IBM - Best New IVR or Web Service Solution

Company: IBM, Armonk, NY
Company Description: IBM is a values-based enterprise of individuals who create & apply technology to make the world work better. Today, more than 400,000 IBM employees around the world invent and integrate hardware, software and services to help forward-thinking enterprises, institutions and people succeed on a smarter planet.
Nomination Category: New Product & Service Awards Categories
Nomination Sub Category: IVR or Web Service Solution – New

Nomination Title: The Next Level for Invoicing using intelligent workflows

The B&I App (Billing and Invoicing Application on the Intelligent Workflow platform) utilizes new intelligent platform technologies to automate key post-sales processes in the Lead to Cash workflow and is strategically important to IBM. The solution empowers new user experiences, delivering value quickly and continuously driving desired business outcomes.

This new intelligent platform technology comprises of a set of applications that knows what tasks (the workflow) need to be completed based upon the user role, and gathers all needed data from the systems and databases where the data is maintained (using automated services), and presents the information needed for the user to take action, with recommendations (cognitive interface).

In late June 2019, the IBM Quote to Cash Transformation team along with US Operations team and IBM Global Business Services (GBS) sellers, began the journey to reimagine Seller user experience and workflow. The scope was billing and invoicing for services delivered by IBM to its clients. They radically changed how billing and invoicing work gets done by focusing on the desired user experience and delivering the MVP (Minimum Viable Product) for that desired user experience within a 90-day timeframe. This Billing and Invoicing Application (B&I App) on the Intelligent Workflow platform was delivered as a web-based application in October 2019 and production-launched to sellers in February of 2020. “We expected a bicycle, maybe a motorcycle, and we got a spaceship” says Jennifer Conlon, the IBM Operations team leader for the US GBS sellers. Instead of every invoice having to be touched by a seller and operations team, now nearly all invoices are automatically processed in the Billing and Invoicing Application (B&I App). The application performs seller billing procedures including the collection of billing data and issuing of invoices to customers. It also allows delegation of these activities to a support person when needed.

The Billing and Invoicing application delivered the desired user experience for US GBS Project Managers (sellers), with seamless automation for users that reduced billing cycle time by over 90% and reduced exception handling to under 10%.

Outline the market performance, critical reception, and customer satisfaction with the product or service to date. State monetary or unit sales figures to date, if possible, and how they compare to expectations or past performance. Provide links to laudatory product or service reviews. Include some customer testimonials, if applicable (up to 350 words):

The solution delivered benefits in different ways: automated data entry of activities previously done manually allowing time savings for higher value activities, simplified user experience for sellers (PMs), more time for clients and high value work, reduced cycle time for invoice creation and delivery to the client, resulting in improved Days Sales Outstanding.

The results were: 97% decrease in invoice generation cycle time (average 10.4 hours to 18 minutes), the removal of handoffs, and estimated 21.3 FTE annually savings, and overwhelmingly positive end user feedback (System Usability Survey of 88).

This project delivered a significant step forward for IBM to become the premier cognitive enterprise and sell what we use to clients. This foundation allows to build upon over time to add enhanced features and align critical end to end functions to the intelligent platform.Since this deployed, US GBS has moved to the next level of Billing and Invoicing to include Billing Assembly and additional users (over 1400 users and growing). The platform and Billing & Invoicing app are expanding out to additional country organizations. Additional IW applications in the L2C domain are in progress for external clients (Collections, Cash App and Disputes). As of this writing, GBS has delivered Collections App on the IW platform to 3 external clients and has 4 additional signings.