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Koenig & Bauer (KBA) faced two main potential threats: inefficiency due to high market penetration and success, and the need to maintain high-quality standards demanded by their customers. Competitors with more streamlined processes were entering the market, producing at lower rates, and putting pressure on KBA. The company needed to become more responsive to customer demands and improve business processes to maintain its competitive edge. KBA's customers expected the highest quality products and reliable customer service, necessitating a responsive and efficient operational model. The company aimed to automate key processes and constantly review and improve them to discover potential for optimization. Streamlining processes was essential to enhance responsiveness to customers and maintain high standards of service and machinery.

Farming is a geographically dispersed endeavor that covers large areas, great distances, and remote locations. eHemp needed a way to ensure that (1) its network of individual growers are following green practices and raising crops that can be certified Organic and (2) sufficient supplies would be available to efficiently operate the facilities that convert the raw materials into end products and deliver on orders. eHempHouse realized that tracking farming practices and crop progress by exchanging photographs through SMS and social media messaging was inefficient, unverifiable, and not scalable. Ultimus used its unique compositional architecture, industry-leading business process automation platform, and reusable Flobot® automations to rapidly and cost effectively deliver a flexible, end-to-end automated business process solution to these challenges.

Helaba faced several challenges with their existing system authorization process. The complexity of over 70 different types of paper forms made it difficult to select the correct one, leading to confusion and errors. The processing time was lengthy, often taking up to four weeks due to the number of necessary authorizations and mailing delays. Additionally, the process involved multiple transitions between paper, email, phone, and fax, increasing the risk of errors and duplication of efforts. There was also low visibility into the process, making it hard to track the status of requests and causing dissatisfaction among employees and management.

In an effort to speed up and streamline operations, simplify solution management, and improve employee experience, this customer sought to consolidate HR processes into a single interconnected solution family using CPS. The customer realized that success required overcoming several key, yet common, business challenges relating to Human Resources: maintaining staffing levels despite rapid employee growth; retrieving information in a timely manner; speeding requests, approvals, and decisions; providing visibility into the status of request activity; maximizing employee productivity and cost effectiveness; and having an intuitive, modern, and mobile-ready user experience. Realizing these challenges could not be met with conventional process automation technology, this entity selected Ultimus Composed Process Solutions as its experience, automation, and rapid innovation platform for digitizing Human Resources. With eight processes already running on Ultimus BPM Suite Version 7, this customer upgraded to the latest Ultimus technologies, including Ultimus Composed Process Solutions, and automated two additional new processes with CPS. Their main reason to upgrade was to benefit from a technology designed especially for digital transformation.

As a multi-product, publicly-traded bank, this customer recognized that large-scale digital process automation and seamlessly connected, globally manageable business processes would eliminate the product and process silos, automation gaps, and business complexity that went along with limited, ad hoc automation. The customer recognized that digital transformation success required an “industrialized” development approach that would: Quickly deliver pervasive automation covering all regional, product, language, and use-case scenarios; Eliminate expensive one-off customizations and inconsistent implementations; Minimize cost of ownership through global solutions management, ease of deployment, and intuitive, consistent interfaces across all devices; Allow business owners to quickly and reliably change key process parameters and business drivers without IT involvement; Ensure end user performance and up-time as mission critical, customer facing applications scaled to thousands of users; Leverage complementary automation technologies to create end-to-end solutions. Having automated over 350 banking business processes at 90 banks spanning every continent and concluding that these challenges could not be met with conventional process automation technology, the customer selected the Ultimus Digital Process Automation Suite to digitally transform their operations.

Financial service organizations face significant challenges in adapting to changing customer requirements, legal regulations, and market forces. Processes and people are constantly realigned, requiring IT Service Management to keep up with access rights, software and equipment provisioning, applications, and infrastructure. Rigid technology makes every change difficult, time-consuming, and costly, and makes tracking, approving, and documenting them impossible. IT organizations thereby fail to support agile businesses and overspend on human and financial resources. When Caixabank found itself in a similar situation, the IT Services group decided to set up a new structure and technology that would provide the flexibility to make changes fast and easy, handle approvals and tracking automatically, and streamline operations to deliver services within budget.

