IBM's 2021 AWARD FINALIST CASE STUDY: Best achievement in operational excellence to deliver an outstanding value creation or innovation execution project

In 2016 IBMs Accounts Receivable (AR) initiated a platform to facilitate end-to-end daily collection activities, optimize workflow and seamlessly integrate all AR systems and upstream processes. As a result, our strategic platform tool called Engage AR became a powerful System of Engagement serving as a One-Stop-Shop for its users, the Cash Collection teams. In Engage AR decisive human insight is augmented by the disruptive power of data mining and analytics models.

Continuing our digital AR journey and IBM’s strategy to become the premier cognitive enterprise, major enhancements were implemented within Engage AR. Engage AR data analytics uses an algorithm called Pay Trend. This algorithm evolved from initial steps into the analytics world applying predictive models to forecast payment likelihood. The Pay Trend serves as the engine for some key analytical features within Engage AR as it looks for historical customer behavior and opens the door to many new cognitive capabilities including Customer Scoring and Automatic Forecasting. These enhancements to Engage AR are instrumental in driving cash as quickly as possible for the IBM Corporation and prioritizing overall workflow for our users.

Customer Scoring provides global users a score that represents the overall health and behavior of a customer account by utilizing many data points from various source systems. By incorporating user feedback and historical trends, this cognitive capability helps collectors make better judgement on which accounts and customers to focus on and enable continued internal data validation. In the Accounts view collectors can easily see the current Customer Score and have the ability to filter or sort by any specific Score.

Automatic Forecasting enables immediate forecasting upon invoice creation with focus on high dollar values. The analytic algorithm provides a settlement date of an Invoice and a confidence percentage which helps support decision making for collectors. It also provides collectors with an invoice payment forecast date and a security level of that date similar like Watson in Jeopardy. This function supports them in their decision making and prioritization of work as it provides Accounts Receivable with a nearly 100% forecasted ledger, immediately upon invoice creation.   After Automatic Forecasting is provided by the system, the collector can either confirm it or provide a different forecast based on the customer´s input.

Customer Scoring and Automatic Forecasting are in line with IBMs strategy to continuous digital transformation and leading the way to becoming the AR Cognitive Enterprise. Automatic Forecast more than doubled the coverage of the Latin America ledger for 2020 YE closing leading to an increase of approximately $300M accurately and timely forecasted cash. Automatic Forecast more than doubled the coverage of the ledger for Latin America for 2020 year-end closing, leading to an increase of approximately $300M accurately and timely forecasted cash. Customer Scoring provides behavioral insight for tens of thousands accounts and thousands of users. With new data mining and analytics modules, we aim to provide our Engage AR platform with functionalities that improve the effectiveness of the day-to-day activities of our AR teams and delighting our clients every day.