Integrated Document Management Services Result in Cost Savings
Document Management Challenges
A global car rental company with 7,000 locations in over 100 countries wanted to improve its business processes and reduce costs. Canon Business Process Services helped the company save $800,000 a year, then found even more ways to save time and money. As the saying goes, “With great success comes great responsibility.” The company had grown massively successful around the globe—and because of that success, the company had 31,000 employees’ files to manage, 35,000 monthly invoices to process, and 1.2 million car rental contracts and vehicle records to manage.
With such an influx of materials, the company needed its processes to be seamless. “We needed a service provider that could implement integrated document process management services—to both support our industry leadership and help meet our strategic business goals,” noted a senior executive with the car rental company. The company looked for a partner to implement a strategic plan using quantitative methods. It found us: a results-driven team with Six Sigma® Black Belts, sharp insights about the future of business process document scanning, and ideas about how to streamline processes throughout the company.
Streamlining Processes and Reducing Costs
First we focused on the biggest challenge: the 1.2 million monthly rental contracts and vehicle records. The car rental company employed six of our process improvement experts, who used Lean Six Sigma methods to come up with a global process: First, we scan documents in our Business Processing Centers, then index and code them in our offshore BPC. Everything is digital, so documents are available in just two to 24 hours from receipt.
We then turned to accounts payable. Previously, invoices were hand-delivered from desk to desk en route to being processed. We redesigned this workflow so files are digitized and viewable in the company’s content management system within 24 hours. The faster invoice processing time allows the company to take advantage of vendor discounts, eliminates unnecessary late penalties, and has reduced the cost of invoice processing by $10,000 per month. We applied a similar method to HR, helping the department run more smoothly by digitizing its vast amount of paper. With the new system, the now electronically stored records can be quickly retrieved.
Value Added
Finally, we assumed management of the car rental company’s mail and print operations around the globe. Our management has provided significant benefits, including lower-cost print, copy, and mail management activities. “With Canon’s help, we now better manage our express package shipping program,” remarked one company executive on the project team. “Canon analyzed invoices and counseled our field location personnel on best practices, which are yielding substantial cost savings.”
Just as our client spans the globe, we provide services that span its business document lifecycle—helping to keep this car rental company on the road to success.