Many companies try to distinguish themselves from their competition through quality and price. However, in order to remain competitive in the future, it needs more than providing high-quality products at a cheap rate. In the new millennium, time has taken a leading role among the critical success factors. Particularly in developed nations, time has become a much scarcer good than money. Following this trend, customers are willing to pay more for a product if the shipping time is minimal or non-existent. The shorter the shipping time, the higher the probability of closing a deal. Bernstein saw itself confronted with the task of preparing the company for the future. In 1999, the individual enterprises were combined within Bernstein AG. The reorganization of the enterprise group was completed in 2001 when all administration departments were pooled in Porta Westfalica. Along with these changes, the business processes had to be adjusted to fit the newly structured company and also improving them continuously became an important task. These activities aimed at securing not only quality leadership but also realizing cost advantages. Within a real-time enterprise, order placement and shipment occur nearly simultaneously. Many processes, though, comprise unnecessary time lags. Reducing delays in critical business processes ever further on the basis of current information in order to conduct them ideally with zero latency is essential to the health of any company.

In an effort to increase market share among small and medium-sized businesses, NBAD wanted to unite certain lending products under a common marketing umbrella, Program Lending, and employ technology to provide exceptional customer experience and rapid innovation. NBAD realized that success required overcoming several key, yet common, business challenges: fast yet prudent approval of loans; ready cross-selling of products (each with different business rules, limits, and requirements); rapid innovation in response to changing competitive and regulatory conditions; and maximized employee productivity and cost-effectiveness. Realizing these challenges could not be met with conventional process automation technology, NBAD selected Ultimus Composed Process Solutions as its experience and rapid innovation platform for Program Lending.

With over 80,000 employees in 139 countries, the efficiency and accuracy of Roche’s IT authorization and allocation process has been substandard in the past. Authorization requests took several days to be approved which impacted productivity. Human errors cost time and resources, and often resulted in the inadvertent allocation of user rights to inappropriate parties, a potential security risk. Challenges with the old processes include: Inconsistent Data. The IT department received numerous authorization requests every day with inconsistent information. Forms lacking complete information had to be returned to the requester for further completion. This part of the process would take several days to complete before the request could even be processed. Lack of Monitoring and Reporting. The lack of visibility in the authorization process was very frustrating for employees as they could not check the status of their requests or ensure that all of the necessary information had been submitted properly. Conversely, the IT department lacked a means of reporting, monitoring, and controlling the access and authorization rights they had granted. Time Consuming and Wasteful. The authorization process took several days to be approved meaning that employees were not able to complete all of the tasks required of them. Additionally, there was excessive lag time in the rerouting of access when the responsible party was unavailable.

The Central Scheduling Call Center for ProHealth Care faced several challenges in handling patient forms. The handwritten questionnaires were often illegible or incomplete, leading to errors and inefficiencies. The manual process required schedulers to leave their desks to fax forms, causing delays and reducing their availability to handle incoming calls. Additionally, patients had to fill out forms for each appointment, as previous records were not accessible, leading to dissatisfaction.

For any employer, tracking employees’ paid time off (PTO) and leave requests is an important aspect of HR’s responsibility. For CCCS, this process was becoming more than cumbersome and extremely error-prone due to the sheer number of employees at each of the 13 community colleges. Other challenges with this process include: Inaccurate Data and Manually Intensive: Manually filing, routing, and storing paper forms often lead to errors in data entry and misplaced forms. This cost HR managers and employees hours to make corrections, retrieve a lost timesheet or replace it with a new one. Information Compensation Control: The paper-based system offered no reliable way of knowing whether employees were taking time off without reporting it. Some employees were being paid out on leave they had taken but not reported. Time Consuming: CCCS’ paper-based process was inherently error-prone. This cost them extra time to not only complete the process in the first place, but also to correct the mistakes. Lack of Reporting Capabilities: HR personnel had no way to quickly or efficiently perform month-end HR reporting without excessive data entry, dealing with lost forms, or fielding employee inquiries.

