HOW WE AUTOMATED THE ORDER MANAGEMENT PROCESS

What issues do traditional companies face?

We understand the complexity of companies, made up of hundreds of different processes, each indispensable for the correct functioning of the entire organization. This reached incredible levels of complexity in the last 20 years, caused by new technologies that changed the way we work. Indeed, tech solutions simplified many activities and created new ones, which have to be monitored and controlled.

Every sector of a traditional company can employ a management software specifically designed for their activities. It is here that we can find one of the most prevalent issues: communication between different software and the exchange of data.

What type of complexity is caused by managing a storehouse and/or a net of points of sales?

Companies that manage a storehouse – especially those that also have a net of points of sales – have to face the challenges of a complex organism and the exchange of information between its different components quickly and efficiently.

When a customer orders a product, usually at a retail point of sale, the purchase must be followed by a quality check of the product available in stock. The more dynamic the market and the more frequent the customers’ requests, the more necessary it is for real-time updates of these amounts. Many companies employ the same tools and methodologies widespread back when they started their business.

For instance, if two software programs are incompatible – say, a management and an accounting software – we often see that companies use excel to overcome the incompatibility. Or even, they tend to exchange the data manually. In this case, the process is to manually export the pieces of information of a software via excel and then import them in another application via a manual document upload.

How can we optimize this kind of process? How complex can it be to learn and employ a new solution?

First of all, it is fundamental to know the team workflows in a company. Only after a thorough understanding can you replicate the process on a RPA product, such as Claudio.

In detail, we solved this kind of problem developing specific connectors for the systems employed in the customer company. These connections make use of the system’s API doors to connect to Claudio and share the various information. Once the systems are connected to Claudio, it develops the automations that will replace the manual controls, such as number of available products, upload and update of requests, invoicing, opening of delivery tickets, etc.

“Activation, personalization and training was the quickest thanks to Claudio’s simple and intuitive interface.”

The development of automations with Claudio is the easiest. It only needs a simple drag and drop of applications and a set-up of the user’s accounts. Whoever can be invited to create automation flows after a simple training session about workflows to learn the basic functionalities.

What activities/processes can be automated (entirely or partially) and what are those that remain manual?

The answer to this question depends on the context where Claudio is applied, on the company’s will and its goals. Indeed, there are no processes that can’t be automated. There are, instead, processes considered more critical and thus remain intentionally manual. In this case study, the whole process of new order processing, data control and invoicing is automated.

^{“Thanks to Claudio, all the flow of data exchange is automatic and scheduled. It gathers the data, imports them and notifies the control managers when the workflow’s completed.”}

The automation work requires – for more complex and critical tasks – a redesign of the same processes, to adapt to the technology and to accept the implementation of further automatic control and alert mechanisms.

What are the benefits of the implementation of Claudio from an operational and strategic perspective?

The benefits are many and all different. As for the operations, users find a higher speed of task execution and the elimination of mistakes for data entry-based activities. 

Strategically, the company benefits from a greater freedom of precious resources to reallocate to more relevant and creative tasks, like the development of new projects and products.

“We saved the time we spent for consultation and data aggregation through third-party software.”

Why choose Claudio?

Automation in the modern world is a common necessity. We can see it with the widespread distribution of RPA products such as Claudio. The majority of these, however, are just simple cloud application automation software. Claudio, instead, is a full automator that embraces all the company processes, allowing users to integrate and automate cloud, legacy and local on-site applications.

“Before Claudio, we were thinking about purchasing other programs, but its ease of use and thorough functionalities convinced us to choose it.”