The University of Pretoria (UP) is a multi-campus public research university in South Africa, teaching over 50,000 students across seven campuses. With an 83.5 percent pass rate and 93 percent of graduates employed within six months of qualifying, UP is one of Africa’s top universities. On a mission to further improve student success rates, the UP was looking to advance its analytics capabilities. “We implemented an evidence-based approach to support our number one strategic goal to improve student access and success, therefore using student data to intervene in time, not after the fact, if a student is underperforming,” explained Dolf Jordaan, Deputy Director of eLearning. “We needed an integrated cloud-based solution data eco-system in our approach to improving student success—you can’t just put words on strategic documents focusing on student success without using data.” Analytics from the Blackboard Learning Management System (LMS), which both students and lecturers use, provided reports on each course and numerous performance course reports to help identify students who were at risk of falling behind. But a more holistic institutional view was needed, one that could pull in other data sources, including an institutional resource of historical data used for national reporting, student surveys, and the PeopleSoft Student Information system that held campus data. When some systems and data sources were migrated to the cloud with Amazon Web Services, there was an opportunity to develop a more sophisticated scalable approach. The goal was to provide Faculty Student Advisors and other key stakeholders with an intelligence platform for digging deeper into descriptive and predictive analytics. As a Blackboard partner, the Pyramid platform was a natural fit for UP in 2013.

Joe Ruggiero, Director of Capital Improvements at the Housing Authority of Monroe County, PA, needed a reliable vendor for tree trimming services for a housing project. He faced the challenge of finding a cost-effective and dependable vendor, as the preferred co-op in Pennsylvania (COSTARS) did not have a suitable option. Additionally, the communication gap between the 90,000 agencies made it difficult to find new opportunities and vendors.

Sole source validation was not always an easy task for Orange County government buyers. While no-bid contracts can save agencies time, the process to justify a no-bid contract can be complicated, time-consuming, and tedious due to the large amount of documentation and procedure required. Joe Thrasher, CEO of Tinker LLC, had an interesting situation on his hands. His company, which provides water conservation programs for public schools, came up during a search on GovSpend, the largest online database of government purchase orders. But what exactly did this mean for Tinker and its government clients, such as Orange County Utility? Not long ago, Thrasher believed that his company was the only one in the US who provided these types of efficiency services for government. Tinker reached out to Orange County Utility to provide their services through what was expected to be a no-bid contract. Michael Davis, a buyer for Orange County Utilities’ purchasing department, ran a sole source verification on the GovSpend platform, which compiles data from over 24,000 agencies across the country, to determine if Tinker really is the only company in its field.

The University of Dayton needed to purchase a very expensive confocal microscope for the biology department. The purchasing team faced the challenge of finding the most competitive pricing for this high-cost item. Traditional procurement methods were not yielding satisfactory results, and the team needed a more data-driven approach to ensure they were getting the best value for their money. The challenge was further compounded by the need to meet specific departmental requirements while staying within budget constraints.

The telecommunication industry is one of the most dynamic industries in the world. GSM operators around the globe are continuously required to adapt their business models and processes to a very competitive marketplace. Turkcell aspired to become the most dynamic company in the industry by looking at ways to improve customer service, increase the productivity levels of their resources, and enhance the efficiency of their business processes. They were determined to introduce a business process management system and decided on the Ultimus Adaptive BPM Suite, which would help them to become more responsive through shorter cycle times, and enable them to quickly adapt their processes to the changing market. With the Ultimus BPM Suite, their goal was to improve competitive advantage while simultaneously enhancing their ROI. One of the major issues faced by highly dynamic companies is the continuous change in the organigram. Secondly, corporate processes need to be dynamically linked to other corporate IT systems, feeding and receiving data from them as the processes require.

