“But the real differentiator for me is inSTREAM’s ability to handle a hugely complex environment. We receive over a $1billion worth of invoices through inSTREAM every year from suppliers from all over the world – infact the only two places on the globe we don’t handle through inSTREAM is North Korea and China. This means that invoices come to us in all shapes, sizes and languages. I therefore need to have a very clear global picture of where we stand at any one time and inSTREAM provides that.”

“When we started working with Celaton, I recognised that they weren’t a big name. But I needed to work with a company that had the right approach to make it work. I can’t afford to work with a large overly bureaucratic technology partner, I need to have someone on board that can just get on with it and have the job finished before others would have started. I need to know that I – and my team – can have access to the experts, the developers and whoever it takes to get any issues resolved quickly. I need that flexibility, that desire to resolve problems, and most importantly I need to have absolute trust in them to deliver and trust in them as people. With Celaton I have that trust.”

About GTA

Founded over 30 years ago, Gullivers Travel Associates (GTA) are the worlds largest independent supplier of global tourism products to the travel industry. A part of Kuoni, GTA has annual revenues in excess of £450 million, the company serves a worldwide network of clients, employing over 1700 travel professionals throughout 25 global offices, 700 of which are based at its London head office and financial centre.

Every day, Celaton’s inSTREAM^™ streamlines and automates the global handling of over of 20,000 invoices in up to 40 different languages into GTA’s global finance system, JD Edwards. Read more