FUJIFILM Business Innovation New Zealand (FBNZ), has scooped the award for Partner of the Year at the 2024 Esker Impact Awards held in Sydney this month, with four Kiwi clients also recognised for their achievements in finance automation.
FBNZ’s win recognises the leading provider of financial automation solutions’ decade-long dedication to helping New Zealand organisations streamline processes across source-to-pay and order-to-cash, using Esker’s suite of finance automation tools.
“We’ve increased the percentage of orders processed through Esker by five percent and optimised our seasonal workforce needs.”
“We’ve increased the percentage of orders processed through Esker by five percent and optimised our seasonal workforce needs.”
“We’re proud to have grown our team in New Zealand to support the ever-increasing number of organisations turning to automation,” Direnko-Smith says. “We’re grateful for our 10-plus-year partnership with Esker and seeing how many local businesses, both large and small, have embraced these solutions to achieve tangible benefits is truly rewarding.”
FBNZ says its local expertise and commitment to New Zealand businesses have been integral to its success, helping organisations across sectors as diverse as agriculture, transport, manufacturing, and retail to achieve operational excellence and efficiency.
The FBNZ process automation team has worked with more than 50 Kiwi organisations to streamline and automate their critical accounts payable processes, helping them reduce costs, better serve their own customers, increase accuracy and productivity, achieve greater efficiencies, and better manage risk.
By automating the processing of millions of invoices each year, Esker’s finance automation solutions implemented by FBNZ have significantly reduced the time these organisations spend on manual, repetitive tasks, enabling them to focus instead on the high-value work that makes a difference to their organisations.
Four of FBNZ’s clients were also recognised for their outstanding achievements in finance automation in the 2024 awards: Evergreen Garden Care Group, Gallagher Group, PGG Wrightson Ltd, and Ritchies Transport.
The awards, which celebrate the impact of Esker’s automation solutions worldwide, demonstrate how Esker technology, combined with FBNZ’s expert support and local knowledge, is transforming the financial operations of Kiwi companies, FBNZ says.
Evergreen Garden Care Group won Best Results in Order-to-Cash, a testament to their commitment to streamlining customer service and order processing.
Shannon Cameron, Evergreen Garden Care business services manager, says the award represents the collective effort, dedication, and hard work of an exceptional team.
“We’ve relied on Esker’s Order Management tool since 2017, and moving to the cloud three years ago allowed us to improve functionality and efficiency,” Cameron says.
“In the past year alone, we’ve increased the percentage of orders processed through Esker by five percent and optimised our seasonal workforce needs.”
Cameron praised the role of the FBNZ Process Automation Team in supporting these achievements: “The team at FBNZ has been instrumental, from technical support to guiding us in leveraging Esker’s streamlined, user-friendly design. Thanks to Esker and FUJIFILM Business Innovation New Zealand, we’ve enhanced our order processing efficiency without adding staff.”
Nicola McDonald, general manager of operations performance at Gallagher Group, received the Advocate of the Year for Order-to-Cash” award in recognition of successful implementation of a new Esker module – Cash Allocation.
In accepting her award, McDonald commended the FBNZ team for their collaboration and agility. “This solution has been a fantastic asset for our team. Working alongside FBNZ’s dedicated staff on complex customisations has made Esker’s Cash App and AP solutions a success at Gallagher. Our teams have worked hard, and this award recognises that commitment.”
PGG Wrightson Ltd was awarded Best Results in Source-to-Pay for their transformative success with automation in AP Automation.
Daniel Keys, group financial controller at Ritchies Transport, received Advocate of the Year for Source-to-Pay, celebrating his leadership in implementing Esker’s solution across the company’s sourcing activities in a record six weeks’ time.
FBNZ says it remains committed to expanding Esker’s automation solutions and delivering measurable, lasting impact for its clients, as it continues to support New Zealand organisations’ on their journey toward digitisation.
Gallagher Group is a security and animal management technology provider, established in New Zealand all the way back in 1938.
As the company has grown and expanded into more than 160 countries around the globe, it has needed to ensure that work processes and technology kept pace
“It’s a powerful system that delivers exactly what Gallagher needed to work smarter.”
“Our Accounts Payable team processes more than 40,000 invoices annually, and we realised we couldn’t keep increasing our headcount indefinitely in order to process payments in a timely manner,” says Paul Moore, Finance Transformation Lead for Gallagher Group.
“But if we didn’t have enough staff, or the right tools for them to use, that could lead to bottlenecks and even more pressure on our team to ensure that suppliers were paid on time. We also lacked visibility of upcoming payments while invoices were in our approval process,” he says.
But Gallagher’s Accounts Receivable teams around the world had different challenges. They were manually reconciling incoming payments, which could delay reporting and access to usable cashflow.
Using an RFP process, the Gallagher team selected FUJIFILM Business Innovation to help find a way to automate these tasks and make better use of Gallagher’s people and technology resources and work smarter across the business.
Solution
“Gallagher needed a solution to streamline their Procure to Pay and Cash Allocation processes, and it needed to integrate with their SAP system,” says Al van Seventer, Consulting Team Lead at FUJIFILM Business Innovation.
