Compliance automation revolutionized supplier onboarding for a supply chain management leader

Precision and efficiency are paramount when it comes to supply chain management. Our latest case study delves into the challenges faced by a prominent Utah-based leader in this field. With a substantial supplier database, rigorous assessments, and a dedicated service team, they were poised for success, but they aimed to enhance throughput while implementing compliance automation. Discover how they partnered with Netscribes to identify opportunities, implement strategic automation solutions, and achieve remarkable results.

Challenges

A Utah-based leader in supply chain management solutions, specializing in supplier prequalification, document management, auditing, and insurance monitoring services faced the following challenges:

• They managed a vast database of over 125,000 registered suppliers.
• Each supplier underwent a rigorous assessment covering health and safety, workforce compliance, ESG (Environmental, Social, Governance) considerations, and financial viability.
• Suppliers were also subject to verification for a wide range of expertise services.
• A team of 90 service agents handled more than 20,000 service requests, including onboarding new suppliers and renewing existing ones.
• The firm sought to increase throughput without a proportional increase in human resources and lacked automation for its compliance-based operations.

Approach and solution

To address these challenges, Netscribes devised a comprehensive approach:

• Process analysis: Conducted a detailed time-motion analysis for each service request to understand the steps and time allocation in each process
• Leverage identification: Identified services with the greatest potential for time-saving through automation
• Automation implementation: Developed and deployed automation solutions for the identified compliance services

The implemented compliance automation solution consisted of the following key components:

• Browser-based extension: Integrated with the document management system and Salesforce, streamlining the process
• Salesforce integration: Utilized Salesforce to identify service types and details, streamlining document retrieval
• Rule engine: Implemented a rule engine with verification rules for each service document, enabling efficient approval or rejection of service requests based on verification outcomes

Results delivered 

The implementation of this technology-enabled operation augmentation resulted in substantial benefits:

• The client achieved a remarkable 40% boost in throughput.
• With the same team of approximately 90 service agents, they successfully processed approximately 28,000 service requests.
• The overall review time per service request was reduced from an average of 2 days to just 1 day.