Finance modernization helps Coats reduce spend by two thirds

Customer

Coats Group

Location

London, United Kingdom

Industries

Manufacturing

Offerings

Business Process Services

Customer Stories | October 3, 2025

Finance modernization helps Coats reduce spend by two-thirds

“Back in 2016, our F&A run cost was $4.7M. Today, it’s $1.6M. So that's almost a two-thirds reduction in spend,” Ganesh Rajasekaran, Head of Transformation and Transactional Services, Coats Group.

Bringing finance digital transformation to the unseen threads holding global industries together

Industrial thread is a critical yet often overlooked component that holds the fabric of many global industries together. Products across apparel to automotive, to aerospace, healthcare, and construction rely on the quality and availability of these structural components.

Yet the thread manufacturing industry faces mounting challenges, including rising material costs, demand for customization, increased sustainability targets, and the need to meet strict regulatory and durability standards.

Staying competitive under tight margins requires innovation to be a constant, strategic priority to balance quality, performance and sustainability.

From the stitching in sports shoes to high-performance yarns used in telecom and automotive systems, these products are meticulously engineered to meet the highest standards of strength, precision and durability.

Scaling innovation with every stitch

With a 250-year legacy and operations in over 50 countries, Coats leads the world in industrial thread manufacturing. Its threads are used in everything from everyday clothing to telecom cables and personal protection gear.

Like many long-established multinationals, Coats built its finance operations country by country, adhering to local practices and systems. However, as demand for Coats’s thread grew and operations expanded, the company’s decentralized finance structure began to show its limits.

“To remain competitive, we needed to consolidate, standardize and modernize our processes with a strategic partner,” said Ganesh Rajasekaran, Head of Transformation and Transactional Services, Coats Group

Coats set out to transform its fragmented Finance & Accounting (F&A) function into a streamlined, digital-first capability that could scale with the business, reduce costs and unlock new sources of value.

Rebuilding finance from the ground up

Coats turned to DXC Technology to completely reimagine how Finance & Accounting (F&A) systems supported the enterprise. While many organizations view outsourcing as a cost-cutting tool, Coats approached it as a lever for growth. By shifting finance operations to DXC, Coats gained access to global multilingual support and intelligent automation technologies.

This allowed Coats to replace manual processes with more efficient, standardized workflows, freeing up finance teams to focus more time on delivering strategic insights to the business.

Through initiatives like the Cash Acceleration Program*, Coats introduced automation and best practices to reduce days sales outstanding in accounts receivables and optimize working capital.

These innovations were enabled by DXC’s deep F&A expertise and global delivery infrastructure. DXC also helped Coats adopt an automated case management system to handle finance queries more efficiently and improve responsiveness across regions.

*The Cash Acceleration Program is designed to optimize the accounts receivable process, deploy intelligent automation and apply standardized processes to help improve cash flow across global markets.

Results at a glance

45% cost savings achieved over the lifetime of the partnership
200,000+ supplier invoices processed annually
30,000 general ledger reconciliations completed each year
$550 million in supplier payments managed centrally
Seamless service delivery across 24 markets

Finance modernization helps Coats reduce spend by two thirds | DXC Customer Stories

AI is going to be a very critical part of our transformation agenda,” said Ganesh Rajasekaran, Head of Transformation and Transactional Services, Coats Group. “Whether it is making sure our operations remain resilient or improving our responsiveness to our customers.

A shared engine for future innovation

To expand the impact of the partnership, Coats and DXC have recently launched a Joint Innovation Fund which enables co-investment in high-impact initiatives beyond F&A and is focused on solving real-world business challenges through technology.

One of the first initiatives is an AI-powered pricing analytics pilot designed to improve margin management and responsiveness to market shifts.

More broadly, Coats and DXC are exploring how AI and smart manufacturing can increase speed, agility and sustainability across the enterprise.

The big picture

The transformation of Coats’ finance operations demonstrates how outsourcing, automation and innovation can combine to support business agility and strategic growth.

Coats and DXC’s decade-long partnership, grounded in trust, adaptability, and shared vision, has laid the foundation for expansion into initiatives in AI, analytics and smart manufacturing.

This is a proven example of how DXC helps customers reimagine essential business functions to deliver both immediate results and long-term strategic value.