Case study

The challenge

A major European telecommunications carrier sought to improve the productivity of its sales team as well as increase the speed and accuracy of its quoting process to boost revenue. Its multistep quote process was cumbersome, involved manual steps and was not always accurate. The telecom carrier wanted to cut down the manual tasks and use the time saved for higher value tasks. Having identified intelligent process automation (IPA) as a possible solution, the carrier turned to Cognizant to design and implement an IPA solution for delivering quotes.

Our approach

We worked closely with the client to evaluate the automation maturity of its quoting process and identify the structures or steps that had to change, in either a department or across the organization, to be optimized for automation. We also recommended adjusting processes in other systems and applications. Our solution addressed the repetitive, rules-based aspects of the quote dispatch and installed base verification tasks. 

Because the client had extensively customized its applications, we built bots from the ground up to work alongside the sales associates who had previously performed the repetitive tasks. Involving key client stakeholders in the build helped increase their confidence in and acceptance of the bots.

The bots log into the applications and, using predefined business rules, validate the data and various aspects of quotes and then assign requests based on the availability and workload of each team member. If the bots identify discrepancies or errors, a ticket is automatically raised in the client’s ServiceNow application for the team to resolve.

Bots accelerate and streamline quote delivery

Within a week of going live, the client’s sales team and the bots were working together smoothly, and the sales team reported being well pleased with the bots’ reliability. Automation provides analysts with more time to review the installed base. As a result, the client now has a more holistic view of its commercial agreements with customers, and product teams are able to infuse more of this information into competitive quotes for both customers and prospects. By reducing the time required for dispatching quote requests from 300 seconds to a mere 30 seconds, the bots helped the telecom carrier achieve a 90% reduction in average handling time (AHT). AHT for installed base validations also decreased, from 30 minutes to two minutes, a 93.3% reduction.

100%

accuracy achieved

90%

reduction in AHT for dispatching quote requests

€170,000

saved in operational costs per annum

7,100

hours of manual processing saved