Ericsson used 60 credit card providers across many of its 175 countries globally for its T&E requirements. Historically, credit card arrangements had been made locally on an ad hoc basis resulting in a variety of arrangements, some of which were sub-optimal. In 2009, the company began an assessment of its credit card needs and arrangements and determined that it needed to increase consistency in its use of credit cards in order to improve its visibility and control of spending.

Ericsson also wanted to lower costs, simplify its processes relating to cards and enhance its benefits by working with fewer credit card providers – reflecting the company’s own global structure. Having completed its preliminary business case, Ericsson launched a tender process, initially seeking one vendor for each of the five continents in which the company operates.

During the first quarter of 2010 Ericsson selected Citi as its credit card provider globally having decided that working with a single provider would deliver maximum benefits to the company. Ericsson and Citi simultaneously worked on the design of solution, contract negotiations and creation of a global rollout plan. The first phase of the rollout focused on its most important country operations in terms of scale and spend (Sweden and North America, the US and Canada). Additional rollout phases were also planned with the possibility for countries with urgent needs to be implemented ahead of schedule if required.

While Ericsson operates as a global company each region has P&L responsibility and therefore needed to be convinced of the benefits of moving to a new card provider. Citi worked closely with the sponsors of the project within Ericsson – treasury and sourcing – to prepare marketing material and presentations and make telephone calls to facilitate acceptance among Ericsson’s various regional entities. Extensive material was made available on regional intranet sites and the card programme was explained in internal newsletters.

As Virpi Salomonsson explains, “The principal benefits to Ericsson from working with Citi for our global travel and expenses (T&E) cards programme include greater visibility and control. Ericsson, who is present in 175 countries globally, previously used 60 credit card providers for its T&E requirements. As of March 2011, 33 countries in Asia, Latin America, North America, Europe and Africa are now signed up to the Citi programme.”

This simplification – combined with the separate implementation of T&E report software Concur – makes it possible for Ericsson to track T&E costs and trends and enables the implementation of strategies to improve card compliance and reduce out of pocket spend.

Citi was selected as global provider of T&E cards for Ericsson for a variety of reasons. Ericsson already had a longstanding relationship with the bank, which is its cash management bank in Asia, Latin America, parts of Africa, North America, Russia and some other countries, and was keen to further leverage it.

Moreover, in contrast to three other short-listed credit card providers, Citi has capabilities and could deliver card acceptance across all regions delivering optimum centralisation benefits to Ericsson and greater control to the group finance department based in Stockholm.

The speed of Ericsson’s Citi T&E card programme implementation is unprecedented given its scale. As of 18^th March, 2011, a total of 40,000 cards have been issued in 33 countries in Asia, Latin America, North America, Europe and Africa and ten additional countries are in the pipeline.

Virpi Salomonsson concludes, “Implementation started in Sweden, the US and Canada soon after Citi was appointed. In Sweden, as in the US and Canada, the take-up was overwhelming and ahead of expectations – we are delighted with the programme.”