Read this article about Globe Telecom, Finalist in the Best Achievement in Process Automation (RPA, Intelligent Automation, Digital Process Automation, Machine Learning, Cognitive Learning, Blockchain etc), selected by the independent judging panel, for the 2021 Digital Transformation & Operational Excellence Industry Awards program.
Accelerating Digital Transformation through Citizen Development
Digital transformation is one of the strategic directions of the company, but many business process automation initiatives remain inactive due to the following reasons:
● Pitching an idea is intimidating. It is easier for junior employees to follow manual processes than build a business case and defend it to the department heads.
● Solutions are expensive. Process automation will require programming or platform licenses that would be too expensive for niche applications.
● There are no available project resources. The management will always prioritize projects that can provide the highest benefit to the company. Relatively small initiatives will always get deprioritized.
Last May 19, 2020, Globe Telecom introduced Citizen Development through a No-Code Hackathon program. A total of 107 teams participated nationwide, each with a business process challenge that they would like to solve. It was converted to a fully online program to adapt to the pandemic.
After eight weeks of training, coaching, and mentoring, 59 No-Code applications were created. The submitted solutions vary from risk assessment automation from our audit team, service vehicle usage reporting from our field engineers, digital application forms from our store specialists, to digital site access requests from our security team, and many others.
● Employees can solve the problem correctly because they are the end-users
● Some of the issues are not visible to the top management until citizen developers solved them
● Employees are motivated when they are empowered with tools and skills to solve challenges in their function
● Citizen developers still need support from IT through facilitated training, coaching, and mentoring
The problem is, we assess process automation initiatives individually instead of collectively. Through Citizen Development, we should be able to empower employees to create their business process automation and address the execution barriers:
● Provide platform access to all employees by default. The solution should be available to all employees without requesting approval. In this way, they can focus more on building solutions than making presentations.
● No employee cost. Similar to our email accounts, employees should not be charged per usage. The IT department will absorb all fees.
● Do-It-Yourself approach. The solution should not require a person to have programming knowledge to build an application. If the employee is willing to invest time and effort, a process automation application can be created without a programmer.
Process automation initiatives will now have an alternative implementation path by taking out the approval process, cost, and IT programming requirements to build applications.
Baratillo App by Finance and Administration
● An e-commerce app exclusive to Globe Employees
● 92% improvement in processing time, 87% improvement in administrative handling, 90% reduction in customer inquiry, 87% improvement in payment validation, and 4.8/5 star satisfaction rating from users.
Track Gear by Field Engineers
● Reports upload of vehicle usage, expanded the app to support gas reimbursement, accident reporting, and field engineer onboarding.
● 98% TAT reduction, 15% gas consumption savings, and have more time to focus on engineering functions.
Inventory Tracker by Store Personnel
● Inventory for the critical stock count, item age, orders, assignments, and reports.
● Reduced TAT for order processing, stock reconciliation, and reporting by 80%.
Offboarding Central by Human Resources
● Offboarding app process for Employee clearance existing Globe
● 98% clearance completion within 14 days, 82% TAT reduction, and zero complaints since launch.
As of August 31, 2021, we have trained 663 employees and have 180 active apps deployed across the organization, with 12,700 unique active users. These apps improved our business processes by 79.8%.