AT A GLANCE

FUJIFILM Business Innovation

INDUSTRY

BUSINESS OBJECTIVES

• To streamline their entire invoicing process from procure-to-pay to cash allocation, with seamless integration into SAP.

SOLUTION

• Esker Procure to Pay platform and the Esker Cash Application, with built-in AI smarts, were implemented.

BUSINESS BENEFITS

• The procurement and payments system is accessible from anywhere, while Cash Application automatically allocates incoming funds simplifying work for the AR team.
• A customised Esker dashboard presents information at a glance, while full integration with SAP ensures business continues as usual.
• Operator time has been reduced by 40 percent since implementing Esker and each cost centre has full visibility of their spending, helping reduce costs and consolidate suppliers.

CONTACT DETAILS

FUJIFILM Business Innovation
W: FUJIFILM Business Innovation

New Zealand

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AT A GLANCE

FUJIFILM Business Innovation

INDUSTRY

Agricultural supplies

BUSINESS OBJECTIVES

• To save time, reduce costs and more efficiently process the quarter-million supplier invoices annually.
• Reduce manual intervention

SOLUTION

• Esker Accounts Payable Automation processing supplier invoices into the Microsoft Dynamics 365 F&O ERP system

BUSINESS BENEFITS

• Payment processing times have been halved, with fewer errors, while meeting audit and retention requirements
• The need for manual handling of invoice discrepancies has been virtually eliminated

CONTACT DETAILS

FUJIFILM Business Innovation
W: FUJIFILM Business Innovation

New Zealand

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AT A GLANCE

• Isaac Construction

INDUSTRY

• Construction

BUSINESS OBJECTIVE

• Maintain reputation for on-time payment with suppliers
• Ease burden on accounts payable team chasing up paperwork
• Cope with business growth after acquiring another business

SOLUTION

• Esker Accounts Payable Automation delivered by the FUJIFILM Business Innovation Process Automation team

BUSINESS BENEFITS

• AP process now 100% paperless
• Fast and accurate invoice routing
• AI intelligently monitors and alerts errors & changes
• Immediate visibility across the procure-to-pay process

FOR MORE INFORMATION

FUJIFILM Business Innovation
W: FUJIFILM Business Innovation
New Zealand
E: kevin.ptak.pc@fujifilm.com
T: +64 21 275 4321

Christchurch-based Isaac Construction has earned a reputation for excellence by making sure everything it does is at the highest possible level of quality. Employing a team of more than 300 specialists, the company delivers a wide range of services, including construction, surfacing, bitumen products, transport, quarrying and professional contract management services.

Isaac recently acquired Blenheim’s Simcox Construction, adding a further 80 staff members active in civil construction, infrastructure works and earthmoving. Even prior to the acquisition, the accounts payable team were busy, often spending time chasing documents. While understandable and a practical reality in a company handling more than two thousand invoices every month, these situations were at odds with the organisation’s policy of paying its suppliers on time.

With the purchase of Simcox, the limitations of paper-based processes became painfully clear as increased volume exacerbated the situation.

“We’ve always done our best to pay on time. It’s reputational; when you get it right, people like to work for you – but paper has its limitations,” explains Arlee Folkers, Group CFO at Isaac Construction.

Folkers knew that Isaac would need a modern solution to maintain its hard-earned reputation.

After testing the market, Isaac engaged with the FUJIFILM team, who recommended Esker Accounts Payable Automation.

Solution

The implementation process started with several presentations and then a collaborative workshop.

“This proved invaluable, you could tell FUJIFILM had done many of these deployments in the past. They involved everyone who would be touched by accounts payable automation – and they sequenced it very well, so people weren’t in the room unless necessary.”

“Once an invoice is in our system, we can track every single one with absolute ease.”

Attendees included a project manager, a technical specialist and account manager from FUJIFILM, Isaac’s accounts payable employees, the company accountant, a representative from Nimbus (the Enterprise Resource Planning solution used by the business), an IT specialist an external project manager for added oversight.

The additional resourcing was helpful, Folkers adds, because her accounts payable staff members were eager to get the solution in, having been at the coal face dealing with inadequate paper processes.

“They were experiencing frustration and continual problems which had them feeling like they weren’t on top of the job.”

The project went live after just 4 months.

Results

With Esker, the entire electronic system works seamlessly, eliminating paper in the process. Most importantly, Isaac Construction now enjoys complete visibility across the accounts payable workflow. “If someone rings about their invoice, we can answer immediately because we can see it, when and to whom it’s been submitted, as well as where it is in the process. And once an invoice is in our system, we can track every single one with absolute ease.”

As a cloud solution, alongside a mobile app, Esker also allows AP staff to approve on the go.

The system’s built-in AI is also helping with fraud detection, “We’ve also noticed intelligence in the Esker system. For example, a client’s bank account changed but they didn’t notify us. Esker picked it up, though, and sent an alert so we could verify the legitimacy of the change.”

The visibility and workflow delivered by Esker also ensures Isaac Construction has maintained its reputation with suppliers at its Christchurch and Blenheim operations. “We’ve gone from ‘two and a half’ people focused on accounts payable, down to two. And they now have room to breathe,” says Folkers. She describes the entire project as ‘a pleasure’.

“You don’t hear that about many implementations, but FUJIFILM Process Automation has shown that when you get all the right people in at the start, and you have a clear idea of what needs to be done, an enterprise software project doesn’t have to be a headache.”

“The thoroughness of the preparation, including seeing how all the various systems talk to one another, set the scene for what was the best implementation I’ve ever been involved in.”

Source: This article was originally sourced from FUJIFILM Business Innovation

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AT A GLANCE

• SealesWinslow

INDUSTRY

• Agriculture

BUSINESS OBJECTIVE

• Free up customer service team from order entry tasks
• Simplify temporary seasonal staff roles and training
• Improve service levels

SOLUTION

• Esker Sales Order Management ‘SOM’
• FUJIFILM Business Innovation’s Process Automation team

BUSINESS BENEFITS

• Removed manual data entry, giving the four-person team more than 8 hours back each day
• Orders processed 90% faster during peak periods
• Self-learning AI has improved accuracy and provided agility
• Provided full visibility into order processing analytics

FOR MORE INFORMATION

FUJIFILM Business Innovation
W: FUJIFILM Business Innovation
New Zealand
E: kevin.ptak.pc@fujifilm.com
T: +64 21 275 4321

Providing next-level customer service can be a fine balance between processing orders efficiently and taking time to proactively help customers.

For stockfeed manufacturer SealesWinslow, a subsidiary of Ballance Agri-Nutrients, there is an added challenge of huge seasonal peaks, which see around half of the company’s annual order book filled in just three months. With orders ranging from 20kg bags of feed to 10-tonne truckloads, and specialised ordering for customised stockfeed additives, order processing can get challenging.

A manual order entry process using emailed orders from both merchants and SealesWinslow’s sales reps saw the company’s lean customer service team stretched during peak periods. While temporary Customer Service staff for busy periods helped, the specialised knowledge required meant they could only do so much.

“The time saving has been quite mind-blowing for us.”

Nardia Crosby, Customer Experience & Shared Services Manager at SealesWinslow had a clear vision: “One of our main goals was to get our customer service team away from performing functions and allow them the time to talk to customers, resolve issues and proactively look at what was happening and how it was happening to minimise and remove issues before they happened.”

Solution

The Ballance Agri-Nutrients’ IT team suggested the Esker Sales Order Management platform ‘SOM’, locally delivered by FUJIFILM Business Innovation’s Process Automation team. The suggestion came with a thumbs up for Fujifilm’s reputation and the team’s ability to respond and implement quickly.

“We had a high volume of sales orders in a set format but with very manual processes,” says Crosby.

Fujifilm integrated Esker SOM with SealesWinslow’s ERP system across three manufacturing plants around New Zealand, allowing it to automatically capture information from sales order emails. For the Customer Service team, that meant no more retyping PDFs into sales orders. AI-driven machine learning accurately extracts relevant data and learns common corrections.

Results

Within three weeks of implementing Esker, SealesWinslow’s four-person customer service team was saving more than eight hours a day across the team. Order processing times are now around one fifth of what they were, and urgent orders can be dealt with instantly.

