Founded in 1989 in Mönchengladbach in the heart of Germany’s leading industrial and commercial region in the Ruhr valley, Roderburg started life as a classic office technology supplier whose core business was in copy/print and fax machines. Indeed, the company is one of the state’s largest Ricoh dealers. More recently, it has expanded and developed its activities to help its clients with their digital transformation. Electronic archiving and document management are two of the main cornerstones of Roderburg’s expanded offering.
While advising their clients is obviously a key focus, the company also needed to look at its own processes. As with many other dealers, Roderburg was using a variety of different software packages to manage the various aspects of its business. In addition, there were also a number of paper-based and manual processes still in daily use. In 2019, the owner, Thomas Roderburg set himself the goal of driving forward the digital transformation of all the company's internal processes. Having analysed the available solutions, Mr Roderburg decided that Evatic was the best solution for implementing the digitalisation of the company’s countless customer service, contract billing and ordering processes and it was installed in July 2019.
The project has now been completed and Roderburg has successfully achieved its transformation. The project achieved five key goals for the company:
1. The start of digitisation of the supply chain process.
The entire supply chain process, right from the customer purchase order, through the detailed order placement, the delivery, customer invoicing, the incoming invoice from the supplier, the payment and the final posting to the external tax advisor was completely digitised.
Having received the required data from a Data Collection Agent (DCA), the ECMM (Evatic Consumable and Meter-reading Management) module is used to automate and, crucially, manage the replenishment and ordering process. Business logic and rules are used by the ECMM to add intelligence to the process. For example, the ECMM can place a toner order to prevent the user from running out, but also to avoid the order from being placed too early and run the risk of the customer incurring wastage by replacing the toner too soon. The ECMM also calculates whether another toner is needed within a pre-set time period, either for the same machine or for a different machine at the same location, thereby potentially saving on shipping costs and also making order processing more efficient.
The process is summarised in this graphic:
From left to right - the entire supply chain has been digitalised. Connecting all the company’s systems, employees, customers, suppliers, the bank and the document storage facility. Providing the required information at the right time significantly improves the efficiency of the process.
2. Revised intelligent digital invoice receipt process.
The import and processing of incoming invoices (either email/PDF or scanned) and the automatic matching of them with the purchase order generated by Evatic has been digitised. After matching and approval, the invoices are automatically posted to the external financial accounting system and the information is saved in Evatic, which is also connected to the automated payment process. The last step is for the invoice data to be stored in the archives, where it cannot be revised or altered.
3. Flexible digital outgoing invoice process.
Outgoing invoices, generated by Evatic as PDF and/or XML, are processed by JobRouter and delivered to the recipient in the correct format, either as a PDF via email or in a ZugFerD/xInvoice format. These invoices are received and posted directly to the customer's accounting system.
4. Access from anywhere - digital incoming mail process.
The incoming mail, its distribution and the follow-up process were all digitised. The mail is archived - so that Mr Roderburg always has access to his documents from anywhere.
5. Licence management process - made simple.
As a solution partner for various suppliers, Roderburg sells and maintains a number of different licences and software systems for their customers on a daily basis. Using Evatic Contract Management, the new process ensures that all licences are visible, that deadlines are met and that the quantity and validity of licences available at any given time can be managed.
The overall result is that processes are faster and provide digital, auditable document storage. Employees can work more efficiently - and from anywhere. Roderburg has all processes and information/documents visible and available at all times and it is easier to comply with the payment terms for incoming invoices. In the final analysis, digitalisation was a very cost-effective decision for Roderburg.
As Thomas Roderburg says: "The teams from EBS Solutions and Asolvi have completely digitised my company - and in record time. I now have a much better overview and am also amazed at the additional benefits this has brought".
