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The European material-handling manufacturer was facing a significant challenge in generating custom price quotes for its customers. The process was complex, involving thousands of possible configurations, and was highly time-consuming, taking up to 10 days or more. The manufacturer receives about 10,000 such requests each year from customers who want to specify more than 140 variables for at least seven truck types, resulting in many thousands of possible custom combinations. The process also required the involvement of engineers for calculation and review, often necessitating clarification and confirmation of requirements, which further delayed the process. Additionally, finding the right quotation from among those already composed was another challenge, as proposal documents could be located in any of a variety of servers and email systems.

PowerObjects, a professional services firm and partner for Microsoft Dynamics 365, was facing challenges in its human resources and sales departments due to time-consuming, paper-based processes. The HR department was struggling with the paperwork involved in the hiring process, from creating and sending job descriptions to interviewing candidates and sending out offer letters. This process was not only cumbersome for the HR team but also for the candidates they were trying to recruit. Similarly, the sales department was grappling with a prolonged sales cycle due to the tedious paperwork involved. The lack of transparency within their system provided no insight into where the clients were in the signing/closing process, which sometimes led to lost sales and strained relationships with clients.

Berglandmilch, the largest dairy group in Austria, was facing a significant challenge in managing its complex packaging change process. With nearly 6,000 different packaging varieties and around 300 changes every month, the process was critical yet lacked transparency. The company primarily used paper forms, making it difficult to monitor the progress of projects and intervene promptly to prevent mistakes. The process involved as many as 15 different people from up to five internal departments, as well as several external suppliers such as graphic design agencies. The company needed more visibility into the status of any product at every stage of operation, especially considering the short shelf life of dairy products. Furthermore, the legal department had to check each change in detail to ensure compliance with national and international food labelling laws, adding another layer of complexity.

LVMH Italia, a distributor of premium brands of perfume and cosmetics throughout Italy, was facing significant challenges with its invoicing and approvals processes for retail vendors. The company, which markets luxury fragrance, skincare, and other cosmetic products from designer brands including Christian Dior, Fendi, Givenchy, and Kenzo, was experiencing delays in processing invoices due to incorrect or missing reference numbers. This led to deferred payments from retailers for LVMH Italia’s products, resulting in cash flow delays, wasted employee time, and potential damage to relationships with retail partners. Additionally, as part of the global LVMH group, LVMH Italia needed to adhere to group-level policies and provide evidence of compliance with international brand guidelines. This required a complex process for approving new retailers and re-approving existing ones every two years, to ensure they met the high standards appropriate for high-end cosmetics and perfumes.

Innovatix, the nation’s largest group purchasing organization (GPO) serving the non-acute care marketplace, was facing a significant challenge in managing its membership paperwork process. The company, along with its affiliate GPO, Essensa, manages a contract portfolio with thousands of contracts and processes over 10,000 contract documents per month. To join Innovatix or Essensa GPO, prospects must submit membership paperwork and contract documents with varying levels of detail. In some cases, there could be dozens of documents totaling over 100 pages. Many of these documents are provided by vendors, limiting the flexibility in streamlining the volume of paperwork. The company wanted to transition from a paper-based system to an electronic document generation system that integrated with their recent implementation of Microsoft Dynamics CRM® 2011 and supported automatic identification of documents and electronic (digital) signatures.

Shoosmiths, a UK-based law firm, was grappling with a fragmented workflow environment. The firm had been using workflow automation for over 15 years, during which it deployed 13 separate workflow technologies and solutions. The firm had implemented Microsoft SharePoint to centralize document management across its 11 offices and had also implemented SAP as its practice management and financial systems solution. Despite these implementations, the firm was still facing challenges with its workflow management. The firm recognized the benefits of having a single workflow platform integrated with SAP and SharePoint, which would allow them to move all their existing workflows onto one platform and use it as the basis for future workflow development within the business.

The Food Standards Agency (FSA), a government agency responsible for food standards in England, Wales, and Northern Ireland, faced a significant challenge in collecting and consolidating data from around 200 meat production facilities. The process was time-consuming, inconsistent, and inefficient, relying heavily on spreadsheets and documents. It took at least two days to combine 200 spreadsheets for the monthly contamination report alone. Additionally, the agency struggled with data accuracy, with automation efforts frequently producing error readings. This was particularly problematic as the agency needed to publish its audits in support of the UK Government’s Data Transparency agenda. On the other hand, Shine Lawyers, a law firm, was concerned with simplifying its internal processes around client onboarding and improving customer experience. Prospective clients often contacted the firm outside of office hours, and without immediate action, these clients could potentially turn to other firms.

