Case Study: How BonitaSoft helped Konica Minolta achieve Customer Contract Management Optimization

Beyond the personnel entirely dedicated to contract management, the automation of this process actually involves Konica- Minolta’s entire staff to technicians, sales representatives and retailers. Along with optimized entry of the contract information and assisting sales representatives as a way to ensure optimum customer care, the workflow created or taken over by BonitaSoft Suite are designed to check the contracts’ compliance and consistency while accelerating  contract creation and approval. The goal is to use a virtualized process to cover all of the internal approval procedures, while involving all contributors in real-me (pre-sales, sales, after-sales, technical support). Moreover, the automation of this process is a way to facilitate decision-making, as each contract is presented to the approvers along with all of the documents needed for the decision to be made.

Encouraged by the success of this first implementation, Konica—Minolta’s teams are now seeking to roll out BonitaSoft Suite for some of the company’s other key processes,  such as approving supplier invoices and payment authorizations, managing its automobile fleet and expense forms, as well as covering technical workflows related to maintenance of installed equipment and quality procedure management. As a result, over 200 business applications currently operating with Lotus Notes are in the process of migrating to the new system.

While the workflows set for rollout in the immediate future are in-house only, other automated processes going beyond the company walls could be developed later, particularly through a purchasing portal solely reserved for the government and local authorities.

Security, Quality and Increased Productivity

One year after this project’s inception, Konica-Minolta is reporting positive results.

“First, we now have a reliable, efficient solution to automate and manage our processes in a secure manner. By doing away with paper and our manual processes, we have boosted the reliability, of our processes based on our company rules,”Mr Riehl explains. “Second, we now have end-to-end traceability, which helps us track back to the source of any error or non-quality. This puts us in line not only with the regulatory compliance obligations but with our own quality standards as well. Finally, we have seen a spectacular jump in our productivity; a new contract, which was traditionally approved in four or five days in the past, can now be approved in under an hour. And the big winners are our customers, who have fewer disputes to resolve. Overall, our contract processing capacity has increased by 30%”

“We are better prepared to deal with any peaks in activity, and most importantly, our decisions are better documented, which means both a quantitative and a qualitative improvement in our processes,”Mr Inglebert adds. “Through the use of follow up operations logs, we have also optimized our process monitoring. In the end, our sales team receives the approvals more quickly, which secures the company’s margins. By gaining in reliability, we also gain in profitability, since before, a simple error in assessment could jeopardize the contract’s profitability from beginning to end.