Streamlining Global Finance Operations Through Strategic Centralization

Streamlining Global Finance Operations Through Strategic Centralization

Situation

Warner Bros. Discovery faced the strategic imperative to reduce costs and improve operational efficiency across their European finance operations. Executive leadership decided to consolidate all financial activities from seven separate European countries and centralize them in Hungary as a shared services hub. The organization needed to transition from decentralized, country-specific finance operations to a unified, efficient model that would eliminate redundancies while maintaining service quality. The challenge involved analyzing and reorganizing activities that were currently being performed across multiple locations on various schedules, then developing a comprehensive transition plan that would ensure all activities could seamlessly move to new teams within a compressed three-month timeframe while minimizing operational disruption.

Our Solution

Thought Logic partnered with the impacted teams and senior leadership to design and execute a comprehensive finance function centralization strategy. Our approach involved meeting with teams across all affected locations to understand current activities and processes, conducting detailed analysis of work performed on weekly, monthly, quarterly, and annual schedules across five finance towers including FP&A, RTR, PTP, OTC, and Treasury. We developed a strategic transition plan to ensure seamless migration of all activities to the new centralized teams within the three-month implementation timeline. Our solution included comprehensive change management support and process optimization to ensure the centralized operations would deliver both cost savings and improved service delivery.

Stakeholders

Our Clients

  • Finance, FP&A, and Accounting leadership across seven European countries

  • Executive leadership driving cost reduction and efficiency initiatives

  • Senior leadership engaged in centralization strategy and implementation

  • Local finance teams transitioning to centralized shared services model

Our Solution Team

  • Finance function transformation and centralization experts

  • Organizational change management and transition planning specialists

  • Process optimization and efficiency improvement consultants

  • Shared services design and implementation leads

0%
Reduced headcount
0%
Activities eliminated

Achievements

The engagement successfully transformed Warner Bros. Discovery’s European finance operations from fragmented, country-specific activities to a streamlined, centralized shared services model that delivers sustained cost savings and operational excellence.

Operational Efficiency and Cost Reduction

  • 45% reduced headcount for improved profitability through strategic centralization and elimination of duplicative roles across seven countries

  • 15% of activities eliminated as redundant and could be stopped, further streamlining operations and reducing unnecessary work

Organizational Transformation

  • Single finance hub successfully established in Hungary, consolidating operations from seven European countries into one efficient shared services center

  • Seamless transition delivered for 800+ activities across all finance towers with minimal operational disruption

Process Optimization

  • Over 800 activities identified and analyzed with 100+ determined to be redundant and successfully eliminated or consolidated

  • Comprehensive transition planning executed over three-month period, ensuring all remaining 700+ activities were successfully transferred to centralized teams

  • Improved operational consistency achieved through standardized processes and centralized delivery model

  • Enhanced cost efficiency through elimination of country-specific redundancies and optimization of resource allocation

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