Crosby says the results were impressive. “The time saving has been quite mind-blowing for us. In a funny way, it was a bit unnerving for the team. Suddenly in our busy period, they had flexibility they’d never had before.”

That time saving has seen SealesWinslow step up its outbound calling, getting feedback from customers, and proactively working to minimise and remove any issues before they happen. It’s also enabling training for the team, even during peak periods.

“One of our main goals was to get our customer service team away from performing functions and allow them the time to talk to customers, resolve issues and proactively look at what was happening and how it was happening to minimise and remove issues before they happened,” says Crosby.

Order duplications are flagged by Esker and the way the two systems interact ensures incorrect information can’t be accidentally input. Fujifilm configured the platform to include SealesWinslow’s freight mechanism, ensuring the automation in its ERP for contacting correct carriers for each region wasn’t lost.

Esker’s autolearning abilities have been the key feature for SealesWinslow. The codes that merchant partners use often vary slightly from SealesWinslow’s own codes, and Esker’s AI has quickly picked up the differences.

“I know auto-learning works beautifully because we did a re-coding change in our ERP system, and Esker picked up really fast on those new codes.”

Esker has also helped fill in gaps in the ERP system’s reporting, enabling SealesWinslow to see for the first time how long it takes the team to process an order and how many times they have to verify information with a merchant or their own reps. That’s allowing the company to focus on those areas and provide training where needed to reduce future issues.

SealesWinslow is adding a new permanent member to its customer service team, and Crosby says their training will be considerably easier thanks to Esker.

You have to know a lot before you can be let loose on our main ERP system, which meant training people in the past took longer. With Esker, it’s much simpler. It has made a huge difference in the way we can work and the way we do that work now.

Source: This article was originally sourced from FUJIFILM Business Innovation

FURTHER READING

AT A GLANCE

• Xero

INDUSTRY

• Financial services

BUSINESS OBJECTIVE

• Automate invoices
• Non-finance business users to easily navigate invoices
• A platform to support purchase orders

SOLUTION

• Esker Purchasing & AP Automation

BUSINESS BENEFITS

• Reduced manual data entry through Esker’s automatic matching of invoices against POs
• Faster approval time from several weeks to 3-4 days
• Greater visibility across the finance team through dashboard metrics and reporting

FOR MORE INFORMATION

FUJIFILM Business Innovation
W: FUJIFILM Business Innovation
New Zealand
E: kevin.ptak.pc@fujifilm.com
T: +64 21 275 4321

Background
New Zealand-founded cloud-based accounting software platform Xero knows a thing or two about automation. With more than 2.7 million subscribers, Xero has offices in 18 cities across the globe.

For a business of Xero’s size, it’s not surprising that their AP team were seeking a platform that could not only handle a significant number of vendor invoices but one that would also make it easier for non-finance business users to navigate.

“The platform also needed to support Purchase Orders, and some of the options we initially considered couldn’t do this. But the main thing for us was the automation and its ability to connect back to Netsuite ERP,” says Sam Tsoi, Systems Accountant, Xero.

Solution
After talking to several vendors and an RFP process, Xero confidently selected FUJIFILM Business Innovation to implement Esker Purchasing & AP Automation.

Esker’s ability to support the Finance team in managing Xero’s different subsidiaries was the deciding factor, along with the feature set and convenience of local support.

“We were looking for something user-friendly and intuitive for the end-user. The interface design was quite an important consideration for us.”
Sam Tsoi – Systems Accountant, Xero

Results
The most significant benefit has been Esker’s efficiency in matching invoices against POs. This was previously a manual process, but Esker’s OCR (Optical Character Recognition) automatically converts invoices into searchable data, extracts, and then enters information into the system.

There are other flow-on benefits too. “It’s super easy for invoice approvers to approve an invoice straight from their mobile phone – they don’t even have to log in from their laptop. And of course, faster approval means we’re able to get the invoices paid on time,” explains Antoinetta, Accounts Payable Administrator. “I can easily track what’s happening with a particular invoice, so we’re getting fewer enquiries from suppliers about where payment is or how far along it is.”

Esker has also helped change some of the internal processes across the company. “Before Esker, it was more common to receive an invoice first, and then a PO would have to be raised retroactively. Since implementing Esker, we’re finding that more people are raising a PO initially, and then we’re receiving an invoice to match it.” says Antoinetta.

“It used to be hard to keep up with queries and juggling invoices. With Esker, it’s definitely freed up our time to do other things!”

Esker’s intelligent dashboard has improved visibility within the team. Now they can see the number of invoices coming in, manage, share and track workload. Smart filtering flags important items, such as unmatched invoices or incorrect currencies. “I think we’ve definitely benefited from having something more user-friendly and nicer looking for our business users,” says Sam.

Customised reporting has allowed Xero to build relevant reports for specific business functions, while dashboard metrics ensure the most important data is visible without seeming like ‘information overload’.

Overall, efficiency gains have been significant. The improvements that the Finance team set out to achieve have been met and more. Where previously an invoice would take several weeks to be approved, it’s now just a matter of days, says Antoinetta.

Source: This article was originally sourced from FUJIFILM Business Innovation

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AT A GLANCE

• Comvita

INDUSTRY

• Mānuka honey and bee consumer goods

BUSINESS OBJECTIVE

• Enable remote working
• Faster processing of invoices
• Improved visibility over the procurement cycle and less compliance risk

SOLUTION

• Esker platform
• Fujifilm Process Automation
• Esker Anywhere mobile app

BUSINESS BENEFITS

• Full reporting on requisitions, items purchased, invoices processed, and payments
• Raise POs and pay recurring invoices automatically and electronically without any printing
• Accurate and efficient payments
• Ability to negotiate better rates with future suppliers

FOR MORE INFORMATION

FUJIFILM Business Innovation
W: FUJIFILM Business Innovation
New Zealand
E: kevin.ptak.pc@fujifilm.com
T: +64 21 275 4321

Comvita was founded in 1974, with a purpose to heal and protect the world through the natural power of the hive and is the global market leader in Mānuka honey and bee consumer goods. Their procure-to-pay cycle was being hindered by excessive paperwork.

“Paper costs money, and shifting it around to individual desks takes effort and time,” explains Lisa Blackstock, Comvita’s GM of Finance. “Sometimes invoices would stay on peoples desks, so we’d have a lot of chasing up to do. It was also hard to see which invoices we could pay and which were still waiting for approval, while some invoices required more than one signature, which only magnified the challenge.”

“My team needs more exercise, as they’re no longer running around with pieces of paper!”

Solution
The Fujifilm Process Automation team took a comprehensive and proven approach to implementation, starting with an on-site workshop to understand Comvita’s current processes and identify areas for improvement. This discovery phase informed the proposed solution, which was then built over six weeks. After deploying the software, training was provided, followed by twenty days of support to get the Comvita team comfortable with the new solution.

The Esker platform provided by Fujifilm Process Automation has proven a sweet deal for the company – and a particularly timely one, with the implementation completed just ahead of the COVID-19 lockdown.

Results
Comvita’s executives had no difficulty processing purchase orders and invoices during the lockdown, thanks to the Esker Anywhere mobile app. “The timing of the new solution couldn’t have been better. Quite simply, if we were on the old system, we would have had a major problem,” says Blackstock.

With AI-powered data capture, touchless processing, and digital workflow capabilities, Esker optimises spend requests and goods/services ordering. Every Purchase Requisition is raised and authorised electronically before a Purchase Order is issued. Every transaction is tracked – from purchase request to invoice approval, with full reporting on requisitions, items purchased, invoices processed, and payments made.

Integrating the Esker platform with Comvita’s Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) solution was easy thanks to Esker’s multiple ERP integration capability. Comvita gained further efficiency by having a single unified view across their business.

The net result is that Comvita can raise POs and pay recurring invoices automatically and electronically without printing a single sheet of paper. They have complete visibility of their purchases and payments at any time while also meeting their compliance and anti-fraud obligations.

