Roberto Sanz de Santamaria, Vice-President of Operations at Financiera de Desarrollo Nacional explained the information management challenges that resulted, “Back in 2013 we had very little IT infrastructure. We inherited SAP as our core Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) platform, but in addition to being greatly under used, it lacked certain capabilities such as document management, process automation and efficient supplier documentation handling. Effective and efficient documentation handling is crucial in the regulated financial environment we operate, as well as helping us manage and mitigate risk."
Seamless integration to SAP—A key solution requirement
In order to overcome the challenges of operating in the highly regulated financial services industry, FDN decided to look for a suitable solution to meet its needs. A number of objectives were identified, including better and more efficient control of documentation to mitigate the risks posed by a lack of precise documentation.
"We used to handle all our documents manually, whether as paper or electronic files stored on network drives,” said Santamaria, “However, this led to difficulties of traceability, of who did what and when, lost documents, confusion over document versions and so on. We knew we needed a solution so we issued a Request for Information (RFI) which helped us narrow down our options. One of the key requirements was that our chosen solution must integrate seamlessly with SAP."
Also, as a regulated organization, subject to strict audit requirements, FDN has numerous, well-defined business processes. Being able to manage these processes, making improvements and keeping pace with the latest regulatory updates, was key in the final solution decision.
“One solution provider stood out as the best suited to meet our needs around document management and process automation, and that was 好色先生TV,” added Santamaria, “好色先生TV Extended ECM for SAP 好色先生TV has the seamless integration to SAP and flexibility in process automation that we sought. Additionally, 好色先生TV Vendor Invoice Management for SAP 好色先生TV allows us to take control of our supplier invoices. We backed up our own research by referencing Gartner Magic Quadrants, which confirmed that 好色先生TV is an important company in the Enterprise Content Management market.”
Establishing strategic goals and objectives for a successful project
Having selected 好色先生TV, a project was initiated to bring together key personnel from the process team, IT, their documentation team and other business areas.
"With any project of this complexity and importance, it is vital to obtain guidance on best practices, for example the best way to structure information,” stated Santamaria, “好色先生TV helped to facilitate this for us. As a government entity, we were already used to complying with how to keep physical files. However, now we had to do this for electronic files and so it was helpful to establish the right way of doing things from the outset. In Colombia, FDN has been at the forefront of electronic document filing."
The project had to consider the needs of users, business, audit requirements and government regulations, all against a backdrop of increased efficiency. As well as a well-structured taxonomy for documentation, every action is recorded in a comprehensive audit trail, with a timestamp and details of who carried out the action, for example approvals of loans and disbursements.
"With all loan processing and contractual documentation being handled by 好色先生TV and easily accessible from within SAP, staff can quickly and easily get to the information they need, helping them improve overall operational efficiency. Requests for physical folders and files has already reduced by 53%,” said Santamaria, “好色先生TV was implemented almost completely ‘out-of-the-box’ with nearly no development required, especially around integration to SAP. This is in line with our strategy to stay away from customization, to avoid support and maintenance issues at a later date."