Off-Net Order Processing
Global CSP saves $4.8m annually in supplier-management overheads, and sets off a business-wide automation programme.
The CSP got started with automation to improve order management across its base of third-party suppliers. They successfully automated 93% of process interactions (far exceeding the 70% target), cut order fulfilment to nine days on average (from as much as nine months), and are now saving $4.8m a year after reducing the overall team head count from 140 to just 42.
In addition to the $4.8m employee cost savings, the CSP is now able to bill for all the extra months that each order used to take to be delivered. With more than 2,000 orders per month, on average, with each ranging in value from $3,000 to $10m, and with delays of up to nine months, that’s created a huge step up in terms of revenue.
Moreover, CORTEX’s technology is now creating wider benefits across the business. This initial use case, alone – which actually delivered $1.6m net benefit in its first year – provides ample financial justification for the CSP’s overall investment.
The Head of Automation at the CSP said: ‘Above all, this has transformed our customer experience, and ability to deliver our complex solutions in a timely way. But, moreover, it’s delivered staggering operational benefits, which have led through to our finances, and created a template for delivering improvements across the whole organisation.’
Delivering clarity and efficiency…
CORTEX’s order processing capabilities have brought clinical efficiency to the management of suppliers. There are approximately 130 third-party organisations – so-called ‘off-net providers’ – who deliver services, such as last-mile connectivity, that are critical to the CSP’s overall solutions.
The relevant services have to be ordered from these off-net providers as a matter of routine. They then have to be provisioned at specific moments, absolutely without fail, to enable the CSP solutions. If something goes wrong or gets missed here, an entire order might be put at risk.
Decomposing customer orders…
So, after the solution is entered onto their ERP systems, order decomposition takes place. That breaks each order down into the individual work tasks that are necessary to deliver the overall solution. Services that are required from off-net providers are routed to CORTEX order processing, which automatically places the orders, and all further activity is then managed by off-net e-mail management.
Placing off-net orders…
Order placement can be done in a number of different ways, depending on the provider. For some of the larger organisations, for example, there are fully integrated APIs that connect the CSP with the provider’s ordering systems. For smaller partners and providers, the solution might first send an automated e-mail, with someone then alerted a couple of days later to confirm the order by telephone. And some of the other off-net providers have procurement portals.
Transforming results…
This automation has cut straight through the previous disorder, complications and costs. With thousands of orders coming in each month that require off-net service provision – and with that work being done manually by a team of 140 people, using e-mail and telephone – The CSP’s processes were inefficient, and prone to error and delay.
Indeed, the process for each individual off-net order was complicated enough. Someone had to place the order, follow it up to check it had been received, co-ordinate its provision with the wider solutions and technologies, and then an individual or sub-team needed to keep track of everything until delivery.
With some of that provisioning being complex because it involved construction, it could also be long running which created yet further challenges. The wait time in the process was often so slow that it wasn’t uncommon for off-net providers to have updated their service offering by the time this CSP got the order process completed with the off-net – meaning the company had sold on something that no longer existed.
Thousands of instances of that process were running in parallel each month. So, it becomes easy to see why the time from order to delivery was at least three months, and as much as nine months in many cases.
Automating and orchestrating quickly with CORTEX…
It took just nine months from inception for CORTEX off-net order processing to go live, returning the investment fully in its first year. This was a six-month build and a three-month transition into production, so that the system was very well-honed by the time it actually went in to production. Right from the start, there was very little escape or fallout from the orders that were being processed (approximately 30%, falling to zero today).
So, while delivering strong results immediately, that also meant that peoples’ working patterns were changed dramatically, over just a few months. That enabled the CSP moved from process management to only focussing on exception management, where they provide ongoing human input to CORTEX to deal with unforeseen circumstances. Doing that – and enhancing the automation with new flows and processes –removes those exceptions and so cuts the human workload further.
In turn, all of this has enabled the business to redeploy its assets in more useful ways. The original team of the CSP had been supplemented by 56 additional personnel, from an external agency, with only four actually working directly for the CSP itself. The team now comprises just 18 agency members (which fluctuates with some seasonality) and three direct employees.
Meanwhile, numerous other problems have simply gone away. Orders are now placed with the off-net providers within just hours of them being received. There is therefore almost no risk of those providers having updated their service offerings by the time a solution is implemented.
The future
This customer has now significantly improved transparency across its operations, and is using this data to improve its service offering and automation strategy. It already offers a guarantee of providing the best-value off-net services – and now plans to automate that process further to maintain a real-time audit of off-net providers’ service offerings.