Blackstock says Fujifilm’s engagement, onboarding, and delivery processes were impressive. “This was promised at the start and delivered in practice. The consultant, for example, remained engaged throughout, helping facilitate the implementation and support us in the initial phase of use.”

The company’s suppliers love the introduction of Esker too. “The accuracy and frequency of payments have improved, and they benefit from the improved visibility our team enjoys over the procurement cycle,” Blackstock confirms.

While it is still ‘early days’ for Esker at Comvita, she says the company is preparing to take full advantage of the visibility and analytics. “We’re working on setting up limits and approval lines as well as better understanding our procurement so we can contract approved suppliers and negotiate better rates.”

In short, Fujifilm Process Automation and Esker has made life better for the finance department, Blackstock says. “There is only one complaint, though, my team needs more exercise, as they’re no longer running around with pieces of paper!”

Source: This article was originally sourced from FUJIFILM Business Innovation

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AT A GLANCE

• Giltrap Group

INDUSTRY

• Transport / Freight
• Imports
• Distribution

BUSINESS OBJECTIVE

• To transform the back-office processes
• Automate the warranty claims process
• Reduce manual work

SOLUTION

• Kofax RPA

BUSINESS BENEFITS

• Robotic processing automation
• Digital transformation
• Operational efficiency

FOR MORE INFORMATION

FUJIFILM Business Innovation
W: FUJIFILM Business Innovation
New Zealand
E: kevin.ptak.pc@fujifilm.com
T: +64 21 275 4321

To continue its fast-paced business growth without sending back-office costs soaring, the Giltrap Group worked with trusted partner Fuji Xerox New Zealand to automate key business processes using Kofax RPA. Today, the group is saving hundreds of person-hours each year – containing costs and liberating employees to focus on more rewarding, value-added work.

Challenge
Through its global import and distribution network, the Giltrap Group brings some of the world’s best-known automotive brands to consumers and businesses across New Zealand. With dealerships specialising in Audi, Volkswagen, Lamborghini, Jaguar Land Rover and more, the group provides an end-to-end customer service, including vehicle repairs, maintenance and financing.

“Our work with Fuji Xerox New Zealand and Kofax RPA is empowering us to create a lean and efficient back office, which will help us to grow the business without sending costs soaring.”

Darren Lee , IT Manager, The Giltrap Group

In recent years, the Giltrap Group has grown significantly, both organically and through acquisition. With manual systems and processes driving each of its businesses, the company realized that operational efficiency would become a significant barrier to continued expansion.

Darren Lee, IT Manager at the Giltrap Group, explains, “To service and repair vehicles for our customers, our dealers need replacement parts from the vehicle manufacturers on a regular basis. In the past, our dealers would submit parts orders to us in our ordering system, and then our back-office employees would re-key that data into the manufacturer’s ordering system. If the work was covered by a warranty, our teams would submit a claim to the manufacturer, and then manually apply the credit back to the dealer – a time-consuming and error-prone processes.”

He continues, “As our business has grown, so has the number of parts we order each month. We realised that further business expansion would require us to onboard new full-time employees simply to handle manual, repetitive data-entry tasks. To avoid those costs and empower our existing teams to focus on higher-value activities, we decided to look for a new approach.”

Solution
Inspired by the latest developments in robotic process automation (RPA), the Giltrap Group engaged Fuji Xerox New Zealand to help streamline its back-office workflows using Kofax RPA.

“Fuji Xerox New Zealand has supported us for several years with document printing, scanning, digitisation and storage, and we consider them a trusted partner,” recalls Darren Lee. “Working with the Fuji Xerox team helped us to define our requirements for a new RPA solution, and evaluate the leading options on the market.

“Our research convinced us that Kofax RPA was the optimal choice for our new software robots. Not only did Kofax have a proven track-record of success in complex automation projects, the Kofax RPA solution was tightly compatible with legacy systems. Some of our systems are green-screen terminals, so support for heritage environments was a must – and the Kofax solution met that requirement perfectly.”

After demonstrating the Kofax solution to key stakeholders across the organisation – including its service managers, warranty administrators and the group’s executive board – the Giltrap Group IT team began harnessing Kofax RPA to transform its back-office processes.

“During the evaluation and proof-of-concept phase, we gathered dozens of potential automation use cases from across the business,” says Darren Lee. “We felt that the parts processing workflow for our Jaguar Land Rover business was the ideal testbed for automation.”

In the past, a member of the Giltrap Group back-office team would complete back-orders sent by Jaguar Land Rover dealerships by adding the correct stock replenishment parts. The result was a long list of part numbers, which had to be submitted to Jaguar Land Rover in the UK. Each part number and quantity had to be painstakingly entered into Jaguar Land Rover’s web portal, one at a time.

Because the web portal lacked a save option and would time out quickly if left idle during the data-entry process, the employee had to key every part number into the Jaguar Land Rover system in a single session. On some days, the data-entry process could take as long as two hours to complete.

“No one comes into work in the morning excited to do data entry, and our goal is to use Kofax RPA to liberate our people to learn new skills, focus on value added work and deliver greater value to our customers.”

Darren Lee , IT Manager, The Giltrap Group

“Using Kofax RPA, we’ve designed a robot that automates the tedious and repetitive aspects of the parts ordering workflow, while allowing our employee to apply his expertise to the process,” explains Darren Lee. “Today, our employee reviews and creates each order in our internal system. He formats a file containing the correct part numbers and quantities and submits the order to the Jaguar Land Rover portal using hotkey scripts.”

Results
By partnering with Fuji Xerox New Zealand to deploy Kofax RPA, the Giltrap Group is racing toward its efficiency goal.

“On average, the parts ordering process for our Jaguar Land Rover business took our back-office employee around 45 minutes per day, and occasionally as long as two hours,” comments Darren Lee. “Thanks to Kofax RPA, we’ve slashed the time down to just seven minutes per day – an average of 84 percent faster. Better still, we’ve eliminated the risk of human error, which helps to ensure that our dealers can service vehicles for our customers in a timely manner.”

Inspired by the success of its first automation use case, the Giltrap Group has harnessed Kofax RPA to enhance its back-office processes in its Porsche business.

Ehrin Wardlow, Service Support Manager at Porsche New Zealand, explains, “Each month, we receive around 400 warranty claims from our Porsche dealers, which we pass through to the manufacturer and then credit back to the dealers. Each of these claims can involve anything from one to 200 components, which must be submitted to Porsche for processing.”

He continues, “In the past, manually re-keying this data took me between two to four hours a day, which was a significant distraction from the key value of my role: supporting and upskilling our dealership partners. By working together with Fuji Xerox New Zealand, we’ve now launched an advanced software robot that drives the process automatically, with only a minor amount of human supervision.”

Each morning, Kofax RPA builds a list of dealership claims from the previous day, and then automatically reconciles each claim with the associated invoice in the company’s accounting system. Next, the back-office team validates that the data in the file matches the information in the accounting system, and then issues the credit note to the dealer.

“If we wanted to, we could automate the entire warranty claims process from end-to-end, but we chose to keep a final human review stage in the workflow as an additional check and balance,” adds Ehrin Wardlow. “In the past, the warranty claims process could consume half of my working day, but now I can finish in half an hour or less – around 87 percent faster than before. Recently, we took the robot offline for a month to reconfigure it for some changes that Porsche made to its website. The robot processed 30 days of claims in just 24 hours – a workload that would have taken a human half a month of full-time work to complete.”

“In the past, the warranty claims process could consume half of my working day, but now I can finish in half an hour or less—around 87 percent faster than before.”

Ehrin Wardlow, Service Support Manager, Porsche New Zealand

Looking ahead, the Giltrap Group plans to continue its automation journey. The company is currently working with Fuji Xerox New Zealand to streamline the process of capturing and filing photos of vehicles taken as part of the servicing process and predicts that the Kofax RPA solution will help it accelerate back-office tasks further still.

