How MRI got global spend management up and running in just 7 weeks with Mesh

MRI’s rapid global expansion in the past several years resulted in increased pressure to effectively track spending and enforce policies, identify cost savings, and avoid being exposed to budget overruns.

They knew they needed a modern spend management system that could scale with their business growth, but were concerned that it would be extremely difficult to manage change across so many business units around the world.

The MRI team needed to find a solution that supported their needs and would be easy to implement globally—and then onboard thousands of employees.

Mesh delivered the robust, flexible and scalable solution that the finance teams needed to actively control, track, and reconcile spending across all 11 divisions, while making it easy for every employee to spend money responsibly.

The system was set up, integrated with Netsuite and their HRIS, and in active use across MRI’s two largest business units within 7 weeks—with the rest of the company fully operational within three months.

And despite differences across divisions and countries, onboarding new users was very simple. The user experience for employees is so intuitive that new Mesh users often refuse available training and collateral.

Fast implementation

MRI successfully implemented Mesh for five of its largest divisions in just a couple of months. Mesh was up and running in 7 weeks, including completion of a customized integration with their ERP (NetSuite) and HRIS (Workday). Crow credits the dedication of the Mesh implementation team for the smooth rollout.

“From an implementation standpoint, Mesh was so helpful,” Crow said. “I thought it’d be really painful, but it was actually very fast and easy.”

Easy user adoption

The transition to Mesh was met with enthusiasm from MRI employees. Mesh made it easier to spend on what they needed and eliminated unidentified spend, driving user adoption quickly and seamlessly.

“Initially, I did training with everybody who I onboarded,” says Expense & Corporate Travel Lead, Justine Griffin. “With new users, I send them step-by-step instructions and say, ‘If you want to put time on my calendar, we can do that’ — and usually they say, ‘This is great. We’re good.’”

“Users really like it — especially compared to what we were doing before,” Crow adds.

Global functionality

Mesh has vastly improved upon MRI’s old process. Crow says that Mesh’s “airtight global functionality” was the major factor that made them choose Mesh from the get-go.

Key benefits and results

Because implementation was painless and faster than anticipated, MRI was able to start reaping the benefits of Mesh in just a few weeks, including:

Centralized control: Consolidated management of corporate cards and spending across multiple business units.

Strong user adoption: Intuitive interface and positive user experience facilitated rapid adoption.

Rapid integration: Seamless implementation and integration with NetSuite completed in less than eight weeks.

By implementing Mesh, MRI Software achieved greater control over its global finances and enhanced the user experience for its employees — all with minimal disruption to their every day business activities.