How Grupo LALA industrialised multi-entity collections and reduced manual workload at extreme invoice volumes

Context: a multi-entity group facing a structural collections challenge at scale

Grupo LALA is a leading Mexican dairy group, founded in 1949, generating approximately $3.5 billion in annual revenue and employing around 38,000 people. The group operates a large-scale, multi-country network spanning Mexico, the United States, Central America and Brazil, with a portfolio of more than 43 brands across milk, yogurt, cheese and cream.

As a major supplier to high-volume retail customers, LALA manages invoice volumes among the highest in its sector, with key accounts such as Walmart involving thousands of invoice lines within a single account.

The group operates in a structurally complex environment: extreme volumes, large retail customer base, multiple legal entities across countries. It was precisely this complexity that led Grupo LALA to fundamentally rethink its debt management.

The challenge: manual collections unable to cope with extreme invoice volumes

In high-volume receivables environments, scale is not just a challenge: it is a structural constraint. Before deploying My DSO Manager, Fernando Villarreal Galiano's teams were operating under conditions typical of large, high-volume organisations:

• Entirely manual email-based follow-ups: time-consuming and poorly traceable
• Fragmented data across entities, with no consolidated view of receivables
• No real-time visibility into overdue positions or collection status
• Key accounts such as Walmart involving hundreds to thousands of invoices within a single customer account

The challenge was not simply one of digitalisation, but the ability to operate at a scale rarely encountered in traditional credit management environments.

Deploying My DSO Manager: automation, centralisation and scale

The deployment of My DSO Manager marked a shift towards a more industrialised, data-driven collections model, structured around three core workstreams.

Customer follow-up automation
Eliminating repetitive manual follow-ups freed teams to focus on higher-value collection activity. Customer follow-up scenarios are now configured and triggered automatically based on invoice status, removing the operational drag of manual processing.

Centralisation of receivables data
A single, consolidated view across entities provides immediate visibility into overdue positions, collection status and team activity, with daily-refreshed data supporting near real-time decision-making.

Managing exceptional invoice volumes
This was the central technical challenge of the deployment. My DSO Manager delivered specific infrastructure and interface enhancements to support the management of thousands of invoices within a single customer account; a requirement that few platforms are able to absorb.

Teams can now filter relevant items, tailor communications by segment, and give customers direct access to their invoices via the client portal.

"Before My DSO Manager, every follow-up was handled manually. On accounts like Walmart, that means thousands of invoices. Today the process is automated and our teams focus on the cases that matter."

Fernando Villarreal Galiano - Credit and Collections Coordinator - Grupo LALA

Results: efficiency, visibility and scalability across multi-entity operations

Early outcomes can be framed across three core dimensions:

Efficiency
Automation has reduced manual collection effort and accelerated follow-up cycles, improving overall team productivity from the earliest stages of deployment.

Visibility
A centralised, graphical view of receivables has strengthened operational control, enabling clearer monitoring of KPIs, overdue exposure and collection performance by entity.

Scalability
The platform has proven its ability to support extreme invoice volumes. What was previously an unmanageable manual constraint has become a structured, repeatable process.

"My DSO Manager is a really helpful tool to send emails and view the status of the current due amount. Everything in one tool - that is very valuable from a finance perspective."

Fernando Villarreal Galiano - Credit and Collections Coordinator - Grupo LALA

A collaborative implementation shaped by the challenge of data scale

The rollout was delivered through close collaboration between LALA's finance and IT teams and My DSO Manager. Notably, the primary challenge was not adoption, but data scale. Supporting one of the largest invoice volumes seen on a single account required platform and infrastructure optimisation, resulting in mutual progression: LALA gained a solution adapted to its operating reality, while My DSO Manager strengthened its capability for high-volume environments.

"The project manager from My DSO Manager was a great facilitator - always able to answer questions, very well prepared, and with strong knowledge of the tool."

Fernando Villarreal Galiano - Credit and Collections Coordinator - Grupo LALA

A scalable credit management model for multi-entity growth

With Mexico live and the US rollout nearing completion, the model is now positioned for broader deployment across Latin America. The ability to standardise and scale collections processes across entities, while maintaining control over high-volume accounts, enables Grupo LALA to manage future growth without a corresponding increase in operational complexity.

This case illustrates a broader shift in credit management: from manual, fragmented processes to industrialised, scalable operations. For organisations managing large customer portfolios and exceptional invoice volumes, efficiency gains, enhanced visibility and the ability to operate at scale are no longer incremental improvements: they are foundational capabilities.

Grupo LALA's transformation positions it as a benchmark for high-volume, multi-entity collections, demonstrating how the right combination of automation, data and infrastructure can redefine performance in complex receivables environments.