“No one comes into work in the morning excited to do data entry, and our goal is to use Kofax RPA to liberate our people to learn new skills, focus on value-added work and deliver greater value to our customers,” concludes Darren Lee. “Our work with Fuji Xerox New Zealand and Kofax RPA is empowering us to create a lean and efficient back office, which will help us to grow the business without sending costs soaring.”
Source: This article was originally sourced from FUJIFILM Business Innovation

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AT A GLANCE

• Lifetime Group Limited

INDUSTRY

• Financial services

BUSINESS OBJECTIVE

• Required an innovative solution that will not only make the investment reporting process more efficient but will also allow staff to perform more cognitively
• To achieve an in-house capability known as a Robotic Centre of Excellence (RCE) where Lifetime Group’s team will be able to scope a process for suitability, design the corresponding robot and maintain that robot
• A simple electronic process that will eliminate ‘swivel-chair integration’ from the business

SOLUTION

• Kofax RPA software. The solution includes cognitive capture, process orchestration, mobility and analytics which mitigate compliance risk and increase competitiveness by freeing staff to focus on activities that add value rather than data processing.

BUSINESS BENEFITS

• Out of five robots, one robot has saved 15 hours, and another has saved two weeks of manual work
• Data-cleansing exercise which required a person to spend over seven hours poring over a massive spreadsheet is now executed in 30 minutes, error free
• Stitching together information for client portals, which once took several hours, is delivered in three minutes

FOR MORE INFORMATION

FUJIFILM Business Innovation
W: FUJIFILM Business Innovation
New Zealand
E: kevin.ptak.pc@fujifilm.com
T: +64 21 275 4321

With senior staff members spending an inordinate amount of time extracting and checking reams of data, financial services company Lifetime Group Limited (Lifetime) turned to FUJIFILM Business Innovation for a Robotic Process Automation solution.

Situation
When Lifetime merged with Camelot NZ Limited (Camelot) in 2018, the combined group had over 100,000 clients across New Zealand accessing services including life and health insurance, mortgages and business lending. “The size of the business basically doubled overnight and we realised that time-intensive manual jobs would just get worse,” says Lucie Moloney-Geany, Lifetime Projects Coordinator. “At the same time, even as a bigger organisation we knew we had to retain the personal relationships we have with customers as a fundamental differentiator.”

Those manual jobs, she explains, included the extraction and presentation of detailed information into personalised customer portals. “The portals support growth as they provide individuals with information specific to their portfolio, but the rollout was limited as the information required manual accuracy checks. As a result, while we knew the portal provided great value to clients, it was expensive.”

“The time saving is staggering. And remember, the work the robots are doing is unpleasant. None of our team enjoyed it.”

Aware of the emergence of software automation tools, Lucie says Lifetime has maintained a watching brief in the two years since the Camelot merger. “We kept an eye on the market while also working to fully understand our own requirements,” she explains.

“We realised merely deploying robots to meet the initial requirement would be a tactical rather than strategic response. Instead, a Robotic Centre of Excellence would mean solving the immediate problem, and then achieving the capability to do more as further use cases emerged.”

Solution
FUJIFILM Business Innovation emerged as the preferred supplier of a suitable solution, using Kofax RPA software.

“Market analysis showed us what other businesses in the financial services industry are using and what stood out for Lifetime was the approach from Fuji Xerox which would put the tools in our hands so we can develop internal skills and self-build robots, meeting existing needs and any new ones”, says Lucie.

FUJIFILM Business Innovation delivered a ‘no-code’ intelligent RPA automation platform which addresses information-intensive business processes. Software robots are designed by line-of-business workers or business analysts without the need for software programmers; the robots reduce manual work and eliminate errors particularly in processes which require data entry from one system to another.

The solution includes cognitive capture, process orchestration, mobility and analytics which mitigate compliance risk and increase competitiveness by freeing staff to focus on activities that add value rather than data processing.

Delivering the solution in the first weeks of the COVID-19 lockdown was a revelation: largely conducted through video conferencing, installing the software, and building the first robot took little more than five days. Within two weeks, the first four robots were in production.

“It was sensational. Going remote meant a few spanners in the works and some of what we’d set up technically had to change at the last minute, but in terms of getting the RPA solution installed and working, it just happened,” confirms Lucie.

She has praise for the technical and support teams of FUJIFILM Business Innovation, which rapidly pivoted for the solution delivery.

“The remote training was essential to the success of this initiative. There were reservations about how well this would work through screens rather than in person, but the end result is we are up and running and we now also have a library of recorded sessions we can refer to at any time as our Robotic Centre of Excellence gears up.”

Results
Seeing the robots in action for the first time was, Lucie says, nothing short of thrilling. “We were so excited as we knew we had solved the problem and had taken the time to be sure we had implemented the right thing. Seeing the first reports uploading and watching the robot creating them was genuinely exciting.”

The robots are in production and have completed the first run of reports for Lifetime with outstanding results. “Owing to compliance overheads, we have tight deadlines in which to run certain reports [from which data is subsequently loaded into customer portals].

“Right now, we have five robots; one robot has saved 15 hours, and another has saved two weeks of manual work that we just don’t have to do any longer,” Lucie explains.

Another data-cleansing exercise which required a person to spend over seven hours pouring over a massive spreadsheet is now executed in just 30 minutes, error free. ‘Stitching together’ information for client portals, which once took several hours, is perfectly delivered in three minutes.

“The time saving is staggering. And remember, the work the robots are doing is unpleasant. None of our team enjoyed it, notes Lucie.”

“Our initial experience shows that there are many areas where we can create further value,” explains Lucie, noting the RCE team includes individuals from marketing, operations and more. “Our team is closest to understanding where and how RPA can address tasks which take time and can be done better by a robot.”

Even as Lifetime moves into the next phase of its RPA journey, she has advice for any business looking at solutions of this nature.

“Start simple and gain confidence. Use internal processes to get used to what the robots are and what they can do. While there isn’t any programming, there is a lot to learn and you must be very detail focused. But getting it right means relieving people of tedious work on the one hand – and getting it done faster and accurately, on the other.”

Source: This article was originally sourced from FUJIFILM Business Innovation

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AT A GLANCE

• FarmRight

INDUSTRY

• Agriculture

BUSINESS OBJECTIVE

• Find a solution to solve the tedious, time consuming, paper-bound problem with AP process
• Streamline and automate current manual AP process to improve business efficiency and capacity without adding more resources
• Eliminate the need to handle paper invoices

SOLUTION

• Esker Accounts Payable automation solution that integrates with FarmRight MicrosoftDynamics GP 2015

BUSINESS BENEFITS

• Improvement in productivity and efficiency
• Approvals are now done in micro-moments through the day using the mobile app
• Dramatic reduction in paperwork
• Greater visibility and reporting on the AP function
• Boost to finance governance measures

FOR MORE INFORMATION

FUJIFILM Business Innovation
W: FUJIFILM Business Innovation
New Zealand
E: kevin.ptak.pc@fujifilm.com
T: +64 21 275 4321

With more than 60 farms under its control across New Zealand and in Australia, a specialised provider of third-party management services has looked to Fuji Xerox New Zealand and the Esker software solution for Accounts Payable(AP) automation.

Thanks to an on-time, on-budget project delivery, FarmRight today enjoys improved visibility, faster processing and a smaller AP team.

Established in August 2000, FarmRight provides expertise to equity partnerships, corporate ownership and large-scale family holdings in the dairy, beef and horticulture farming industry. The business has expanded from the original three managed farms to more than 60, including several in Australia.

It promised to quite literally put AP in your pocket.

The company focuses on providing a full range of investment and management solutions to well governed, long term investors. This includes investors in portfolios of farms as well as traditional equity partnerships. With staff located throughout New Zealand, FarmRight maintains offices in Lumsden, Christchurch and Te Awamutu.

Situation
Chief Financial Officer Mark Paul says each of the properties under management by FarmRight operates as a separate entity. “Our farm managers look after all aspects of every property, and that includes procurement and approval of Accounts Payable.”

He gives an idea of the scale of the AP function: “We handle up to 3,500 invoices each month, with a spend running into the millions.”

On the farms, goods and services are procured in the normal operation of the enterprise. Until Fuji Xerox got involved, this was a largely manual process, with paper invoices sent through to a central AP team. “The farmers would typically set aside a day each month for the invoice approval activity. Then, we had a team of 7 in the wider administration team who would enter all these invoices into the financial system, send to farm managers for approval and schedule payments,” says Mark.

