Digital Transformation - Are you considering all the possibilities?

I recently wrote an article in response to conversations with my contacts about how they can begin their Digital Transformation journey Digital Transformation - Are you asking the right questions.

As a follow up to this I thought it would help to widen the conversation. When we speak about Digital Transformation, most people tend to think of software solutions automating manual or paper heavy activities, however if you are prepared to consider all the possibilities then there can be a lot more to it than that.

I was recently discussing this with a Finance Director who was looking to dramatically improve the efficiency of her Accounts Payable department. The team were processing around 100,000 supplier invoices per year and were struggling to keep up with the volume. Increasing head count was not an option, the organisation if anything were looking to reduce staff numbers, so clearly something needed to be done.

A new automated Purchase to Pay (P2P) was the obvious solution, however based upon their own historical information, only 40% of supplier invoices were accurate and contained all the information required to pass through a new P2P system without the further need for human intervention - the team would still need to manually handle the remaining 60%. We spoke about how they could have discussions with their supplier base to ensure they provided the right detail first time but with nearly 2,000 suppliers this was not going to be straightforward.

We agreed that a new P2P solution was definitely needed. They needed a solution to automate the supplier invoice authorisation process, they also ran a number of projects and budgets which they needed to automatically allocate invoices against and the board required comprehensive reporting tools. The problem was that their skilled staff would still need to spend time speaking with suppliers, manually verifying the remaining 60% incorrect or incomplete invoices.

To complete the solution we decided that it would make sense to outsource the manual aspect to a specialist organisation.

All incoming supplier invoices, either via email or paper formats would be automatically routed to the outsourced company. They would digitise these documents to include full metadata, which would be matched against an incoming feed from their ERP. All correct invoices would be automatically routed to the customers new P2P solution for automatic processing. The incorrect invoices would be flagged to the outsourced organisation and they would engage with the suppliers for correction and once resubmitted correctly, these invoices would also be forwarded to the new P2P solution.

This for them, was the ideal outcome. By transforming their manual processes by using both technology and outsourcing they were able to restore the efficient running of their AP department. The staff were much happier, they no longer dreaded coming in to work to fight an uphill battle. The company were no longer paying skilled staff to perform manual and wasteful tasks and the outsourced company would handle the process of working with suppliers to improve the quality of their invoices.

So for me, it makes a lot of sense to think about the whole process of Digital Transformation as an opportunity not only to improve and modernise your processes but to look at your entire operations too. The agility, flexibility and economic benefits this solution has delivered is exactly what Digital Transformation is all about.

The key is to take the opportunity to ask yourselves why you do the things you do and be prepared to examine new ways of working. It’s not just about replacing manual tasks with software, it’s about transforming the way you work to benefit you, your organisation and your staff.

CONTACT

Please contact me if you would like to discuss how Canon can support your organisation with the design and execution of your digital transformation strategy, I will be delighted to hear from you.

Phone 07800 701298