Our customer, one of the world’s largest producers and transporters of liquefied natural gas, embarked on an ambitious program to accelerate operational effectiveness. At the core of this effort is the automation of a wide range of enterprise, cross-functional, and department level business processes. To make an undertaking of this scale successful, our customer sought to deliver initial quick, visible wins that would ensure additional funding to expand their efforts. As the program expanded, they sought to avoid the explosion of complexity and total cost of ownership that results from diffuse, uncoordinated, and tactical efforts. To make this plan a success, our customer sought to avoid the mistakes of the past: having to learn and support multiple automation platforms to handle the full range of processes they would need to automate; expensive custom coding workarounds to address missing platform functionality; architectures that do not support reuse and consistency; and confusing, inconsistent, and unfriendly user interfaces that drive up training costs and discourage user adoption.

The scope of this digitization effort was highly ambitious: Putting 35 automated business processes and over 40 reports and supporting applications into production in one year required: Over 6,000 form elements, 1,000 process steps, 40 integration points with core systems of record, and the automatic generation of 140 documents. Securely extending processes outside the enterprise to the financial institutions themselves - without exposing sensitive internal and/or applicant information to the other party. Making forms, user interfaces, and data entry available in Arabic and English. Parallel process steps with complex, context-related task routing. Complex step and instance completion time calculations and escalation methods to ensure SLA compliance. Intuitive user interfaces, built-in user self-help, and form validation to reduce training and errors. Automating task-level activities such as rich text document generation, email notifications, process instance launches and escalations, and routing decisions. A unified, high productivity portal to consolidate process activities, user tasks, administrative and business reports, and communications. High availability and fast solution performance at scale. In addition, the customer recognized the importance of creating an overall solution architecture that would support rapid change and lower total cost of ownership.

The Maintenance and Support Service Organization (MSSO) at Northrop Grumman faced several challenges in managing change requests and the integration of MedDRA terms. The process was complex, requiring a full medical review and consensus from an international medical committee based on strict MSSO guidelines. The information flow was uncontrolled, with requests passing through multiple systems and manual steps, making it difficult to track the status or generate detailed reports. Bottlenecks were unavoidable due to the approval hierarchy, and manual interventions increased the risk of errors, potentially leading to noncompliance with MSSO standards.

The Client Server Access Request process at Zale Corporation was highly inefficient, relying on manual paper forms that were time-consuming and prone to bottlenecks. Each of the 15,000 employees needed to fill out a paper form by hand for any new access or change in system permissions, leading to thousands of requests flooding the IT department annually. The paper forms were passed from group to group within the IT department, causing delays if someone was unavailable. This manual process resulted in long processing times, bottlenecks, and an inability to track the status of requests, creating an overflow of inquiries into the IT department without concrete answers.

The manual legal discovery process at NV Energy was prone to errors, extremely time-consuming, and labor-intensive. The process involved over 100 steps and required significant manual work, including printing and running memos around the company. This manual process had a wide margin of error, as it was human-driven, and any employee's absence could cause delays. The stringent time deadlines mandated by the government added pressure, as missing these deadlines could result in fines or negative case findings. Additionally, managers spent a considerable amount of time performing this manual process, negatively impacting their overall productivity.

To further improve efficiency and effectiveness of the company, Cuatrecasas started investigating into solutions that would help them not only to optimise their business processes, but also to automate them. Their aim was to reduce lag time, improve responsiveness and increase transparency. As Business Process Management is a perfect fit to achieve these goals, they evaluated solutions from different vendors. After extensive research, Cuatrecasas selected Ultimus as their Business Process Management solution since it has a powerful forms designer and graphical design environment, allowing for fast and efficient synchronisation of the OrgChart with Active Directory and perfectly supporting the Microsoft System Architecture Cuatrecasas have in place. Due to the completeness and quality of the product, they were convinced the solution would be capable of handling all their present and future requirements. In fast growing companies and large enterprises, human resources account for most inefficiencies in administration as these processes are often not very transparent and traceable and therefore have a very large potential for improvement. Broken flows within the set up process for new hires cause frustration, inefficiencies and prevent, for example, newly hired employees from being productive from the start due to missing login information, computers, telephones, etc. Also in terms of, for example, vacation requests much potential for optimisation of human resources processes is feasible.

HR departments face many challenges: manual, time-consuming, document-intensive processes; siloed and inconsistent employee data; large volumes of job applications and hiring requests; and assuring compliance with policies and regulations. These challenges, along with increasing complexity of the HR function and the need to respond quickly to a changing regulatory and social landscape, requires process automation built with goal of digital transformation in mind.