“We implemented the Esker Procure to Pay platform and the Esker Cash Application so Gallagher’s staff could be more efficient and get greater visibility across the business.
“Esker’s AI make it easy for Gallagher’s teams to pay invoices on time and allocate payments accurately. The system learns what each document type does, and the department it belongs to, so it can allocate payments automatically.”
The Cash App also has built-in AI smarts that can forecast payments based on previous activity and the invoices in progress.
“It’s a powerful system that delivers exactly what Gallagher needed to work smarter,” Al says.
Results
Now, Gallagher has a procurement and payments system accessible from anywhere, and the Esker Cash Application automatically allocates incoming funds, so it’s much simpler for Gallagher’s AR staff.
“We’ve reduced operator time by 40 percent since implementing Esker, meaning we can accomplish more with the same number of staff. We’ve been able to grow a number of transactional areas and grow our business while maintaining staffing levels,” Paul says.
But it’s not just about time savings – Paul and the Gallagher team can also run the business better. Each cost centre has full visibility of their spending, helping reduce costs and consolidate suppliers.
Esker does all the calculations and displays them on a dashboard so it’s easy for Paul and the Gallagher team to understand the state of the business at a glance and use the information to gauge actions and understand where their focus should be directed.
“Our purpose here at Gallagher Group is to protect what matters most. For our business, that’s our people and our capital resources,” Paul says.
“FUJIFILM Business Innovation helped eliminate time-consuming manual tasks so our staff could add value in their work. They’ve been a true partner that’s helping our Kiwi business take flight around the world.”
See more here.
CONTACT DETAILS
FUJIFILM Business Innovation
W: FUJIFILM Business Innovation
New Zealand
E: i rene.direnko.nr@fujifilm.com
P: +64 27 528 3135
In 2020, PGG Wrightson, a listed goods and services provider for the agricultural sector, was on a mission to save time, reduce costs, and more efficiently process the quarter-million supplier invoices it receives every year.
Despite previous attempts to improve the AP process with scanning and software solutions, the majority of their PO-based invoices still required manual intervention.
“When Esker finds a discrepancy, it resolves it using logic – just like a person would.”
“We’ve used Optical Character Recognition software in our accounts payable process before, and even though it had some benefits, we found that it couldn’t cope with line-item discrepancies between purchase orders and supplier invoices,” says Angela Huntley, Business Programme Owner for PGG Wrightson.
In fact, about 65 percent of PGG Wrightson’s PO-based invoices needed manual intervention, where a staff member had to look at each one to decide how it should be handled.
“Even spending two minutes on each invoice would have been a huge amount of staff time. There had to be a better way,” she says.
After attending a Fujifilm Lunch & Learn seminar in 2020 and hearing how other customers addressed similar problems using the Esker AP Automation Platform, Angela and the PGG Wrightson team were confident it could work for them too.
Solution
“We’ve helped more than 50 New Zealand companies automate their Accounts Payable and Accounts Receivable processes using the Esker platform,” says Jayson McCullough, Process Automation Consultant at FIUJIFILM Business Innovation New Zealand.
With native AI and machine learning technology, Esker can read, understand and match each invoice to a Purchase Order.
“When Esker finds a discrepancy, it resolves it using logic – just like a person would,” Jayson says.
If a task can’t be handled by Esker, it gets sent to a staff member to validate. Exceptions are routed for review and approval, and the software learns as it goes. That enables Esker to work fast while still maintaining a full audit trail.
“Fujifilm took time to listen and understand our challenges and came up with a solution that automated the workflow for most discrepancies while also giving staff visibility and transparency,” Angela says.
For PGG Wrightson, that meant they could process invoices on time and with fewer errors, all while meeting their audit and retention requirements.
Results
Working with Fujifilm, PGG Wrightson ran a comprehensive digital transformation programme to optimise their operations and provide better service to rural communities across New Zealand.
“The Fujifilm project team has been fantastic, helping us work through our requirements, implementation and change management across 90 stores,” says Donna Weir, Accounts Payable Manager at PGG Wrightson.
“Since implementing Esker, we’ve cut our processing times in half and virtually eliminated the need for manual handling of invoice discrepancies,” she says.
That means reduced operational costs and increased productivity for PGG Wrightson. For the finance team, it also means better visibility of the payment process while meeting compliance and fewer errors.
“Now our team can focus on our core business: helping farmers and growers throughout rural New Zealand,” Donna says. “I really appreciate the Fujifilm team helping us to work smarter. It’s been a great partnership.”
See more on YouTube here.
CONTACT DETAILS
FUJIFILM Business Innovation
W: FUJIFILM Business Innovation
New Zealand
E: irene.direnko.nr@fujifilm.com
P: +64 27 528 3135
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
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
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
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
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
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 .
“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.”
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It is therefore Lifetime’s view that once the processes have run several times, the solution will have paid for itself. There is a bigger picture to the value achieved from the RPA solution. With no limitation to the number of bots Lifetime can build, and with the establishment of a Robotic Centre of Excellence which includes team members from across the business, it is empowered for robotic innovation. |
“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
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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