As a large and geographically dispersed enterprise, the customer realized that automated business processes were essential to ensure the timely and accurate preparation of financial reports, as well as adherence to proper financial controls and policies. The customer recognized that business process automation success required eliminating siloed business process data, reducing user training requirements, support calls, and errors, responding rapidly to an ever-changing regulatory and business environment, meeting highly complex requirements without expensive, hard-to-maintain custom coding, integrating with multiple external systems, and ensuring visibility into process activity, performance, and business improvement opportunities. Concluding that these challenges could not be met with conventional process automation technology, the customer selected the Ultimus Digital Process Automation Suite to digitally transform their financial operations.

Generali Slovenia faced the challenge of integrating multiple backend systems and streamlining various insurance processes. The company needed a solution to connect people, data, and systems into a cohesive digital workflow. This integration was crucial for handling a high volume of business events daily, including new insurance policies, policy change requests, cancellations, and other administrative tasks. The goal was to improve productivity, ensure compliance with laws and internal regulations, and provide reliable data for better business decisions.

The insurance industry requires extensive data collection and compliance with security guidelines. Celtic Insurance faced challenges with their existing document-based workflow system, which was unreliable and unsupported. This led to employees circumventing the system, risking regulatory compliance. Celtic needed a solution to streamline data collection, reduce redundant data entry, ensure procedural adherence, and create a paperless office.

Ferrero faced three significant challenges due to their decentralized system: lack of executive visibility, inability to take real-time action, and poor customer risk management. Finance executives had limited visibility across business units, making it difficult to monitor important accounts or have a holistic view of customer data for smarter decision-making. The A/R team struggled to take real-time actions due to siloed systems, leading to a lack of information flow between systems and departments. Additionally, the lack of inter-team visibility hindered better decision-making and enforcement of customer rules for various risk segments.

Over the years, Zurich struggled with its Cash Application process due to two core challenges - a 100% manual end-to-end process and a decentralized processing system. Zurich took several initiatives to maintain control and improve the efficiency of the existing cash application process in the past, but continued to face multiple roadblocks. The Credit and A/R team struggled to manually process the bulk of electronic payments and receipts. They wanted to further reduce the time and resources spent on posting payments, minimize errors made during the cash application, match the payments faster and accurately while minimizing manual intervention. The delayed cash application process led to erroneous status reports for accounts/invoices. Even if the customer had paid for an invoice, they might wrongfully receive DNOC or dunning letters, resulting in a disparate status of accounts and dissatisfied customers. In order to resolve the errors in the system, the Credit and A/R team was frequently compelled to have multiple internal calls or meetings with brokers, underwriters, account executives, and Finance Operations managers. This led to further delay and dispute in the process.

Danone faced significant challenges in its Accounts Receivable (A/R) processes due to a decentralized system and a diverse customer base. The company had to manage multiple payments and remittance formats manually, leading to increased process complexity and a high number of short pays. The A/R team spent a considerable amount of time processing electronic and check payments, which delayed dispute identification and resolution. Additionally, the manual deductions management process caused delays in dispute management, increasing the Days Deductions Outstanding (DDO) to over 45 days. The lack of automation in the collections process further affected cash flow and working capital, and the inability to identify the right customers for collections hindered customer-client relationships.

The BlackHawk A/R team faced significant challenges due to the lack of a standardized workflow. They had critically high deduction aging with over 2000+ line items that were more than two years old, and over 100+ line items per deduction. The team also faced slow cash application for prepayments, difficulties with payments received with non-invoice reference numbers, and payments with incomplete or missing remittances. Additionally, the deductions team struggled with high volume per deduction, no workflow for deductions management, and lack of visibility into performance.

Mosaic faced significant challenges in their credit process within the order to cash cycle. Administering from North America and Brazil, they had a complex credit approval hierarchy with 7 to 10 layers of approval, which slowed down the process and affected customer experience. Additionally, they had to manually fetch credit data from various sources, which was time-consuming and labor-intensive. Their rigid credit scoring model did not account for country-specific risk factors, making it inefficient. Furthermore, the lack of real-time visibility into negative payment trends and macroeconomic fluctuations hindered their ability to proactively manage credit risk.

