German energy supplier automates billing for a quick return on investment

About the client

German supplier of around 20% of the contestable gas load in the industrial and commercial market as well as 30% of the power sold to residential and commercial customers.

Motivation to implement RPA solution:

Leading energy producer and retailer in Germany realized that automating its transactional invoicing procedures may provide considerable advantages. A local third-party supplier has previously been used to outsource the operation. Therefore, it was thought that increased automation and internalizing the process would immediately boost the bottom line. The need for users to access different systems, such as SAP ERP, document management, websites, and MS Office, was another issue. Robotic process automation (RPA) was shown to have the potential to automate the entire process, resulting in cost savings as well as a decrease in average handle times and mistake rates. The end-user experience would be enhanced overall by these improvements.

In the automation phase, we have:

• developed a methodology for automating existing systems, conducted tests of solutions
• measured the parameters of the solution according to the specific needs of the customer
• implemented improvements
• launched production of the robot

Results:

More than 300 bots have been produced by the company thus far, and the library of robots is expanding. Overall, the effort has decreased outsourcing expenses, streamlined billing, accelerated payments, reduced debt, and secured savings. Within months of its RPA investment, the company saw a monetary return on investment. All of this was completed by more skillfully utilizing current technological investments.

One bot, for instance, continuously works in MS Office programs, contacts the company’s external network provider while waiting for a response, resolves a missing meter read in SAP ERP, contacts third-party websites, and more. By using a robot workforce outside of regular business hours, the company was able to scale quickly to meet workload spikes. It also experienced a decrease in average handle times and much lower error rates. The organization has expanded its RPA expertise into sales, finance, ICT, and HR functions since completing its billing program.