As a growing business, with more farms steadily being added to its portfolio, FarmRight was starting to drown in the paperwork. “Paper was a real problem. Invoices would come in, be printed and placed in a pigeonhole. An AP clerk would bring it out, enter the data, then scan the invoice which would go into a transaction list for approval by the farm manager – there was a lot of double and triple handling,” Mark explains.

“That meant that we could not achieve any ‘scalability’. Clients are buying more farms and we reached a point where we’d have to grow the admin team, or find a better way of handling AP,” Mark notes.

Solution
While AP automation had come to Mark’s attention several years ago, the systems he saw then were just not very good. “However, technology changes all the time and we knew we needed to think about doing things differently. That meant taking another look at the market and hoping that a level of maturity had come into this particular technology.”

A Request for Information resulted in six proposals, which FarmRight rapidly narrowed down to two serious contenders. Fuji Xerox and Esker, says Mark, stood out owing to a proven track record with several local successful implementations, and demonstrable functionality and ease for users. “Any change you’re going to introduce becomes far easier if the users see the purpose and if it helps them get their jobs done better,” he notes.

“What stood out about the Esker solution is that it promised to quite literally put AP in your pocket, with a mobile app. That really impressed everyone, from the board down. And we wanted something which would work for the tech savvy just as well as it would work for those who are not.”

With the decision made, he says implementation of the Esker solution is surprisingly straightforward. “That’s partially owing to the expertise of the FUJIFILM Business Innovation team and partially owing to the software itself. Esker is very configurable, which meant it was easy to adapt to our needs.”

Mark says FarmRight wanted a few extra layers of control over the standard solution, and also sought tight integration with its Microsoft Dynamics financials. “This probably took more time than anything else, so I would advise anyone not to underestimate this aspect. But it does make for ‘full automation’, so things flow right through from AP to the system from which the payments are actually made.”

The deployment was completed within four months, Mark adds, with the company timing its introduction with its payment cycle.

Results
His focus on the users of the solution has borne immediate fruit: Mark says farm managers have welcomed Esker AP automation. “Reception has been very positive from the start, and that actually commenced well before the rollout, with various communiques that this was coming.”

In effect, he says FarmRight’s people widely recognised that AP was a problem – a tedious, time consuming, paper-bound problem. “It was one of those ‘roll your eyes and sigh’ jobs every month.”

Now, handling payments is a breeze. With Esker, invoices are received electronically (generally via email) and placed into a workflow, where they are coded and approved for payment. Mark says this is done in micro-moments through the day using the mobile app. “Most of our farmers handle their approvals at breakfast after the morning milking. It’s just made so easy for them.”

The administration team has also seen a dramatic reduction in paperwork. “This was always about efficiency for us, and the team is a lot happier as Esker lets them focus on more pressing issues. We’ve also seen a reduction in the cost per transaction and have immediately been able to move one team member into the accounting team, and another has gone on maternity leave.

In effect, we have a smaller AP team able to handle the volume without issue,”Mark notes.

With greater visibility and reporting on the AP function, FarmRight is able to delegate authority with confidence, while receiving a boost to its governance measures.

He says the Board is pleased, with an on-time and on-budget enterprise IT project also delivering the anticipated results.

There’s more to it than simply dollars, though. “Relieving your people of an unpleasant task is probably the most valuable benefit of all,” he concludes.

Source: This article was originally sourced from FUJIFILM Business Innovation

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AT A GLANCE

• Giltrap Porsche

INDUSTRY

• Automotive

BUSINESS OBJECTIVE

• To revolutionise service documentation and set a precedent for eliminating paper within the wider Giltrap Group
• Reduce the time it takes to search and retrieve service records during customer inquiries and audit

SOLUTION

• Implemented DocuShare Flex, a web-based content management platform with user-driven workflows that are scalable to match changing business requirements. It is built to integrate with existing business systems, and flexible enough to extend into other departments.
• DocuShare Flex allows Giltrap Porsche users to view all videos, photographs and service records in one location versus having to access the information in four different systems.

BUSINESS BENEFITS

• Dramatically reduced the amount of time taken to search and retrieve service records from hours to minutes
• Improve customer service as Service Advisors can immediately view the service record and respond to customers’ inquiries
• Reduce manual filing and physical space needed to store documents

FOR MORE INFORMATION

FUJIFILM Business Innovation
W: FUJIFILM Business Innovation
New Zealand
E: kevin.ptak.pc@fujifilm.com
T: +64 21 275 4321

With its Service Department drowning in paperwork, Giltrap Porsche looked to Fuji Xerox New Zealand and its DocuShare Flex cloud document management solution for digital answers. In an implementation taking just weeks, paper-based service records were converted into electronic documents stored online. As a result, Giltrap Porsche has revolutionised service documentation and set a precedent for eliminating paper within the wider Giltrap Group.

Giltrap Porsche specialises in NZ-new and used Porsche motor vehicles. The company houses the country’s leading Porsche Service workshop, offering factory trained technicians and genuine parts to back the premium vehicle brand. The company is a division of the Giltrap Group which represents 17 of the most desirable automotive brands in 12 dealerships across Auckland.

“It’s just a better way to work and a step into the 21st century.”

“With centralised information, finding everything needed is fast and simple. We no longer have to pay someone to file documents. And audit compliance is straightforward, and the system is accepted as best practice by the vehicle manufacturer. It’s just a better way to work and a step into the 21st century.” says Markus Tsoumas, General Manager Giltrap Porsche

Situation
The general manager at Giltrap Porsche Markus Tsoumas says a digital solution was necessary given the increasing liability placed on motor vehicle repairers. “We’ve focused on a dramatic improvement on documentation, with very accurate records of vehicles, what is done by whom, and when. This is necessary for many reasons, not least to avoid any misunderstandings or disagreements with customers over whether or not damage or losses occur while their vehicle is in our possession.”

What that translates to in practice is the collection and storage of a considerable quantity of information for every service engagement. “We record a video of every car which comes in, we capture the Warrant of Fitness and Registration details, tyre size and tread, odometer reading, and record any imperfections or damage. This is evidence just in case a customer comes back and says we’ve caused a problem – and those comebacks can happen a lot,” Tsoumas explains given the number of vehicles we are now seeing.

Around 20 vehicles pass through our service department per day, each with a paper service record running to between five and 10 pages, along with a video file of the vehicle arriving into the service area and a series of photographs.

Additionally, technicians write up any issues discovered during the service in detail; this is presented to the customer who approves the repairs, and then all parts and consumables are recorded and entered into the Giltrap Dealer Management System (Dealer-Pro) and also into Porsche AG’s systems. The video and pictures would go into a Windows file server and, finally, the physical paper service documents are stored the old-fashioned way: in a box in numerical order in the records room.

Tsoumas adds that these paper and video records would quite frequently be called upon, sometimes months or even years after the fact. “For example, if a vehicle comes in without a logbook, the technician would write that fact down on the back of the repair order; the logbook obviously can’t be stamped. Then, much later, you get a customer coming back saying ‘you lost my logbook’. We’d then need to get into the records room and find the proof.”

There is one more high-pressure situation where the records are required: each year, Porsche AG audits Giltrap Porsche with a particular focus on warranty claims which are charged back to the vehicle manufacturer. “The auditors would identify a random sample of 100 files; we’d then have to go to the records room and dig them out. And that can take hours and hours,” Tsoumas notes.

Solution
Having previously worked with Fuji Xerox Enterprise Consulting for the automation of its accounts payable systems, the Giltrap Group called on the solution provider’s proven expertise to digitise its service records. The Fuji Xerox team proposed DocuShare Flex, a cloud-based document management solution that provides the Giltrap Porsche service department with a complete data retention and access system.

DocuShare Flex is a web-based content management platform with user-driven workflows that’s scalable to match changing business requirements. It’s built to integrate with existing business systems, and flexible enough to extend into other departments – which, in Giltrap’s case, is likely to soon prove useful.