The human resources department at the Children’s Medical Center of Dallas processes close to 500 leave requests per year. These requests have historically been manually processed by type of leave (Medical, Military, Pregnancy, etc...). Some of the challenges with this process include: Time Consuming, Manually Intensive: The FMLA process was very labor intensive (45 minutes per form), requiring the staff to select one of fifteen different letters based on the type of leave. Inconsistent Quality of Confidential Data: The HR staff had to type all of the employee’s benefit information into the appropriate letter, an extremely time-consuming and error-prone process when dealing with confidential employee data. Information Compensation Control: Each case was logged into an excel spreadsheet and manually tracked based on when the individual was expected to return to work. There was little control or accountability to ensure that employees returned from leave within set limits. Execution on a Per Case Basis: With such a manual process, errors were often made with employees being paid before their leave was complete or receiving erroneous benefits.

Koenig & Bauer (KBA) faced two main potential threats: inefficiency due to high market penetration and success, and the need to maintain high-quality standards demanded by their customers. Competitors with more streamlined processes were entering the market, producing at lower rates, and putting pressure on KBA. The company needed to become more responsive to customer demands and improve business processes to maintain its competitive edge. KBA's customers expected the highest quality products and reliable customer service, necessitating a responsive and efficient operational model. The company aimed to automate key processes and constantly review and improve them to discover potential for optimization. Streamlining processes was essential to enhance responsiveness to customers and maintain high standards of service and machinery.

Farming is a geographically dispersed endeavor that covers large areas, great distances, and remote locations. eHemp needed a way to ensure that (1) its network of individual growers are following green practices and raising crops that can be certified Organic and (2) sufficient supplies would be available to efficiently operate the facilities that convert the raw materials into end products and deliver on orders. eHempHouse realized that tracking farming practices and crop progress by exchanging photographs through SMS and social media messaging was inefficient, unverifiable, and not scalable. Ultimus used its unique compositional architecture, industry-leading business process automation platform, and reusable Flobot® automations to rapidly and cost effectively deliver a flexible, end-to-end automated business process solution to these challenges.

Helaba faced several challenges with their existing system authorization process. The complexity of over 70 different types of paper forms made it difficult to select the correct one, leading to confusion and errors. The processing time was lengthy, often taking up to four weeks due to the number of necessary authorizations and mailing delays. Additionally, the process involved multiple transitions between paper, email, phone, and fax, increasing the risk of errors and duplication of efforts. There was also low visibility into the process, making it hard to track the status of requests and causing dissatisfaction among employees and management.

In an effort to speed up and streamline operations, simplify solution management, and improve employee experience, this customer sought to consolidate HR processes into a single interconnected solution family using CPS. The customer realized that success required overcoming several key, yet common, business challenges relating to Human Resources: maintaining staffing levels despite rapid employee growth; retrieving information in a timely manner; speeding requests, approvals, and decisions; providing visibility into the status of request activity; maximizing employee productivity and cost effectiveness; and having an intuitive, modern, and mobile-ready user experience. Realizing these challenges could not be met with conventional process automation technology, this entity selected Ultimus Composed Process Solutions as its experience, automation, and rapid innovation platform for digitizing Human Resources. With eight processes already running on Ultimus BPM Suite Version 7, this customer upgraded to the latest Ultimus technologies, including Ultimus Composed Process Solutions, and automated two additional new processes with CPS. Their main reason to upgrade was to benefit from a technology designed especially for digital transformation.

As a multi-product, publicly-traded bank, this customer recognized that large-scale digital process automation and seamlessly connected, globally manageable business processes would eliminate the product and process silos, automation gaps, and business complexity that went along with limited, ad hoc automation. The customer recognized that digital transformation success required an “industrialized” development approach that would: Quickly deliver pervasive automation covering all regional, product, language, and use-case scenarios; Eliminate expensive one-off customizations and inconsistent implementations; Minimize cost of ownership through global solutions management, ease of deployment, and intuitive, consistent interfaces across all devices; Allow business owners to quickly and reliably change key process parameters and business drivers without IT involvement; Ensure end user performance and up-time as mission critical, customer facing applications scaled to thousands of users; Leverage complementary automation technologies to create end-to-end solutions. Having automated over 350 banking business processes at 90 banks spanning every continent and concluding that these challenges could not be met with conventional process automation technology, the customer selected the Ultimus Digital Process Automation Suite to digitally transform their operations.