STIHL Australia, a retail company, was grappling with the inefficiencies of manual, paper-based processes. The company relied heavily on physical forms for various processes, including capital expenditure requests and product launches. This method was not only time-consuming but also resulted in a lack of visibility and accountability. The company had initially attempted to automate their workflow using Microsoft InfoPath, but the product's impending deprecation led them to seek a more robust and reliable platform. Additionally, STIHL's customer service was being hindered by these manual processes, preventing employees from focusing on delivering excellent customer experiences.

Angel Trains, one of Britain’s leading train leasing companies, was facing a significant challenge in managing its financial approvals process. The company, which has invested £5 billion in new trains and refurbishments of existing rolling stock, frequently needed to issue and approve purchase orders and contracts with values exceeding £100,000. This required a rigorous approval process that was both accurate and efficient. However, the company was struggling with a disconnected IT landscape, with over 10 separate custom business systems. This resulted in departmental silos with little or no integration with the company’s core asset management and financial systems. The IT landscape was complex, time-consuming to manage, and costly to adapt when business needs changed. The company needed a solution that could integrate its existing systems and automate the approval workflow.

The Australian energy company, a respected integrated coal and gas company, was facing significant challenges with its business processes. A large number of these processes involved the completion and approval of paper-based forms, leading to delays and inefficiencies. The company was in dire need of more agile processes to eliminate these delays. The manual execution of processes resulted in completion rate delays, reduction in productivity, inconsistent storage of data about the status of the process, the introduction of errors through manual data entry, and issues in status reporting. The company realized that digitizing their workflows and incorporating forms would not only reduce process completion times, but also increase productivity throughout the company.

Sarasin & Partners, a London-based asset management firm, was grappling with inefficient paper-based processes that were hampering its operational efficiency. The firm, which is responsible for investing £13.9 billion on behalf of its clients, needed its processes to be easily auditable. However, the reliance on paper forms and manual processes was creating bottlenecks. For instance, documents requiring approval signatures could be generated by 220 members of staff and passed across up to 8 different desks, over 3 floors in the building. This led to approval processes taking many days to complete, with employees often having to phone or email their colleagues to ascertain the status of an approval. The firm also faced challenges in ensuring compliance with stringent legislation enforced by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) in the UK and other regulators. While the firm’s processes already complied with relevant regulations, they were not as efficient as they could have been. Furthermore, when audits occurred, employees faced the time-consuming task of collating all the necessary hard-copy documents to provide evidence of the firm’s regulatory compliance.

WorkSafeBC, a public health agency dedicated to promoting workplace health and safety, was grappling with an increasing number of manually managed systems and processes. This was slowing down the team and decreasing overall quality. The organization was struggling to maintain quality and timeliness due to the high volume of manual systems. The team also wanted to create added transparency and audit-ability, so the right people would know where things were and who had done what, thereby eliminating bottlenecks. Another challenge was the outdated forms and systems. WorkSafeBC had several automated forms developed using Outlook forms in a unique way. However, the platform for these forms, Microsoft Exchange Server 2003, was no longer supported. This necessitated a strong push to get all 75 forms off Exchange and integrated into their current systems.

FIMBank, a leading provider of trade finance, factoring, and forfaiting solutions, was facing challenges in its back-office operations. The bank was struggling to respond quickly to customer demand for its specialized financial services due to inefficient back-office operations. The existing credit approval process was particularly problematic. Each credit request required an in-depth review and a significant amount of information to be collated and submitted to the bank’s risk department. The process relied on email and paper-based documents, some up to 200 pages long. Multiple versions of these documents led to confusion, and delays occurred while managers checked the information. As a result, several days could elapse between a customer requesting credit and the application being ready for consideration.

PayNet, a leading financial services company in Malaysia, was grappling with cumbersome internal processes that were diverting time and resources away from customers. The basic leave management system (LMS) for employees was creating difficulties for HR and supervisors in tracking leave records and their statuses, affecting resource allocation. Major workflows such as the incident management system (IMS) and change management system (CMS) were also affected. PayNet’s helpdesk team and change management secretariat had to consolidate, monitor and analyze all the different information needed to manage customer requests. The challenge was to deliver a simplified process for all of this manual work.

PT Berlian Sistem Informasi (BSI), a large IT solution and consulting company based in Jakarta, Indonesia, was grappling with a number of manual, paper-based processes that were causing significant delays and inefficiencies. These processes included employee leave, business travel requests, and overtime pay approvals for its 150 consultants. The approvers were often unaware of new requests or were away from the office, working onsite with clients. On the client side, paper-based documents for discounts and sales proposals had to be hand-delivered and manually tracked. The absence of a centralized document management system led to proposals and related documents being easily misplaced, resulting in delays, duplication of work, and the creation of additional work. This not only impacted BSI’s clients but also led to internal frustration and negatively impacted cash flow. BSI needed a solution to manage client-related documents and automate manual internal processes to streamline efficiency and better serve clients.