Tsoumas says the implementation of DocuShare Flex took place over several months, but only involved around one week’s worth of targeted work. “We had a relocation at the same time and we’re generally very busy; making the change from paper-based to an online electronic system also required some changes to our business processes, including the introduction of a desk-side scanner for each of our service advisors. That said, it isn’t a big change in how our people work; instead of dropping the day’s service records into a filing tray, they now get scanned straight into the cloud.”

Initially, he notes, the company is running the old system in parallel with the new. “That’s just to be sure we really don’t need the paper documents while we iron out any teething problems with the new system. But ultimately, we’re looking forward to not having to store tonnes of paper.”

Results
Electronic document storage immediately alleviates the overhead of manual filing and retrieval, something Tsoumas says consumes two days’ worth of time every week. “Now, if we need a record, we just punch in the number plate or job number or customer name and everything we need is right there at our fingertips.”

DocuShare Flex is also a single source of information which was previously stored in four different systems; it includes the videos, photographs and service records in one location. When a customer requests evidence of repair or other details, a response is given immediately on the phone, followed by a screenshot by email if required. “This means a direct boost to our customer service. There’s an indirect boost too, because we no longer need to waste time ferreting around in the file room,” Tsoumas adds.

The last time Porsche AG did its audit, Tsoumas and his assistant spent over four hours finding the required records; he now looks forward to the next audit. “It’ll take 5 minutes, maximum. In fact, we can give the auditors access to the system and they can pull the sample themselves, along with any other records they might like to consider.”

Perhaps most importantly, the exercise has served as a proof-of-concept which can be rolled out to the wider Giltrap Group. “We’re a small cog in the bigger Giltrap machine. When we introduce this solution groupwide, we’ll really see a big reduction in paperwork and the physical space needed to store documents,” says Tsoumas.

Digitising with Fuji Xerox New Zealand is delivering efficiency, ease of information access and immediacy. “With centralised information, finding everything needed is fast and simple. We no longer have to pay someone to file documents. And audit compliance is straightforward, and the system is accepted as best practice by the vehicle manufacturer. It’s just a better way to work and a step into the 21^st century,” Tsoumas concludes.

Source: This article was originally sourced from FUJIFILM Business Innovation

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AT A GLANCE

• Trustpower

INDUSTRY

• Utilities

BUSINESS OBJECTIVE

• Improve efficiency by eliminating multiple manual data inputs

SOLUTION

• Kofax robotic process automation toolset, implemented by Fuji Xerox New Zealand

BUSINESS BENEFITS

• Applications processing increase from tens to thousands of applications in the same amount of time
• Substantial and sustained time savings
• Employees equipped with a toolset for automation

FOR MORE INFORMATION

FUJIFILM Business Innovation
W: FUJIFILM Business Innovation
New Zealand
E: kevin.ptak.pc@fujifilm.com
T: +64 21 275 4321

One of New Zealand’s most innovative energy and telecommunications providers has taken further steps towards business efficiency by introducing Robotic Process Automation. One of the recent steps Trustpower has taken towards the space age ways of working is the introduction of Kofax Kapow, which easily automates repetitive, time-consuming tasks and substantially accelerates the pace of business.

Technology is part of the reason why Trustpower is outperforming its rivals. The company was recently named the top Home Broadband Service Provider in the country and was voted top Home Phone Provider for the past four consecutive years in the annual Roy Morgan Customer Satisfaction Survey. It even won recognition from Netflix, for ten months running which rated Trustpower number one for New Zealand in its telecommunications provider monthly speed index.

“That generally means you now have two or more people incredibly bored with the work they’re doing,”

Trustpower Limited is a New Zealand stock exchange-listed utilities company, which operates in electricity generation, retail and as a telecommunications provider. Trustpower is New Zealand’s fifth largest electricity generator and the fourth largest electricity retailer, with around 280,000 electricity customer connections, 33,000 gas customer connections, and 90,000 telecommunications customer connections.

[CONTINUES BELOW]

Situation
Trustpower and FUJIFILM Business Innovation have worked together on multiple business process automation initiatives for many years. Alice Thomson (Head of Delivery at Trustpower), played a central role in modernising work practices at the company by initiating a ‘Paper Intelligence’ project to reduce dependence on printed materials as part of the businesses shift to activity based working when they relocated the Tauranga head office. Since this there has been further changes across the business to look at how both back-end and customer-facing processes can be streamlined.

Trustpower’s approach is process efficiency. “Whenever you have consistent, repetitive, mind-numbing tasks where people are doing little more than copying and pasting from one application to another or doing data transfers without doing anything with the data, you just know things could be done better and faster, using technology,” she says.

Traditional fixes for tasks of this kind is to bring in and train-up another person to help. “That generally means you now have two or more people incredibly bored with the work they’re doing,” says Thomson.

Solution
RPA software is easily programmed by business users to do repetitive tasks across applications just as people do – tasks often described as ‘data entry.’ It incorporates artificial intelligence and machine learning to handle high-volume, repeatable tasks previously handled by human workers. These tasks can include queries, calculations, and maintenance of records and transactions.

“Once we’d seen RPA in action, we realised it can have a huge impact on business today,” says Thomson. The first business process to get the RPA treatment was in Trustpower’s relatively new telecommunications business. “A telecommunications provider is different to provisioning electricity in that you need to work with a third party, for example Chorus, to get new customers connected,” says Thomson. “Like many other telecommunications providers, we started out doing things manually, with people spending a lot of time copying and pasting, screen scraping, just transferring data. The kind of thing sometimes called ‘swivel chair integration.”

By training a software robot to collect the set of information in Trustpower’s system which is required by the third party to get an internet customer’s line connected, that tedious work immediately fell away.

Results
On just this one process, which served as a test case for the rest of the business, Thomson says processing capability went from tens to thousands of applications in the same amount of time. It is an order of magnitude which she says immediately confirms the power of RPA for any business which performs notable amounts of simple data processing.

“With the growth in customer numbers in our telecommunications business, there’s just no way we would have kept up without RPA. And when you have this key process automated, your team’s work gets more efficient; people are no longer sitting around doing work which adds no value.”

In short, RPA works – and it works well. “One of the advantages of Kapow is that it is a toolset which can be used by the people who know their job best. Once they are aware of what it does and how to use it, they very quickly find the situations where a robot can take care of specific tasks,” Thomson adds.

The major benefit of RPA is time saved – and that time typically goes straight back to people who have far better things to do.

While it is early days, Thomson says across the business, people are starting to realise that when faced with repetitive tasks, there’s no need to hire someone, but instead to look to robot to do it. “This is about being able to do it quickly, without having to get a new individual trained up.”

In fact, RPA works so well that Thomson says it is necessary to introduce a governance layer to manage the rollout of robots in the organisation. “Because you don’t need a developer or programmer to set it up, we’ve run into a different sort of issue with robots popping up all over the place. Now, we need to make sure we are aware of what’s going on in order to avoid duplication of effort.”

Trustpower’s response is to work on transparency (everyone who automates a process is required to let a central team know about it) while providing guidance with best practice and recommendations to those applying RPA within their business units. “It’s a balance between enabling and empowering while maintaining overall visibility of what’s going on,” says Thomson.

While she puts the maturity of the deployment at an early stage (there are around 10 or more processes which have successfully been automated), Thomson says the scene is set for RPA to continue transforming the way Trustpower runs its operations. “As we continue to establish more robust guidelines and processes around when and why new robots are being created, and as we spread knowledge within the business, the expectation is that RPA will continue to grow,” she concludes.

Source: This article was originally sourced from FUJIFILM Business Innovation

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AT A GLANCE

• Finance Now

INDUSTRY

• Financial services

BUSINESS OBJECTIVE

• Accelerate loan document processing by eliminating multiple manual data inputs
• Improve compliance

SOLUTION

• Kofax TotalAgility workflow automation toolset implemented by FUJIFILM Business Innovation

BUSINESS BENEFITS

• Simplification and automation of loans applications process
• Compliance assurance by eliminating ‘information gaps’
• Improved information accuracy
• Elimination of tedious manual information sorting
• Acceleration of key business processes

FOR MORE INFORMATION

FUJIFILM Business Innovation
W: FUJIFILM Business Innovation
New Zealand
E: kevin.ptak.pc@fujifilm.com
T: +64 21 275 4321

A rapidly expanding finance company has eased some of its growing pains by digitising lending processes with the help of FUJIFILM Business Innovation. Thanks to digitisation, Finance Now has significantly expanded its business without having to add extra administrative staff at the same rate. It is assured better compliance and enjoys a competitive edge by responding to customer applications ‘now’.

