How S4 integrated its mergers with Cobase and Netsuite                                                                

Communications company S4 Capital has been able to automate payments, gain real-time visibility over cash, and integrate more than 30 mergers.

S4 Capital is a listed digital advertising, marketing and technology services company, headquartered in London, that operates in 32 countries and employs 7,500 people around the globe. The company provides a fully integrated offering for clients under the Monks brand.

S4 Capital achieved steady organic growth, as well as completing more than 30 mergers starting with MediaMonks. Integrating so many individual businesses in this timeframe has proved challenging, not least because most of the acquired businesses were standalone technology firms with limited processes in place to manage banking activities on group level.

The first step towards creating a more unified group was implementing an ERP system provided by NetSuite for all group companies. The new ERP system is in the process of being rolled out across the group. However, the treasury team, led by Group Treasurer Christof Nelischer, realised that linking NetSuite to the company’s banking partners was not straightforward. The company worked with over 20 banks and initially over 400 bank accounts worldwide – a number that had been growing with each merger.

As Nelischer explains, “The big challenge was that we needed to bring a lot of banks, jurisdictions and entities onto a single platform, while avoiding having as many outbound interfaces as we had banking partners.”

After reviewing the available options, S4 Capital’s treasury team decided to implement the multi-banking solution provided by Cobase, – not least because the system could integrate seamlessly with NetSuite via API. Nelischer was also able to integrate Cobase with the company’s newly implemented Treasury Management System (TMS) for liquidity reporting.

Despite the challenges presented by S4 Capital’s global footprint, the implementation was carried out in less than a year. As a result of this rapid delivery, the company was able to start benefiting from efficiency improvements and greater visibility almost immediately, with much reduced disruption to its day-to-day operations.

Today, S4 Capital has connected over 80% of its bank accounts to Cobase, representing 90% of the group’s liquidity, resulting in a centralised view of the company’s bank accounts and cash flows. The relevant bank accounts now feed daily liquidity information into the TMS, enabling real-time and fully automated liquidity reporting.

As a result of the implementation, S4 Capital has been able to streamline its banking activities and achieve real-time visibility over its cash flows – an essential prerequisite for making more informed decisions.

At the same time, the use of API integration has enabled the company to automate its payment processes and bank reconciliation, thereby eliminating manual, time-consuming tasks. The finance team can now manage its payments efficiently using a single, user-friendly platform, saving valuable time and minimising the risk of errors.

Where compliance is concerned, the new solution has made it easier for S4 Capital to maintain robust control over its financial operations, reducing risks in a complex international environment. Furthermore, process automation and the consolidation of banking activities have enabled the company to free up resources and redeploy them to more strategic activities.

Looking forward, the scalable nature of the platform means that S4 Capital is well positioned to onboard new banks and entities when the need arises. Consequently, Nelischer says that integrating any additional mergers is likely to be “significantly more straightforward”. S4 Capital is now working to decommission legacy banking portals, to consolidate banking operations in a single platform, Cobase.