A global food and beverage powerhouse creates a global digital workforce

Before implementing RPA, our client’s GBS group had 40 FTEs processing 50,000 invoices per month, and 12 FTEs were responding to queries through its vendor help desk. The food and beverage giant recognized that its global accounts payable and trade payment management processes were creating:

• Vendor dissatisfaction due to slow help desk response times
• Invoice processing rework and significant backlogs
• Controllership issues and risk due to poor compliance ratings

The firm turned to Genpact to transform its procure to pay (P2P) operations. We optimized our clients processes through business process reengineering, and found that its rules-based, high volume repetitive work was a good match for RPA. We then reviewed 344 business processes over a four-month period and created an intelligent automation roadmap through 2020.

Our client has chosen a “think big – start small – scale rapidly” approach to its digital journey. It decided to initially automate key accounts payable, trade payment, reporting, and order management processes with monthly targets to test how the automation worked in its environment.

Over the last few years, Genpact has automated P2P processes, deployed touchless sales administration, touchless order entry, order management virtual assist, and implemented governance controls using Genpact’s Cora CommandCenter. The automated GBS processes incorporate multiple languages and span North America, Europe, and Asia Pacific.

Our client is now moving into its next digital transformation phase by automating more processes with RPA and AI technology. With 70 robots now live, our client is using the Genpact Intelligent Automation Index model to recognize automation opportunities and prioritize those with the highest expected returns. The company plans to robotize order to cash, accounts payable, and data management operations with 60 more bots by year end.

Genpact was also selected to set up a proof of concept for two retailers using artificial intelligence to automate their contract creation and trade promotions processes. This highly manual process was completely automated using natural language processing. Proven successful, this disruptive automation is being rolled out to all of our client’s retail customers with integrations built into their retail portals.

With the first 15 “digital workers” (or software robots), our client saw lower operational costs and higher vendor satisfaction and compliance levels. The processing cost per invoice has also gone down by approximately 60%. Our client’s initial digital transformation journey has greatly improved turnaround times, efficiency, and accuracy.

As of the end of 2017, 80% of invoices and 65% of help desk queries volume are processed by digital workers. And the help desk queries (largely invoice status and vendor statement requests) are responded to by software robots. In collections and cash application, 90% of transactions are processed with 99% accuracy.

These impressive results have spurred our client to move into the next phase of its GBS digital transformation. As part of its vision for a future-ready GBS, our client has set a new goal of onboarding over 60 new digital workers – bringing the total to more than 120 bots – to automate a total of 15 processes across 20 countries by the end of 2018.