Founded in 2000, Finance Now provides a range of financial products and services including personal loans, car finance, credit cards and business solutions. The company has consistently grown over the years both organically and through acquisitions and has served over 420,000 Kiwis in the process.

“If you’re not compliant, it means big risk and big regulatory exposure. With this system, that risk is significantly reduced.”

Situation
Traditional back-end loan reviews, audit procedures and approval processes are highly paper-intensive and require extensive manual intervention. Careful management of this paperwork is essential for regulatory compliance and internal governance, explains Finance Now co-founder and CEO Phil Ellison. “The traditional way of doing applications involved literal paper – we used to get everything in the post – and then we started moving on to scanned emailed or faxed documents which would be printed and assembled into a manila folder,” he says. Digitally transformed: Finance Now partners with Fuji Xerox to streamline consumer lending processes Additionally, the loans approval process requires the applicant to provide a great deal of personal information – resulting in a high number of documents being submitted, collated and checked.

Once the loans are approved, the entire folder containing the customer’s documentation was retained in paper form, making it time consuming to retrieve and reference in future.

In addition to taking time, these processes can be error-prone and depend on the diligence of individuals, some of whom aren’t employees of Finance Now or familiar with our processes, as Ellison points out. “Some of the finance solutions we offer are provided by intermediaries in the retail market for people buying televisions and appliances, or through motor dealers in the case of vehicle finance.”

This can result in processing delays, as applications were regularly submitted without all the necessary documentation, thereby inconveniencing customers and affecting the speed of Finance Now’s delivery.

“Even with some digitisation in the form of emailed documents, the administrative overhead was substantial,” says Ellison. “A lot of time would be spent finding and receipting paperwork, classifying it, and storing it for future reference.”

It was, he notes, a process ripe for improvement and digitisation.

Solution
While it enjoyed an existing relationship with FUJIFILM Business Innovation, Finance Now opted to test the market to be sure of getting the best solution for their process automation requirement. “One thing we were firm on is that we wanted a local provider. With the level of detail involved in this process, having a New Zealand company’s knowledge and expertise was essential,” says Ellison.

Two proposed solutions made the shortlist, both of which used Kofax TotalAgility workflow automation software as a core component. FUJIFILM Business Innovation focused on exposing the issues related to Finance Now’s manual back-office processing of loan documents; “What won it for FUJIFILM Business Innovation was their knowledge of the business and the application process,” Ellison says.

The six-month implementation phase largely concerned itself with process mapping to fully understand how applications for finance moved through the company. “It took some time to look at every aspect, including the type of files sent on email – you get every kind of attachment – the size and quality of documents received which could be ingested into the system, and to understand precisely what the Kofax engine can and can’t do in reality, as opposed to on the drawing board,” notes Ellison.

He has praise for the FUJIFILM Business Innovation team, explaining that as the inevitable issues associated with a complex enterprise software project occurred, they were addressed in ‘a mature, solution-based way’.

Results
With the implementation of the Streamlined Lending Processing solution, Finance Now enjoys multiple benefits which can be summed up as ‘faster, more accurate and lower cost application handling’. The solution provides multichannel capture, automatically classifying and enhancing the image of the documents submitted by fax and email.

Data extraction and transformation is automated, with intelligent optical capture recognition eliminating manual keying, while Dynamic Case Management enables smart application processing that adDpts to requirements of each application depending on criteria including lending type, SLAs, stage in the process, and more.

The system also enforces a workflow, so all the right steps are followed in the right sequence before a loan is approved or purchased, assuring better compliance with policy and procedures.

It’s proven to be flexible, too. “Since it started working around three years ago, we’ve acquired multiple companies and expanded the business from consumer goods and personal finance towards motor vehicle finance, and processing it all through the same system,” says Ellison.

The benefits extend to Finance Now’s intermediaries, because if finance isn’t granted or if there are delays, those intermediaries don’t get paid, which can adversely impact the end consumer. “Our processing is so much faster that we can process contracts later into the day, right up to the last minute. And we have higher accuracy for compliance purposes, along with auditability which comes with a system that allows you to easily see who has touched each contract,” Ellison adds.

The electronic nature of the system also means the performance of employees is easily measured and when documents need to be reviewed for any reason, finding them is far easier than dealing with paper or other record management processes.

Looking ahead, Ellison says Streamlined Lending Processing is evolving with the business. “We’re looking forward to enhanced classification for JPEGs and other non-PDF files, so there will be even less manual intervention, and we’re working on a customer user experience piece to confidently send automated email or TXTs to prompt them for any missing documents. We are also looking to extend the solution to our credit card and business finance lines.”

Summing up the value of the Streamlined Lending Processing solution, Ellison again stresses the assurance of compliance as an overwhelming advantage, above even processing speed. “Compliance is a crucial component. If you’re not compliant, it means big risk and big regulatory exposure. With this system, that risk is significantly reduced.”

Source: This article was originally sourced from FUJIFILM Business Innovation

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AT A GLANCE

• Victoria University of Wellington

INDUSTRY

• Education

BUSINESS OBJECTIVE

• A reliable, issue-free, print-on-demand environment for students and faculty
• Eliminate the burden of support on the University’s ITS department
• Simple pricing model which includes peripherals and support
• Consolidated, centralised print room facilities
• Secure examination paper printing
• Guaranteed uptime

SOLUTION

• Full managed, campus-wide fleet of MFDs and desktop printers
• Follow-me print and cost recovery software
• Support and automated replenishment of peripherals
• Two fully equipped and managed print rooms
• Streamlined production, collation and delivery of exam papers

BUSINESS BENEFITS

• Consistent, trouble-free print and maximum uptime
• Guaranteed print turnaround
• Minimal burden on busy ITS team

FOR MORE INFORMATION

FUJIFILM Business Innovation
W: FUJIFILM Business Innovation
New Zealand
E: kevin.ptak.pc@fujifilm.com
T: +64 21 275 4321

Victoria University of Wellington was founded in 1897 and is one of New Zealand’s oldest and most prestigious tertiary institutions.

In 2008, the University had reached the stage where the lack of reliability of their print devices was frustrating both students and staff. The fleet was old and run down, and devices subject to frequent breakdowns, prompting the University to request tenders for a new, reliable solution.

Over the last 10 years, Fuji Xerox and Victoria University of Wellington had enjoyed a strong and long-standing partnership, made possible by delivery of a consistent and reliable level of service which keeps the busy University printing, day in, day out.

Keeping the campus printing
Fuji Xerox New Zealand was awarded the contract, and has provided a range of print services for the University ever since, including multi-functional print devices (MFDs) for staff and students, and more recently desktop printers for staff.

“Delivery of a consistent and reliable level of service keeps the busy University printing, day in, day out.”

A number of devices come with Equitrac ‘follow-me’ print functionality to minimise wasted paper and maintain security. Students and staff send files to the printer of their choice directly from their desktop or mobile device and collect their job from that printer by swiping their ID card. Cost-recovery software means the University captures printing expenses by department and by student. Students can top up their available printing credits online using PayPal, or by using EFTPOS at Fuji Xerox kiosks located on campus.

Two on-site Fuji Xerox DocuCare staff manage calls about devices. They are a familiar sight around campus, traversing the vast grounds on motor scooters to restock the MFDs with paper and consumables.

Issue free, smooth printing for all
Any print queries or issues logged with the University’s helpdesk are automatically forwarded to Fuji Xerox support staff, who promptly sort the issue out and respond appropriately. This process places minimal workload on the shoulders of the University’s busy ITS department.

The ITS department was so impressed that three years ago they moved all of their printing devices over to the FUJIFILM Business Innovation contract. After years of buying their own printers and supplies and organising maintenance, the simplicity of the all inclusive Fuji Xerox cost-per-page model has proved to be a breath of fresh air.

