Photo of Elsa Belperche, Citi, Jean-Paul Vanherf and Josette Vandenhouten, DuPont Sourcing & Logistics.

DuPont has taken a number of steps with this solution in order to realise its ambitious objectives to replace cards for 26,000 employees working at 250 legal entities in 50 countries.

Watch video

Global best practice with this card solution

The challenge

DuPont had limited oversight of its total global card spend because it used 16 different card providers. Although DuPont met with all of its’ providers on a regular basis, understanding and managing programme aspects like spend trends, multiple contractual relationships and inconsistent policies was very challenging. Furthermore, by not having its spend consolidated, DuPont was not able to realise its’ maximum rebate potential. These inefficiencies created an opportunity for improvement. The firm’s existing card providers had less than desired levels of card acceptance in some markets. As a result – and also due to poor expenses policy compliance – the company had a high level of out-of-pocket spend. Its use of multiple card programmes and expenses methodologies made administration time consuming, cumbersome and inefficient.

Moreover, as a result of using multiple card programmes, DuPont was making credit card payments throughout the month, affecting working capital efficiency.

The solution

Following an RFP process, DuPont appointed Citi as its sole global card provider, providing corporate and purchase cards programmes across more than 50 countries based on a single global contract with standardised terms and liability model.

Adopting a One Card Corporate Bill/Corporate Pay Model while new to many DuPont legal entities was not new in it’s entirety and thus created another opportunity to standardise globally.

At the same time, DuPont created a centralised Programme Administration team based at a shared service centre to reduce and even potentially eliminate the work needed to be done by local PAs.

Other elements of the solution include the use of local currency cards wherever possible, issuance of cards with widespread merchant acceptance, standardised and rationalised file feeds, and standardised card programme management and reporting.

Best practice and innovation

DuPont has shown great determination in migrating 16 different card providers, a variety of billing and liability models to a single programme. Add to it a unified travel and expenses policy and consistent global standards and it becomes clear that the company is focused on achieving global best practice.

Best practice and innovation are also demonstrated in the various steps DuPont has taken in order to realise its ambitious objectives to replace cards for 26,000 employees working at 250 legal entities in 50 countries. These steps include:

• The establishment of a strong partnership and a clear dialogue between the DuPont and Citi project managers and regional leads during implementation.
• A DuPont pioneer pilot phase with an eight-week rollout, including card issuance and file feeds, covering 23 entities in 13 countries. DuPont Pioneer was selected as one of the few DuPont entities that already used a centrally-billed and paid model: it was therefore a more useful test of the technical aspects of the implementation project.
• Implementation of DuPont’s businesses worldwide executed on a regional and expense reporting system-basis; the entire project took approximately one year from mandating to completion.
• Winning the buy-in of the organisation worldwide. From the beginning of the project, DuPont secured support from the highest management levels, involving the marketing and communications departments, in order to build momentum and acceptance of the changes.

Key benefits

• Gains features and benefits of purchasing, corporate and other cards in one programme.
• Global view of its card programme with rich reporting capabilities.
• Cardholder support and convenience have been greatly enhanced.
• Standardised worldwide card solution creates optimisation opportunity through policy adjustments.
• Risk reduction while improving policy compliance and working capital efficiency.
• Central back office team frees up local teams and administrators to focus on value-added tasks.
• Standardised statement and pay dates gives further working capital savings.