Financial service organizations face significant challenges in adapting to changing customer requirements, legal regulations, and market forces. Processes and people are constantly realigned, requiring IT Service Management to keep up with access rights, software and equipment provisioning, applications, and infrastructure. Rigid technology makes every change difficult, time-consuming, and costly, and makes tracking, approving, and documenting them impossible. IT organizations thereby fail to support agile businesses and overspend on human and financial resources. When Caixabank found itself in a similar situation, the IT Services group decided to set up a new structure and technology that would provide the flexibility to make changes fast and easy, handle approvals and tracking automatically, and streamline operations to deliver services within budget.

Many companies try to distinguish themselves from their competition through quality and price. However, in order to remain competitive in the future, it needs more than providing high-quality products at a cheap rate. In the new millennium, time has taken a leading role among the critical success factors. Particularly in developed nations, time has become a much scarcer good than money. Following this trend, customers are willing to pay more for a product if the shipping time is minimal or non-existent. The shorter the shipping time, the higher the probability of closing a deal. Bernstein saw itself confronted with the task of preparing the company for the future. In 1999, the individual enterprises were combined within Bernstein AG. The reorganization of the enterprise group was completed in 2001 when all administration departments were pooled in Porta Westfalica. Along with these changes, the business processes had to be adjusted to fit the newly structured company and also improving them continuously became an important task. These activities aimed at securing not only quality leadership but also realizing cost advantages. Within a real-time enterprise, order placement and shipment occur nearly simultaneously. Many processes, though, comprise unnecessary time lags. Reducing delays in critical business processes ever further on the basis of current information in order to conduct them ideally with zero latency is essential to the health of any company.

In an effort to increase market share among small and medium-sized businesses, NBAD wanted to unite certain lending products under a common marketing umbrella, Program Lending, and employ technology to provide exceptional customer experience and rapid innovation. NBAD realized that success required overcoming several key, yet common, business challenges: fast yet prudent approval of loans; ready cross-selling of products (each with different business rules, limits, and requirements); rapid innovation in response to changing competitive and regulatory conditions; and maximized employee productivity and cost-effectiveness. Realizing these challenges could not be met with conventional process automation technology, NBAD selected Ultimus Composed Process Solutions as its experience and rapid innovation platform for Program Lending.

With over 80,000 employees in 139 countries, the efficiency and accuracy of Roche’s IT authorization and allocation process has been substandard in the past. Authorization requests took several days to be approved which impacted productivity. Human errors cost time and resources, and often resulted in the inadvertent allocation of user rights to inappropriate parties, a potential security risk. Challenges with the old processes include: Inconsistent Data. The IT department received numerous authorization requests every day with inconsistent information. Forms lacking complete information had to be returned to the requester for further completion. This part of the process would take several days to complete before the request could even be processed. Lack of Monitoring and Reporting. The lack of visibility in the authorization process was very frustrating for employees as they could not check the status of their requests or ensure that all of the necessary information had been submitted properly. Conversely, the IT department lacked a means of reporting, monitoring, and controlling the access and authorization rights they had granted. Time Consuming and Wasteful. The authorization process took several days to be approved meaning that employees were not able to complete all of the tasks required of them. Additionally, there was excessive lag time in the rerouting of access when the responsible party was unavailable.

The Central Scheduling Call Center for ProHealth Care faced several challenges in handling patient forms. The handwritten questionnaires were often illegible or incomplete, leading to errors and inefficiencies. The manual process required schedulers to leave their desks to fax forms, causing delays and reducing their availability to handle incoming calls. Additionally, patients had to fill out forms for each appointment, as previous records were not accessible, leading to dissatisfaction.

