Business Process Automation (BPA) Solutions Case Study

Reducing internal costs and improving productivity with Business Process Automation (BPA)

Every organisation no matter how large or small is looking at ways to dramatically reduce costs and, at the same time, increase the levels of staff productivity and levels of efficiency to ensure that it retains a competitive edge. The ROCC Consultancy Group (RCG) enables clients to reduce costs through the implementation of BPA solutions applied to administrative (paper and eforms based) processes.

According to Ted Ellis, payroll & shared services manager at EDF Energy, "The RCG project has enabled EDF Energy to keep up with the rapidly changing demands of the business. We have the capacity to manage the entire workforce via our new system, far more quickly, efficiently and accurately than before. We have left the 'vagaries' of the past behind; we know what information we should have, the frequency at which it should be processed, and can be confident that the data is accurate. Yes, the volumes are impressive (for example, we've managed our recent considerable changes in employee numbers without any undue pressure or extra resources), but it is primarily about quality of information."

Ellis continues: "As EDF Energy acquired new businesses, we found ourselves having to handle a variety of methods for recording job time allocation and sickness and the need to simplify became urgent. A wide range of forms were in use. Some were completed weekly, some more often or less; they varied in size, number of duplicates and complexity - local practices differed widely. The information requirement continues to be complex. RCG simplified the process ensuring that we could validate and record all of the sickness, project costing/ allocation, expenses and overtime data. Rules based processing was embedded into the solution to achieve a highly effective business process. Several solutions were tested and the opportunity to plan ahead and gather more information to help manage the business was maximised, along with ensuring the ability to collect hours to meet the 'working time' directive.

”Data is immediately available within our SAP ERP system for payroll process and management information. The way we manage our sickness and timesheet data is highly sophisticated, especially the latter. For example, if the payroll number seems illogical or is missing, the RCG solution queries it. The interaction with our corporate system is comprehensive and time sensitive: new cost centres and new employees come on line constantly so the system queries various databases for the entire company to ensure we are 100% up-to-date at any given time.

“In terms of business efficiency and economy, there's no doubt our investment has 'paid back' several times over." RCG made it their business to understand our business and we are working with them in other areas to realise the benefits that their unique and pragmatic approach brings.”