An Ultimus Customer Success Story
Background
Ultimus Client: Helaba Landesbank
Industry: Banking / Financial
Solution: Process for Electronic Rights Management via Intranet (PERMIT)
Helaba is one of Germany’s leading Landesbanks and a premier global financial center. With a workforce of 5,900 employees and a balance sheet of $309 billion USD, the bank maintains two headquarters, multiple regional and representative offices, and affiliates throughout Europe.
Goal: Automate processes and improve internal controls
Institutions such as Helaba must protect the integrity and privacy of their financial data and ensure approval authorizations are granted to only those individuals who meet the necessary criteria. Improper approval authority in the hands of the wrong employee can result in devastating financial losses for a bank.
At Helaba, every system authorization request, whether for access or a change in status, needs to be approved by a member of the executive management team and the individual responsible for the application. There were over 70 different types of paper forms to choose from and thousands of requests generated per year, and each step needed written documentation. Due to the complexity of the application process and volume of requests, it was difficult for the executives in the approval chain to keep up with the paper flow and properly validate each request.
- Complex paper forms- With over 70 different types of system access forms, it was difficult to know which one to select.
- Long processing time- Due to the number of authorizations necessary, the processing time could take four weeks from submission to access. A portion of this lengthy processing time came from the mailing delay of the paper form.
- Risk for error- A single request would change from paper to email to phone to copy to fax throughout its journey, creating duplication of effort in rekeying data and increasing the risk for error.
- Low visibility into the process- It was virtually impossible to know who was working on the request or the identity of the originator, which was a source of dissatisfaction for employees and management.
Ultimus' Approach
Helaba chose Ultimus’ Adaptive BPM Suite due to its high usability, easy-to-define processes, and customizable forms which integrated seamlessly into the existing Helaba system. This formerly cumbersome process was not only automated, but optimized into only six steps.
Today, the entire process is done completely by email and executives receive only one request per authorization. Bottlenecks have been eliminated as every step escalates after a set period of time and is terminated or reassigned as appropriate. The requests are automatically assigned an Ultimus incident number when they are initiated and the PERMIT process begins.
Implementation
The implementation process for Ultimus’ BPM Suite was smooth and efficient. The process was tested over the entire bank before going “live” and rolled out one department at a time, giving Helaba a chance to address any issues before the next department came on board.
The Ultimus solution integrated seamlessly with the Helaba system and is so user-friendly that official training was not necessary, even though the process is used by thousands of employees.
Based on the success of the PERMIT project, Helaba is looking to automate and optimize more processes within their organization.
About Ultimus
Ultimus has automated more business processes than any other Business Process Management (BPM) vendor worldwide. Ultimus Adaptive BPM Suite has enabled companies to accelerate their performance goals at every stage of corporate growth. Ultimus’ award-winning technology seamlessly adapts to people, systems and change.
Utilized by more than 2,000 customers worldwide, Ultimus provides solutions to organizations such as Pfizer, ProHealth, Bausch & Lomb, Northrup Grumman, DHL, Microsoft, Daimler, Perdue Farms, Chevron, and Tulane University.
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