Willis Towers Watson
Forskriftssamsvarnovember 30, 2020

Willis Towers Watson & the dimensions of TeamMate+

As a leading global advisory, broking and solutions company, Willis Towers Watson advises other organisations on how best to manage the challenges they face and thrive in a competitive marketplace. It is therefore essential that its 50 internal auditors, located in Paris, London, Ipswich, New York and Philadelphia, can ensure their own audits are conducted as consistently and efficiently as possible, wherever they take place. Just as importantly, its managers need to know they are receiving the most accurate, timely and relevant information available, in the most accessible format for them.

The company has been using TeamMate to help them achieve this for some years and in 2018 they decided to migrate to TeamMate+ to take advantage of the latest support and enhanced features. It was important that this transition was done as seamlessly as possible and with minimal disruption for its users, who include both internal auditors and about 40 business managers.

Sue Houldey, senior manager in the chief of staff team at the company, is responsible for supporting around 90 TeamMate+ users across the company. She was involved in setting up the original system and managed the migration to TeamMate+.

For her, one of the biggest advantages of the new system is its enhanced reporting capabilities. She says that auditors are now not only producing more comprehensive reports, but they are also doing reports for more people.

The bit I absolutely adore is the scheduling of the reports. Reports go automatically to the business and no longer have to go through me.
Sue Houldey, Senior Manager at Willis Towers Watson

The ability to use different dimensions in TeamMate+ to “cut” the data in different ways for different audiences is also proving invaluable. Sue has created three dimensions by dividing the organisation into different geographies, legal entities and business segments. She can now ensure that the audit directors responsible for each specific area get the relevant reports automatically.

“The dimensions were probably the area I struggled most to understand in the migration process because they were so different to TeamMate AM,” she says. “My advice to others implementing it would be that they first ask ‘What do you want to get out of the system and who are you reporting to?’ and ‘How do you want to cut your reports?’. This will dictate what information you need to capture and how you capture it.”

The key is to understand how the system works, she adds – “Try it out in practice, rather than reading the theory”.

Sue has set up a network of business facilitators responsible for following up open actions in their area. “They get monthly reports and can also check what’s been updated on the system,” she explains.

She adds that the enhanced reports are putting more onus on executives to follow up actions. “The business facilitators are keeping them on their toes,” she says.

“I’m getting really good feedback about this,” she adds. “If senior managers don’t get their reports promptly on the second day of the month, I now get emails asking where they are.”

She also likes the fact that reports include the latest status updates on the system.

Everyone’s much more on the ball and discussions are more valuable. Auditors aren’t just saying ‘This is overdue’, but also ‘This is coming up next month and you need to look at it’. So they’re looking forwards just as much as backwards.
Sue Houldey, Senior Manager at Willis Towers Watson
For auditors who are challenged to improve audit productivity while delivering strategic insights, TeamMate provides expert solutions, delivered with premium professional services, to auditors around the globe and in every industry.
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