Company information
About the customer
Visser Assen is a technical wholesaler focused on various construction-related industries. "With our increasing range and innovations, we want to be a one-stop-shop within the Construction, Ground Road and Hydraulic Engineering and the Green sector", says Siebrand, director of Visser Assen. An innovative organization that is located precisely in a conservative sector distinguishes itself through innovation. Think of BouWatch, which originated from the sleeve of Visser Assen. "Our latest innovation is BouwTag, which makes it easy to trace tools such as a vibrating plate or a laser using a Tag. It doesn't even happen that things are lost or stolen. With BouwTag we help companies always to find their precious materials again. Also, Visser Assen wants to improve further towards online. "We want to lead the way with digital transformation in the sector. As a wholesaler, we play an important role in this. We are convinced that our good online channel liked our offline channel. By automating back-office processes at the back, we can increasingly focus on processes at the front and thus develop an increasingly better service to our customer".
Challenges
"We want to avoid investing in staff for the back office, but investing in the front office." This means that Visser Assen focuses on automating Back-office processes. The challenge that Visser Assen faced, in particular, was to use an old and malfunctioning Accounts Payable solution for processing incoming invoices. "We spent a lot of time with this program, and it took our people a long time to solve the problems. The Matching was not good, and we had a very low recognition. Also, it was not an integrated solution within SAP, so I did not have real-time insight into the state of affairs. Because of this, I missed a bit of control and insight. This caused frustration, especially in reporting and monthly closings." Visser Assen then went looking for a new solution.
How our software helps
Siebrand's former employer used ReadSoft Invoices for invoice recognition and ReadSoft Process Director for further processing within SAP and was delighted with this. "I went looking for a suitable partner to discuss a solution for our organization. I was looking for an integrated solution within SAP. I also considered SAP's solution, but it was less extensive in terms of functionalities than ReadSoft Process Director. With ReadSoft Process Director, we got the direct insight, and we had control because this solution is fully integrated within SAP. We are also very pleased with the invoice recognition solution. With ReadSoft Invoices, we have achieved a very high recognition, partly thanks to consultancy from Dynatos. By improving this invoicing process, we have been able to automate even further. We have been able to save about 1 FTE with the transition from the old application to the new application."
Robotic Process Automation
Whether it concerns new contact persons at customers or new articles for the shop: they were entered manually in SAP, which was not very challenging and, above all, very repetitive. Work can soon be labeled as tedious or boring. RPA can be of high added value in this. Taking action off your hands what must be done but what you are not waiting for.
When a customer visit finds that a contact person is not yet registered in SAP, a request is submitted via a web form. The customer data comes in via email: the starting point of the robot. First of all, the customer data is checked for completeness. They are then processed in SAP and linked to the correct debtor number. After completion in SAP, the incoming mail is moved, so that the user can see that it has been processed. If something turns out to be incorrect during processing in SAP - a contact person already exists in SAP, for example - the robot registers this and returns it to the user. Although the robot works in the background, there is (possibly) full insight into the results.
New items for the shop must be processed in SAP. The stepping up of this involves many different steps and therefore takes a lot of time. Besides, the risk of errors is present in the many cut-and-paste work within this process. The robot takes over this work and does it flawlessly. The required article data is prepared using an Excel template. At agreed times, it is automatically checked whether new requests are ready. Such a request is checked for completeness and processed in its entirety, whereby a per-article is kept of what the status is. All article data is entered in SAP using different functions. After processing, the relevant department receives a notification of completion to know precisely when the articles can be used.
Both processes now take place in the background, without anyone having to worry about this. The robot sends updates when necessary, and the robot's output can serve as input for the next process. And who carries out the following procedure: humans or robots, it doesn't matter!
Siebrand van Breden
Director - Visser Assen
Why Dynatos
"After a lot of inquiries and assessments, we ended up talking to Dynatos. The first contact was immediately good. We were quickly convinced, Dynatos has several very appealing customers with a similar solution. We also like the pragmatic approach and fast switching. This hands-on mentality also suits Visser Assen well. Subsequently, the implementation was very professional. "Looking to the future, Siebrand wishes to automate even more processes. "We also started Robotic Process Automation (RPA) together with Dynatos. We have already got the first two processes working. "We sit with our legs up, the robot does everything," says Siebrand. The aim is to have even more processes taken up by the robot. All in all, Siebrand summarizes: "With Dynatos, we have found a great partner in the field of process automation. When problems arise, it is quick to switch, and things are resolved quickly where possible. I would recommend Dynatos!"
Siebrand van Breden
Director - Visser Assen