Duracell faced significant challenges in their Accounts Receivable (A/R) processes, particularly in cash application, collections, and deductions. The manual processing of remittances and payments was time-consuming, and the deduction coding process was heavily reliant on manual labor. Additionally, there was low visibility into the payment status of customers, leading to confusion among teams. The lack of ability to add extra customer information into invoices and the manual data extraction from web portals further complicated the process. Duracell also struggled with visibility into the resolution time for deductions, and the manual collaboration and aggregation of backup for trade deductions caused delays. The company sought to free up their analysts, increase process visibility, and establish a better workflow to target customers more effectively.

The existing cash application process at Sanofi was plagued by extreme differences in the process flow and structure all around the company; low uniformity led to disorganized work and confusion. With a presence across the globe, even though some of the branches they had did use automation, others were completely manual and did not have any form of automated solution in place for pulling remittances or invoice data from emails and portals. A lack of clarity among teams into their goal setting and visibility into end to end processes also led to dumbing down of the workflow. They also wanted to reduce their A/R overdue workload as it clogged up the entire cycle and also led to delays.

A significant challenge with their existing stack was the disparate systems with master customer data across different platforms. Different components worked independently of each other and thus had little interaction with each other. Their collectors had a vendor automation solution in place and the credit team had a non-integrated in-house system. These worked separately with no overlap and this caused significant problems for them: Fragmented Credit Analysis: Micro Focus’s credit analysis was faulty at best due to its inability to predict customers’ risk and behavior patterns. Improper data storage and logging also meant much of their time was wasted just on finding said data. Limited Data Visibility: The company’s analysts had little visibility into their operations due to the way it was stored and spread out. This lack of clarity led to duplication of efforts as analysts had no idea whether a customer had been contacted or not or which ones were higher risk. Separate Reporting and Tracking across Different Systems: Having separate systems for storage and data tracking meant that anyone looking for a customer status or report would have no means of knowing where to look for it. Disjointed storage also meant that errors, if made, were seldom rectified as there was no way of cross-referencing data. No Centralized Repository for Data from Acquisitions: The company lacked a way to allow teams to access data freely. This caused delays in their operations as information could not be shared or moved around easily. This problem also added to the company’s issue of transparency because it hindered inter-team communication. Data Migration for Storage and Reference: Micro Focus faced issues with integrating data in their system; they wanted a way to do this easily. Credit exposure also wasn’t being reflected correctly due to issues with their data feed.

Komar, a global apparel distribution company, faced significant challenges in managing cash application and deductions on a massive scale. The A/R teams worked in silos, leading to blocked orders and negative customer experiences. Inefficient deductions processes caused bottom-line erosion and reduced employee productivity. The manual cash application process increased costs and delayed cash processing, resulting in higher DSO and negatively impacting downstream processes.

Ardent Mills faced several challenges in their cash application, collections, and deductions processes. The cash application process was entirely manual, leading to slow workflows and increased risk of errors. High lockbox fees were also a significant issue. The collections process lacked a standardized strategy for work list prioritization and a central location for customer communications, leading to inefficiencies. Additionally, the deductions process suffered from a lack of visibility into dispute volume and patterns, with data being saved via email, complicating correspondence and resolution.

Ivanti faced significant roadblocks in their operations due to siloed processes and lack of centralization, leading to limited visibility into operations. The collections process was heavily manual, consuming over 50% of analysts' time in tasks like dialing for dollars, writing emails, and requesting escalations. There was no centralized repository for tracking reminders, emails, notes, or P2Ps, resulting in a lack of ownership among teams and no visibility for C-suite members to analyze business unit performance. Additionally, there was no standardized strategy for work list prioritization, and cultural and language barriers caused delays in collecting payments. The cumulative result was minimal access to real-time data, making it difficult for collectors to focus on critical accounts.