For any employer, tracking employees’ paid time off (PTO) and leave requests is an important aspect of HR’s responsibility. For CCCS, this process was becoming more than cumbersome and extremely error-prone due to the sheer number of employees at each of the 13 community colleges. Other challenges with this process include: Inaccurate Data and Manually Intensive: Manually filing, routing, and storing paper forms often lead to errors in data entry and misplaced forms. This cost HR managers and employees hours to make corrections, retrieve a lost timesheet or replace it with a new one. Information Compensation Control: The paper-based system offered no reliable way of knowing whether employees were taking time off without reporting it. Some employees were being paid out on leave they had taken but not reported. Time Consuming: CCCS’ paper-based process was inherently error-prone. This cost them extra time to not only complete the process in the first place, but also to correct the mistakes. Lack of Reporting Capabilities: HR personnel had no way to quickly or efficiently perform month-end HR reporting without excessive data entry, dealing with lost forms, or fielding employee inquiries.

As a large and geographically dispersed enterprise, the customer realized that automated business processes were essential to ensure the timely and accurate preparation of financial reports, as well as adherence to proper financial controls and policies. The customer recognized that business process automation success required eliminating siloed business process data, reducing user training requirements, support calls, and errors, responding rapidly to an ever-changing regulatory and business environment, meeting highly complex requirements without expensive, hard-to-maintain custom coding, integrating with multiple external systems, and ensuring visibility into process activity, performance, and business improvement opportunities. Concluding that these challenges could not be met with conventional process automation technology, the customer selected the Ultimus Digital Process Automation Suite to digitally transform their financial operations.

Generali Slovenia faced the challenge of integrating multiple backend systems and streamlining various insurance processes. The company needed a solution to connect people, data, and systems into a cohesive digital workflow. This integration was crucial for handling a high volume of business events daily, including new insurance policies, policy change requests, cancellations, and other administrative tasks. The goal was to improve productivity, ensure compliance with laws and internal regulations, and provide reliable data for better business decisions.

The insurance industry requires extensive data collection and compliance with security guidelines. Celtic Insurance faced challenges with their existing document-based workflow system, which was unreliable and unsupported. This led to employees circumventing the system, risking regulatory compliance. Celtic needed a solution to streamline data collection, reduce redundant data entry, ensure procedural adherence, and create a paperless office.

Ferrero faced three significant challenges due to their decentralized system: lack of executive visibility, inability to take real-time action, and poor customer risk management. Finance executives had limited visibility across business units, making it difficult to monitor important accounts or have a holistic view of customer data for smarter decision-making. The A/R team struggled to take real-time actions due to siloed systems, leading to a lack of information flow between systems and departments. Additionally, the lack of inter-team visibility hindered better decision-making and enforcement of customer rules for various risk segments.

Over the years, Zurich struggled with its Cash Application process due to two core challenges - a 100% manual end-to-end process and a decentralized processing system. Zurich took several initiatives to maintain control and improve the efficiency of the existing cash application process in the past, but continued to face multiple roadblocks. The Credit and A/R team struggled to manually process the bulk of electronic payments and receipts. They wanted to further reduce the time and resources spent on posting payments, minimize errors made during the cash application, match the payments faster and accurately while minimizing manual intervention. The delayed cash application process led to erroneous status reports for accounts/invoices. Even if the customer had paid for an invoice, they might wrongfully receive DNOC or dunning letters, resulting in a disparate status of accounts and dissatisfied customers. In order to resolve the errors in the system, the Credit and A/R team was frequently compelled to have multiple internal calls or meetings with brokers, underwriters, account executives, and Finance Operations managers. This led to further delay and dispute in the process.

Danone faced significant challenges in its Accounts Receivable (A/R) processes due to a decentralized system and a diverse customer base. The company had to manage multiple payments and remittance formats manually, leading to increased process complexity and a high number of short pays. The A/R team spent a considerable amount of time processing electronic and check payments, which delayed dispute identification and resolution. Additionally, the manual deductions management process caused delays in dispute management, increasing the Days Deductions Outstanding (DDO) to over 45 days. The lack of automation in the collections process further affected cash flow and working capital, and the inability to identify the right customers for collections hindered customer-client relationships.