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Automating Procurement Plus

Accenture recognized the need to transform its procurement operations to focus on driving real value. It renamed the procurement organization to "Procurement Plus" and set about reimagining the function. Accenture introduced intelligent automation technologies like RPA, NLP and virtual agents to over 30% of its processes, reducing costs by 25% over three years while increasing capacity by 10% annually. To scale benefits enterprise-wide, Accenture adopted an integrated approach, eliminating silos, increasing automation visibility and enabling performance management. This included transitioning automations to a centralized global IT team for ongoing maintenance and development. Key benefits included reduced hardware/license costs and increased security, speed and scalability.

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Intelligent Automation•
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STORIES Scaling the benefits of intelligent automation Automating Procurement Plus
Copyright © 2022 Accenture. All rights reserved Call for change Long before the disruption of the pandemic, Accenture recognized the need to transform the way we operate and adopt the Human+Machine mindset. We could see that the future is less about managing transactions and tactical spending and more about driving real value—value that impacts the Accenture bottom line. Having renamed our procurement organization “Procurement Plus” to reflect everything we do beyond procuring goods and services, we set about reimagining our procurement function. Part of the transformation excelled by making the most of intelligent automation. Intelligent automations, like robotic process automation (RPA), natural language processing and virtual agents, can help organizations improve efficiency and productivity. But to be truly effective, intelligent automation needs to be fundamental to the heart of how an organization operates—and it needs to be effectively managed to ensure continuous expansion of value delivered. A secret formula for success Copyright © 2022 Accenture. All rights reserved
Copyright © 2022 Accenture. All rights reserved Call for change It’s an approach that’s not without its roadblocks. Many organizations have applied pockets of automation but failed to scale the benefits across the enterprise. Whether due to a lack of skilled talent or the absence of a clear vision from the top, automation investments can often proliferate, without ever reaching their true potential. So, what is the secret formula to achieve widescale intelligent automation? We discovered that what’s needed is to adopt an enterprise-wide approach. This involves a new way of working— automating at scale. By bringing together technology and the best of human ingenuity, Accenture has been able to solve and anticipate some of our biggest challenges—and future-proof our procurement operations. Today, we have introduced automation to more than 30% of our processes, reduced operational costs by 25% over three years and created a 10% increase in resource capacity annually to further progress our transformation journey. “Effectively managed intelligent automation has enabled our business to achieve significant performance gains from greater workforce agility, predictive insights and scalable solutions.” DAVID SMITH Senior Manager Procurement Plus, Technology & Tools, Accenture
Copyright © 2022 Accenture. All rights reserved When tech meets human ingenuity The initial stages included bold actions that quickly brought improved operational efficiency. These actions included: Creating enterprise- wide bots Eliminating existing silos We knew individual groups were automating their processes in pockets of the business. While our business excellence teams and other process experts were helping us reimagine multiple disparate processes (such as how we handle contractors, payables, or buying), these efforts were often uncoordinated and failed to keep ongoing operations or scalability in mind. Increasing visibility of our bots We created an inventory of our bots and documented their source or destination systems. This enhanced visibility, testing and proactive code management has enabled us to reduce or outright eliminate system release-related bot downtime, reduce operational costs and increase security, all while driving scalability. Enabling performance management Much like an organization nurtures employee performance to ensure that people are achieving their maximum potential, we have implemented automation performance management for our bot workforce. For high-performing bots, we look for ways to actively promote them to other geographies or to address similar use cases. Accelerating our move to the cloud While we already had plans to host our bots in the cloud over time, the COVID-19 pandemic triggered the acceleration of this transition to ensure they could be run anywhere in the world with a secured internet connection to support our remote working efforts. Not only did this eliminate dependence on individuals, but also it fortified our broader business continuity efforts.
Copyright © 2022 Accenture. All rights reserved When tech meets human ingenuity By adding command and control capabilities to our most critical automations, we can encourage innovation while maintaining the standard of new automations so that they are more suitable for global adoption. When automation reaches a certain threshold of use—whether that is measured in terms of spend, volume, savings, or business criticality—then the automation is transitioned to the Global IT team for ongoing maintenance and development. The Procurement Plus team is tapping into the Global IT team’s expertise to execute more than 50 planned automation updates. Now, the 15 new advanced RPA solutions are contributing to our journey toward frictionless and efficient procurement—from sourcing to buying, to facilitating on-time invoice payments, to onboarding contingent staff with the tools they need to become productive. Procurement Plus serves more than 710,000 Accenture employees through a range of services that help to make hiring and buying processes simpler, more compliant and more consistent. Here are some highlights of the bots being used as part of our intelligent automation journey: Procurement Plus Virtual Agent Enables self-service access to process instructions or technical procedures, to chat with an agent if they cannot find the solution they’re looking for and, in some cases, the user can obtain a status or even make updates to their records in source systems. For example, customers can check the status of invoice payments, or they can extend their contingent worker’s end date directly from the bot without having to navigate to another system. These capabilities significantly improve the customer experience while also reducing the number of tickets our support organizations field—to the tune of 16,000 per month—freeing them up to focus on more value-added work. Contractor Onboarding Automation Facilitates the data processing necessary to onboard and manage 5,000 to 7,000 contractors per month, including provisioning and de-provisioning access and assets, such as enterprise IDs, laptops and building access. It frees up capacity for people involved in the resource administration and delivers more accurate data. Purchase Order (PO) Release Bot Automates the process of releasing purchase orders to suppliers so they can undertake work with Accenture. It enables users to search for a particular purchase requisition and extract details that can be issued automatically as a purchase order to the supplier. On average, the bot processes more than 7,500 purchase requisitions in a month and helps to increase accuracy and turnaround time in processing documents and releasing the purchase order on time to the supplier.
Copyright © 2022 Accenture. All rights reserved A valuable difference Today, all RPA automations use virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI) so that there is no dependency on any single business contact, technical contact, or piece of hardware. This means that various procurement contacts across the world can connect and operate automations anywhere with a secured internet connection like Global Protect. In addition, we have realized the following benefits: • Reduction of hardware infrastructure and license costs by consolidating duplicate automations or combining bots that run on extended frequencies into a single virtual environment. Accenture reduced hardware needs by 50% and licensing needs by 50% through centralization. • The latest version of the intelligent automation tool gives us greater security, speed and scalability. The Accenture Procurement Plus operation is constantly evolving and looking for opportunities to forge new and deeper relationships to deliver value above and beyond what would be expected of traditional procurement operations. Going forward, Procurement Plus is adopting a proactive, centralized approach that can make intelligent automation even more accessible across the whole enterprise— continuing our journey toward unlocking more value. Proactive centralization Copyright © 2022 Accenture. All rights reserved
Copyright © 2022 Accenture. All rights reserved Meet the Team Balaji Poonkundran Senior Manager – Global IT, Intelligent Technology Operations Balaji Poonkundran David Smith Senior Manager – Procurement Plus, Technology & Tools David Smith Vijay V. Kumar Manager – Global IT, Intelligent Technology Operations Vijay V. Kumar Copyright © 2022 Accenture. All rights reserved. Accenture and its logo are trademarks of Accenture.