Mattel faced several challenges in their deductions management process. The lack of centralization meant that documentation required for processing, such as BOL, POD, invoice copies, and shipping details, were stored in different databases, leading to confusion and inefficiency. Additionally, the team had to manually pull invoice details from emails and online portals, wasting time and resources. Dealing with large-scale retailers also posed issues, including compliance deductions, violations, pricing deductions, and shortages, resulting in unnecessary expenses. The excessive manual work required for data gathering and correspondence prevented analysts from focusing on high-priority accounts. Furthermore, the operations were siloed, lacking standardized workflows, which caused a lack of visibility and confusion among team members about their roles and responsibilities.

Brightstar faced significant challenges in their collections, deductions, and invoicing processes due to their massive volume of customers and operating areas. The A/R team had to work two shifts to clear the backlog of deductions, leading to high FTE costs. The team was unable to dispute all deductions, resulting in high write-offs. Manual data aggregation and inefficient collections policies further exacerbated the situation. The lack of a standardized process and heavy IT dependence created operational bottlenecks. Specific challenges included manual collection management, unstructured correspondence, ad-hoc reminders, and call logs stored in multiple systems. The deductions process was also manual, requiring many staff and leading to high costs. Internal collaboration was inefficient, and the invoicing process was entirely manual, making it laborious and time-consuming.

The company faced major issues due to the increasing number of deductions that was being faced by their industry. Reports from A Credit Research Foundation survey showed that more than 65% respondents faced this issue. This meant a huge loss in productivity and overall efficiency of the team for Hershey’s. They received 42,225 Trade Deductions in 2019, and about 12,000 in just a week. This meant a huge sum of work for their teams to go through manually. The company wanted a system where they could seamlessly integrate with their Trade Promotion Management System. They wanted to incorporate a uniform system and establish a single source of truth for all the stakeholders to ensure faster resolutions. The main goal of Hershey’s was to reduce the amount of time their analysts spent on resolving these claims, and they needed an automated system so that they could free up their work force for higher value tasks and boost productivity.

Johnsonville wanted to be the best at what they do and identified some focus areas with scope for improvement in their order to cash processes. One area of focus for them was managing their deductions as they realized the highly disruptive impact of poor deductions management on their balance sheet.\n\nDisintegrated Order-to-Cash Systems\nOnce claim documents came in regarding short payments made, deduction teams began their manual research to find the reason behind the dispute. Other internal teams, however, had no visibility into the reason for short payments. While it was already challenging for the deductions team to handle disputes given all the backup data procurement, it also further led to the cash application teams’ inability to apply cash. Thus, the invoice remained open despite payments being received and this led the collector to make customer calls requesting payment from customers who had already paid. The siloed systems thus caused challenges to all the teams involved, resulting in a poor customer experience.\n\nTackling Disputes with Scarce Resources\nWorking with big-box retailers introduced Johnsonville to a vast volume of disputes but they only had a few resources to handle them. They thus struggled with compliance requirements, high cost-to-serve, and a large volume of transactions. They were therefore looking for a less manual and more efficient way to handle disputes.\n\n100% Manual and Time-Consuming Cash Application\nThe cash application process at Johnsonville was 100% manual. With such a massive volume of invoices coming in daily, their manual process was time-consuming and error-prone. It also caused the inability to apply cash the same day the payment came in, causing a trickle-down effect in their entire order to cash cycle.

The financial services team at DPSG relied on 3rd party vendors, outsourcing their Collections, Cash Application, and other A/R functions to control costs. This led to limitations such as restricted access and control. Moreover, outsourced contracts prevented shifting to other platforms or discontinuation of services prior to the contract period. A lack of metrics and statistics also made it difficult to track outsourced resource productivity causing inconsistencies across processes and creating complications for the A/R team. Only after insourcing receivables processes and leveraging technology was the team able to streamline A/R operations and achieve end-to-end process visibility. Continuous training and retraining were required for analysts to stay up-to-date with the high level of non-standardization in the process. There was a lot of hesitation from the team in adopting new processes. The majority of A/R correspondence was either mailed, or printed/scanned/emailed manually. There was no centralized system for analysts to record notes on receivables transactions, and no worklists were incorporated to help analysts prioritize work across collections and deductions.