Potter Clarkson, a rapidly growing intellectual property law firm, faced several challenges due to its expansion across Europe. The firm had to manage a higher volume of new business daily, with each new piece of work, such as a patent request or litigation case, requiring a unique reference number. The process of opening a new matter in the central records management system and sharing the relevant documentation with the appointed attorney and paralegal teams could take up to three days. There was also a lack of consistency in the way different teams handled this process. Additionally, the firm had to make around 6,000 changes to its central matter records every month due to the nature of intellectual property law. The firm was seeking a standardized approach that brought efficiencies to this process. Lastly, the firm received over 1,000 items of mail weekly, which needed to be shared efficiently among employees and teams. The manual distribution of these documents was time-consuming and became more challenging as the business expanded.

North of England Commissioning Support (NECS), a healthcare service provider in the United Kingdom, was grappling with outdated administrative processes that were heavily reliant on paperwork. This was a significant challenge as it was slowing down operations and reducing efficiency. Hospitals, clinical commissioning groups, and GP practices that outsourced services to NECS required highly efficient, patient-centric services. However, the paper-based administrative processes were a hindrance to achieving this goal. NECS needed a solution that could automate these processes and improve efficiency.

Guy’s and St Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust, a UK-based healthcare provider, was facing a significant challenge in managing its emergency response system. The organization, which serves two million patients a year across three hospitals and over 50 sites, needed to be able to mobilize quickly with immediate, consistent, and intelligent action plans in the face of evolving threats ranging from pandemics to acts of terrorism. The existing system, which relied on a range of spreadsheets and Windows-based files, was found to be unwieldy and lacked transparency. The organization needed a solution that could meet the stringent requirements of the Civil Contingencies Act, provide visibility into which parts of the business were affected during an incident, and prioritize resources to maintain patient care. The desired solution needed to have three core elements: the ability to leverage the enterprise-wide license they already had with K2 Software, support from an in-house development team, and integration with Everbridge.

IMPULS-LEASING Slovakia, a vehicle and equipment leasing company, was grappling with an outdated and slow contract lifecycle process. The company had to manage around 10,000 active contracts for current clients at any given time and typically created or amended over 2,000 contracts every year. The company's previous document and process management solution was many years old, difficult to maintain, and no longer supported by the vendor. This legacy software lacked the functionality and flexibility that IMPULS-LEASING Slovakia needed to deliver future business improvements. The company was also governed by strict national, EU, and financial industry legislation, making it essential for the business to demonstrate that its processes were clear, well-documented, and consistent. During audits, it had to provide evidence that all financial checks on customers had been undertaken and that all new contracts had been approved correctly.

Golding Contractors, a privately-owned civil construction and mining services company based in Melbourne, Australia, faced a significant challenge in managing their manual processes. As a project-based operation with distributed teams and key roles often filled by new staff, the company identified a need for better control and measurement of processes during rapid project mobilization. This included providing consistent induction and training for new hires. The company was experiencing sporadic and opportunistic improvement rather than the planned, systemic improvement program they desired. Improvements within manual processes were not locked in, and the degradation of those processes was inevitable without constant attention. The lack of process control and measurement was a significant issue that needed to be addressed.

The Communications and Information Technology Commission (CITC) was grappling with an outdated set of tools, technology, and legacy systems that were unable to keep up with the frequent regulatory changes the organization faced. The need for a modern automation tool was evident. The organization had to quickly update solutions to reflect modifications to existing or new laws. These changes had a significant downstream impact on users, causing frustrations due to time-to-market delays. CITC's IT processes required each solution to be built from scratch, even if only slight variations were needed. This was so time-consuming that CITC had to hire outside contractors to build and maintain updates, draining resources to conduct unnecessary work.

Shine Lawyers, an Australian law firm, was facing a significant challenge with its client onboarding process. The process was time-consuming and relied heavily on manual tasks such as information gathering and appointment setting. When prospective clients reached the call center, representatives would engage in a lengthy Q&A session to determine if the client had a viable lawsuit. These sessions could last up to 30 minutes, a substantial time commitment that the firm could not bill for. Additionally, if a case passed the initial Q&A stage, further information had to be manually gathered. Call recordings were passed on to personnel for manual transcription and appointment setting with the relevant legal professional. This increased the manual workload and costs associated with client onboarding. Shine Lawyers decided to move to a digital solution to improve internal processes around client onboarding.

