Agro Invest (Directum)

Within the project processes of approval and registration of agreements and also organizational document flow are automated. More than 200 employees of the enterprise became participants of an information system.

Situation

Contracted work in Invest Group penetrates all business activities. The majority of agreements is initiated in subsidiaries, and approval can take place at several levels: at the Moscow office of management company or in the relevant branch. The profit of the company directly depends on efficiency of these processes. The management of Invest Group understood that now one of the major tools for increase in efficiency is automation of business process on management of contractual documents.

Prior to the beginning of the project the following problems of contractual management were selected:

• probability of loss of the document by transfer from one company of group to another, in the course of its approval;
• the low level of horizontal interaction and as a result slow "passing" of agreements at approval;
• complexity of obtaining information on the status of works on the specific document, terms of passing and performance of a document;
• undeveloped functions of control and analytics.

Considering geographically distributed structure of Invest Group, many of the listed problems did not manage to be solved. Also in the company there was no uniform electronic archive of documents. In each division there were isolated registers of agreements in which employees reflected a current status of the document. Information in these registers was not always true, and document search capabilities at such situation were significantly limited or impossible.

Selection

Having studied experience of the enterprises which are already using at themselves an electronic document management system, the company management headed for system implementation of DIRECTUM. The choice was caused by an optimal combination of cost and functionality of a system. Entered the project team performing implementation both specialists of Akelon company, and the staff of Invest Group company.

Task analysis

At the first stage the project team defined a number of important tasks which should be solved:

• transfer of document flow to an electronic form;
• description, optimization and automation of basic processes of interaction;
• creation of uniform storage of documents with the flexible accessibility to them;
• transparency of process of approval of agreements at all stages of consideration of the project, including inside * verticals and horizontals of holding;
• sale of the mechanism of strict control of an adherence to deadlines of approval of agreements, including when passing the agreement through several enterprises of group.

As a result of joint work the technical specifications on an implementation project of the DIRECTUM systems were formulated and issued.

Platform

DIRECTUM is the electronic document management system and interaction managements aimed at increase in efficiency of all staff of the organization in different areas of their joint activity. DIRECTUM is a full-fledged ECM system (Enterprise Content Management) and supports complete lifecycle of management of documents, at the same time traditional "paper" office-work organically fits into electronic document management. DIRECTUM provides the effective organization and control of business processes on the basis of workflow: approval of documents, processing of difficult orders, preparation and holding meetings, support of a sales cycle and other processes of interaction.

Solution

On the basis of the functional value analysis which is carried out by specialists of Akelon at a system design stage optimal management model by agreements for Invest Group was revealed. The existing business process on management of contractual documents was improved according to the developed model. These changes were reflected in "Provision on a contracted work".

Specialists of Akelon company designed procedures of a contracted work taking into account requirements of the regulations developed by specialists of Invest Group for a contracted work. These regulations imposed tight restrictions on an order of approval of contractual documents and terms of approval. The regulations required determination of participants of approval depending on the budget item according to which there "passed" the agreement, the amounts of the agreement, the partner and the organization on behalf of which the agreement is signed, at the same time approval could pass as through participants in subsidiary company, so branch, and management company. The corresponding routes of approval of documents and also the flexible mechanism of the instructions of the employees participating in approval, and the sequence of passing of the agreement between them were developed for this task. New document types and reference books are created.

Now automation of business process of contractual management covers stages:

• preparation and approval of the request for the agreement;
• creation of contractual documents;
• approvals and statements in all interested services;
• registration of contractual documents in legal department and in office;
• archive document storage.

Results

According to specialists of Akelon company, more than 500 agreements are processed and affirms as a system in a month, about 800 documents are created, also 700 outgoing letters are registered about 200 entering. The DIRECTUM system is unrolled in workplaces of key staff of the company - all more than 200 employees are connected and 130 certificates of the EDS are issued.

Optimization and standardization of work with agreements allowed to lay off the number of the administrators distributing arriving agreements on responsibles. Respectively, also the route of the movement of the agreement was reduced, and the term of approval of the agreement decreased twice.

In addition specialists of Akelon within the DIRECTUM system automated processes:

• registration of incoming documents and control of performance of resolutions on them;
• work with the entering and outgoing claims;
• approval and accounting of outgoing correspondence;
• approval of memos;
• approval and control of performance of orders, including approving local regulations;
• approval of the powers of attorney issued on behalf of management company.

Prospects

The DIRECTUM system turned into commercial operation. In the near future Invest Group is going to automate process of approval of requests for payment, to integrate DIRECTUM with the accounting system.

Responses

Bnatov A.N., the CEO of Invest Group, noted: "As a result of work of a joint project team all tasks set for the project were solved. The analysis of indicators before project completion and introduction of a system to commercial operation showed that acceleration only of approval of contractual documents reached 40%. Summing up the results, it would be desirable to note that specialists of Akelon company coped with the tasks set for them, having provided at the same time observance of the arrangements and conditions reached at an agreement signature stage. Throughout our joint work due attention and competent advisory support were paid to us."