FUJIFILM Business Innovation upgrades the University’s MFD fleet every few years. No device is more than 5 years old and there are minimal instances of breakdowns.

Professional print rooms
FUJIFILM also set up and manages a print room at the Cotton Building, the home of the University’s School of Engineering and Computer Science, as well as a tertiary print hub in Wellington’s Jarden Mile. These two professional print facilities replaced multiple onsite print rooms, and collectively print an average of 294,000 pages of University-generated material a month.

The decision to consolidate print facilities reflects the University’s decreasing print volumes. The design of their print system is based on service, not location. With a firm commitment to delivering within a set time-frame, there’s simply no need for on-site print facilities.

The Cotton Building facility is equipped with a FUJIFILM Versant 80 Press and a 3D Systems ProJet 3D printer. Staffed by one full-time operator, the print room offers a next day turnaround, handling smaller jobs requiring less finishing, and 3D print projects.

The busy Jarden Mile off-site tertiary print hub is equipped with a Fuji Xerox Color 1000 digital press, a Versant 80 Press, two Xerox 4127 black and white production copiers, and a range of print finishing devices. Collateral produced here includes student course books, exam papers, University publications and business cards. The hub also provides print services to W2 (Wellington Institute of Technology and Whitireia Community Polytechnic).

Exam papers
Every trimester Victoria University of Wellington conducts around 300 different exams. Naturally, the preparation, production and final distribution of the exam papers to each department is done under tight security.

After the company who had been printing the University’s exam papers closed its doors, Fuji Xerox took the opportunity to analyse the process and implement a more streamlined option.

Faculty staff were used to the printed, collated and bagged exam papers being delivered in bulk, and having to sort and label them manually for each class. Now, Fuji Xerox print the exam papers in a designated secure area at the Jarden Mile print hub, and sort, bag, label and group them by class. The papers are delivered ready to distribute, saving University staff valuable time and effort.

Printing the exam papers each trimester generates over 350,000 impressions, which helps the University achieve further savings under the volume-driven cost-per-page model.

To ensure that a chain of complete confidentiality is maintained, the print hub staff personally collect and deliver all print files, proofs, and of course, the final exam papers.

Consistent service, trouble-free print and maximum uptime
FUJIFILM Business Innovation gives the University maximum print uptime with a guaranteed 2-hour service call response for any issue. Despite the heavy use of the print devices, the average number of support calls (which are managed by Fuji Xerox) is low. Consistent quality of service, trouble-free print services and high uptime are instrumental in Fuji Xerox’s long-term retention of this prestigious print management contract, which sits under its All-of-Government framework.

The University is committed to Fuji Xerox and has no other suppliers or agreements in place. They regard themselves as ‘a Fuji Xerox shop’.

The long-standing relationship with FUJIFILM Business Innovation is based on trust and respect, and the delivery of a consistent and reliable level of service which keeps the busy University printing, day in, day out.

Source: This article was originally sourced from FUJIFILM Business Innovation

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AT A GLANCE

• European Motor Distributors

INDUSTRY

• Automotive

BUSINESS OBJECTIVE

• Reduce time and costs associated with manual workflow processes
• Improve the visibility of outstanding invoices in real-time
• Eliminate overpayments and double payments of invoices

SOLUTION

• One comprehensive solution that addresses all the business requirements
• Cloud-based solution without a need of infrastructure

BUSINESS BENEFITS

• Esker provided full visibility and outgoings for the month
• Eliminated the need to print out invoices
• A simple approval process via computer, smartphone or tablet
• Improved relationships with suppliers as invoices were not lost and always paid on time

FOR MORE INFORMATION

FUJIFILM Business Innovation
W: FUJIFILM Business Innovation
New Zealand
E: kevin.ptak.pc@fujifilm.com
T: +64 21 275 4321

European Motor Distributors (EMD) is a subsidiary of Giltrap Group Holdings, a large automotive group in New Zealand. EMD import and distribute a range of vehicles from brands such as Audi, Porsche, Volkswagen, Skoda, and SEAT.

Consistent growth over the recent years created a challenging workload for the company’s accounts payable (AP) team.

The problem with paper
EMD relied heavily on paper-driven processes. This included manually entering data from the 3,500 invoices received each month in PDF format, into EMD’s financial software. On receiving the documents, the AP department printed out and circulated each invoice for approval. The approval process included verification of the invoice amount and coding. Once approved, invoices were handed back to the AP team for data entry and processing.

“With the paper-based system, there was so much of the unknown.”

This reliance on manual processes and the flow of paper around the organisation created significant challenges such as double-payments and lost or misplaced invoices. There was also an alarming lack of visibility of the AP operations and processes.

[CONTINUES BELOW]

The unknown costs
EMD knew that their AP process was too slow for a progressive business and were concerned that they had no means to quantify the full extent of the problems.

“With the paper-based system, there was so much of the unknown,” says Zainab Mussa, Financial Controller for EMD. “We had no accurate idea of how many invoices were awaiting approval. We could only estimate our monthly expenses. Although our managers tracked the major invoices, we were concerned about the smaller ones which could be slipping through the gaps.”

“Even simple things like filing invoices, then trying to find them for auditing purposes, or looking something up for a vendor query, took unnecessarily longer than it should.”

Double trouble
As well as wasting valuable time, the lack of transparency elevated the risk of costly errors such as double-payments or overpayments.

“If an invoice was being chased for payment, we wouldn’t know if it was because we’d missed it, if it was on hold, or if it was already in the system and we couldn’t find it because of incorrect data entry,” says Mussa. “It was all too easy to print out another copy and put it into the approval cycle all over again. Then, of course, we’d have approvers saying ‘I’ve already signed off that invoice two or three times, what’s happening with this bit of paper?’ It delayed invoice processing and created frustration for the AP team.”

The AP team spent far too much precious time in a seemingly endless cycle of trying to track down and manage the flow of invoices in the approval phase.

The search for the perfect process
By the end of 2016, EMD knew they had to seriously look at automating their AP process to reduce time and costs. They realised electronically capturing invoice information, and matching and routing invoices for approval was of critical importance.

EMD evaluated several solutions, and it was Fuji Xerox’s Esker Accounts Payable Automation platform that won over the business users.

“We were really impressed with the interface that the approvers would see, and the ease of use from their end,” says Mussa. “We didn’t want to only focus on the benefits to the AP team; it was about how it would be embraced by everyone in the business. We knew our people would love being able to use it on their mobiles too. Everything about Esker seemed to fit with what we wanted.”

Fuji Xerox finished scoping the requirements in August 2017. Implementation started in November, and the solution was up and running in February 2018.

A new look AP platform
The Esker platform has a clean, easy and functional interface, which won the approval of EMD’s AP team and business users. The solution gives EMD comprehensive reporting and dashboards customised to the specifics of the motor business. Alongside archiving and image retrieval for the audit trail, Esker provides the transparency the company needs.

Invoice data is captured digitally regardless of format, over and double payments have been eliminated, and invoices are tracked in real-time. Staff and business partners retrieve invoices with just a few clicks, and there is a reliable and continuous flow of information throughout EMD’s business applications.

Mobile apps for iOS and Android mean EMD’s business users can review and approve invoices from anywhere, at any time. Mussa says it’s not unusual to see invoices being signed off when she knows the approver is traveling overseas.

EMD can now better manage cashflow because they can see exactly what their outgoings are. The solution’s workflow engine supports multi-level approval across multiple operations, and data entry is now 100% accurate due to intelligent capture by the system.

The perfect partner really clear guidelines of what we needed to do, and how to best prepare ourselves for it. Fuji Xerox took the time and effort to understand what we needed early in the process, and we were very honest with our requirements and expectations. At no time did I feel that they overpromised things.”

Summary
Esker makes processing invoices easier and faster for EMD while providing critical visibility into the entire AP process.

“We’ve gone from dedicating 3.5 employees spending time manually processing invoices to 2.5 employees using the Esker system. We have been able to re-purpose the additional employee,” says Vaughan Taylor, EMD’s CFO. “Even with an extra company coming under EMD’s umbrella, there’s still no need to add further AP headcount.

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