Keoghs, a leading provider of claims-related services to insurers, businesses, and other suppliers in the insurance sector, was facing a significant challenge. The legal services market in the United Kingdom was undergoing rapid changes due to market consolidation, globalization, and regulatory changes. These changes were leading to greater corporatization, new legal structures, and an increased role of technology. Keoghs, being a forward-thinking organization, recognized the need to transform their business early to support their specialist teams and drive efficiencies through advanced technology. However, their existing Windows client-based legal case management solution had become a ‘rusty ball and chain’, preventing rapid changes and limiting Keoghs’ ability to scale to meet customer demands. Keoghs required a level of process excellence typically associated with advanced business process management tools. They needed an adaptive, flexible solution that could quickly scale – and grow alongside Keoghs – to meet ever-evolving client demands.

Roche Diagnostics, one of the fastest-growing pharmaceutical companies in Singapore, was facing challenges due to its rapid growth. The company needed to digitize its processes for better visibility and efficiency. The growth brought on a set of challenges to scale appropriately and the company needed flexible solutions that would evolve with the fast-paced company and clear the way for important research and advances in the field of diagnostics. Roche was looking for business process rationalization, end-user efficiency, mobile integration, better process compliance and visibility. The company was dealing with mounds of paperwork and was in need of a solution to streamline its operations.

Ballast Nedam, a Netherlands-based construction and development company, was grappling with the inefficiencies of paper forms and manual processes in managing its multi-million-euro construction projects. The company had to collect, analyze, and act upon a large amount of data from construction sites daily, including reporting potential safety issues, checking regulatory compliance, and recording deviations between plans and the actual build. This data collection was done using a variety of paper-based forms and manual processes, supplemented by a few isolated apps built using different IT packages from multiple vendors. This disjointed approach was hindering efficiency and the company sought to replace it with a single business process automation platform that could support all necessary registrations across all job roles and construction projects.

FMG Support, the UK’s largest fleet incident management company, was facing a significant challenge in managing its high volume of customer service requests. The company's manual process of handling these requests through emails and phone calls was prone to errors and delays. This was particularly problematic as the company's services are often time-critical, such as providing immediate roadside assistance at the scene of a traffic accident. The process involved a complex convergence of many parties including the customer, insurance providers, law enforcement, and various service and parts vendors. The information required to fulfill a request often came from various parties and not always in a timely or orderly way. This led to slow service and mistakes at critical moments.

The County Court of Victoria, which hears about 12,000 cases a year, was struggling with an overwhelming amount of paperwork. The existing legacy case management system was not comprehensive and was difficult to use. The court needed to modernize its high-volume paperwork management but was unsure of where to start or which technology to use. The first process that needed attention was the directions correspondence workflow, which generated hundreds of pieces of correspondence that had to be individually printed and assigned. The next challenge was the convoluted manual process of auditing and compliance, which required pulling files from different locations and was difficult to manage due to lack of a top-down view of all activities. Lastly, the court faced the challenge of collecting information for cases that had a plea or trial which may not be recorded in the case management system. The existing method was antiquated and fragmented, requiring hard copy questionnaires to be transposed and typed into spreadsheets.

ALPLA, a global plastic packaging producer, introduces a large number of new products annually for various industries. Each product undergoes a robust development process involving design, testing, and approval before production. Given that most of ALPLA’s customers are global businesses, many product development projects are global, involving multiple locations. This makes the product development process exceptionally complex and thorough, taking between six and twelve months to bring a new product from concept to production. ALPLA had been using SharePoint and InfoPath-based forms to automate information exchange between global teams and support the product development process. However, this legacy system was outdated, incomplete, and inflexible. It lacked a workflow engine and couldn't offer the data integration needed for an efficient, end-to-end solution. Moreover, it didn't provide the flexibility needed for continual enhancement of the product development process and adaptation to business change.

Orion Registrar, an internationally accredited provider of auditing services, was facing a significant challenge with its existing certification process. The process, built using Microsoft Access and a custom-built CRM solution, was not providing the scalability and flexibility needed to meet the company's growth trajectory. As the company expanded, it became clear that the existing system was not equipped to handle the increasing volume of work and the need for real-time updates for customers and auditors. The company needed a solution that could not only handle the growing business but also continue to provide a high level of customer service.

A leading commercial real estate company in the UK was facing challenges in winning and retaining clients in a highly competitive market. The company was struggling with inefficient client relationship management, marketing research, and legal processes. The process of gaining authorization for changes to standard terms and conditions (T&Cs) was slow and relied entirely on email exchanges, with no way of tracking the progress of approvals. This often resulted in delays of up to three weeks. Additionally, the company had 35 teams of market researchers across Europe, each presenting market intelligence in different formats. This led to a time-consuming process of collating, standardizing, and verifying data to create market research reports. The company also faced difficulties in managing client relationships due to limited information about key clients and the services delivered to them.