Retail - Process Automation - Case Study

An energy tender sales team was not meeting SLAs for their quote to order processes due to high manual effort. The high amount of data entry required caused incorrect data & delays leading to customer dissatisfaction and missed sales targets. After a review, we identified that process automation could be leveraged to increase efficiency and data accuracy.   

The Business Unit 

The business unit was placed within the organisation's retail division and managed the full lifecycle of customer interactions for tender customers. Their customers had accounts ranging from 20 sites through to over 15,000; each customer had an account manager dedicated for any inquiries they had.  

The Challenges 

The team did not have their processes defined and had a lot of variance of understanding across their team members. Process demand was very seasonal and could not be accurately predicted by the business unit with their ways of working. Data were managed by individual team members, causing confusion and delays if that team member was not available. 

• As part of the initial assessment to identify if process automation could be used to assist the team, we highlighted that the processes were not defined or standardised. There was a backlog of data entry to be completed by the business unit for large tenders. Based on this, the we broke the project into three different stages.  
• Define the current as-is processes and determine their suitability for automation. These processes were then also prioritised based on delivery effort and business benefits. 
• The to-be solutions were then defined and approved by the business units group manager. Development was done by the automation centre of excellence against the solution designs, tested with the business and deployed into production.  
• Monitor the digital workers in production with limited records with business subject matter experts. Once confidence in the solution had been established, run the digital workers at scale to meet agreed timelines with the business unit and their customers.  
• The project also provided ongoing reporting and exception management in conjunction with business unit SME's 

The Results  

Thanks to the diligent efforts by both the automation centre of excellence and the business unit, all records were processed within timelines agreed to. As part of the overall solution, four different digital workers had been built & operationalised for the business unit as listed below.  

Obtain Site Information 

1. Create Site  
2. Create Customer  
3. Create Order  

The digital workers were then available for the business unit to be used ongoingly for all their tender requirements. Through this project, team members identified further processes that were added to the automation backlog for future development opportunities.  

Within the financial year, the team saved over 15,000 hours of manual effort through the use of digital workers, enabling their team members to focus on value-adding activities and preventing the need for using workers from other business units. Customer NPS also increased due to decreased processing timeframes, improved data accuracy and reporting.  

Summary  

Overall this automation project executed for this business unit delivered significate benefits and delivered a return on investment within a financial year. The successful implementation also generated future demand from the Retail division through word of mouth. With the digital workers in place, the business unit is set up for success to deliver a high-quality service to its customers continually.