Microland Transformed and Simplified Complex Procurement Processes through SmartProcure Workflow for an Australian Industrial and Safety Products and Services Company

Overview

The client is Australia’s largest provider of industrial and safety supplies. It offers over 300,000 industrial and safety products and services, including personal protective equipment, welding and gas, power tools, hand tools, workwear, and so much more for small, medium, and large enterprises in the region.

Challenge

The client was facing significant challenges and delays in its procurement workflows due to the inefficiencies in the processes and tools and manual operations which was impacting the business productivity and employee experience.

Below are some of the key challenges:

• Decentralized and manual procurement process: The procurement process was run manually in a decentralized manner. Right from the creation and submission of the POs to respective stakeholders for processing and approvals, to tracking POs approval status, email communications, and reminder notifications were done manually. This led to significant delays in POs approvals and a lack of centralized and real-time visibility into POs status, and performance bottlenecks in the processes.
• Vendor management: The POs raised with vendors, invoices, shipment tracking, ETA details, and vendor communication were done manually by the procurement team through emails.
• Managing procurement database manually: The database of POs, invoices, and vendor details was maintained and updated on MS Access manually
• Lack of real-time visibility: Decentralized and manual processes led to the lack of real-time visibility into POs, invoices status, and process bottlenecks leading to procurement delays

Solution

Based on the inefficiencies identified in the procurement process workflows, Microland designed and implemented the below solution components to remediate the gaps identified.

• Automating Procurement: Integrating the procurement process with ServiceNow and automating end-to-end procurement workflow to eliminate manual PO creation, status tracking, communication, and approval between stakeholders
• Vendor consolidation: Onboarding vendors onto the ServiceNow platform through a custom-created web form for vendors to provide a unified view of PO approvals & invoice status, shipment tracking, and ETA details. Creating an email workflow for vendors to be able to send multiple invoices to a single requested item. Further integration of D365 with ServiceNow for automated payments through a single workflow
• User onboarding: Onboarding and training of existing users on the new procurement process & platform. Creating a User Guide for onboarding new & existing users on the procurement platform

Business Benefits Delivered

The implementation of procurement workflows on ServiceNow, automated process workflows, and unified dashboards for visibility into procurement processes, helped the client achieve the following:

• Faster procurement process: Eliminating manual processes with automated and templatized PO creation, automated PO approvals communication, and reminder notifications from the platform led to reduction in PO approvals & processing time by up to 60%
• Real-time visibility: A unified dashboard with real-time visibility to track PO approvals & invoice status, shipment tracking, and ETA details
• Unified portal for vendor onboarding: Onboarding vendors onto a unified platform helped to track PO approvals & invoice status, vendor communications, shipment tracking, and ETA details across multiple vendors