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Case study

The challenge

One of Australia’s largest telecommunication companies needed to meet the growing demands for internet access; robotic process automation (RPA) would be central to address this need. The company was confronted with the challenge of upgrading its network while helping customers transition seamlessly to the National Broadband Network (NBN), a new time-critical connectivity for telecommunications. The company also faced additional challenges, including the lack of a safe application testing environment due to legacy systems, along with the presence of older operating systems, necessitating additional care and effort to ensure smooth application rollouts. Cognizant had a strong partnership with the company, providing quality service for three years. Due to our experience with using RPA in telecom, the client sought our help.

Our approach

Cognizant deployed a large digital workforce that included over 50 bots working 24/7 and dedicated to one process. This highlights the complexity of the project, as typical cases deploy significantly fewer bots to handle a single process. In total, two processes were automated with RPA: the client’s order build process and the QA process. The order build process was automated to improve service cycle time, allowing the company to better meet customer demands in a timely manner. 

Prior to this project, the company did not have a user acceptance testing (UAT) environment for application rollout due to outdated systems. Therefore, rollout occurred directly in the production environment and the company needed first-time accuracy to avoid process delays. Automating the QA process with RPA increased first-time accuracy in delivering correct orders to customers and reduced hours of handling time. This also helped our client downsize from two business process outsourcing (BPO) providers to one and further downsized the team of that BPO by more than 50%.

Empowering people to connect through world-class technology

Using RPA, Cognizant helped the company save 125 minutes per order. What typically took the company several days to execute and deliver, now takes just one day, allowing the company to deliver multiple orders on the same day. We also helped optimize delivery costs and reduce labor and head count. The client is now able to deliver applications with a higher first-time accuracy and quicker time to market. In addition, the company can now deliver faster connectivity and reduce service cycle times to an average of 29 days. 

As a result, automated processes will save the business millions of dollars in operational costs. Cognizant’s partnership with the company was awarded with a year-end partnership performance accolade for the Cognizant Digital Business Operations (DBO) “order to activate” operations.

$4.9M

saved from delivery cost optimization

50% decrease

in QA time

14% decrease

in complaints cycle time

28% increase

in QA bot efficiency