The middle office is the functional area between your front-office CRM system and your back-office ERP system. At the core of the middle office is the Quote-to-Cash process. In this session, we'll share best practices for integrating your middle office with your existing IT environments. Hear our recommendations for ensuring integration security, quality, and performance to maximize your success.
In other words – I build really cool apps for operations. LOB apps, AI, data visualization etc..
1. This slide could be same that Kelly would be covering
Energy Transfer wanted to deliver a complete Vendor and Agreement Management system through a portal. This portal would be the hub of activity and provide full transparency between vendors and Energy Transfer. Through this portal ETP provided automatic rate verification on invoices, real-time onboarding, payment tracking and much more. ETP delivered a more efficient and full featured work management system.
Challenges: Previous System: Home Grown
Extensive time and effort from contractor engagement to job commencement
Difficulty to catch contractor billing errors against
Poor visibility to construction completion and billing milestones
Custom systems difficult to maintain
Outcomes
ETP went live with Apttus in Q4 2017
1500+ project mangers
100s of external vendors
More negotiation of rates
Management significantly more aware
Currently implementing our 2nd phase
8% billing errors found in first 6 months
$1.77MM in annual savings so far
Reduced audit findings
Improved visibility to outstanding commitments
Streamlined and better management the of contract “Request to Execute” process for all contracts
Prior to invoice payment, verified invoiced billing rates against contracted rates increasing accuracy
Rate comparison and employee verification, resulted in cost savings
Streamlined contractor pre-qualification process for MCA and EPC projects
Tracked qualified contractor work assignments
Apttus provided a CLM-centric solution via flexible cloud-based platform that allows ETP to manage and tailor their construction, operations, and procurement contract processes to better manage costs across a multitude of contractors of many sizes and level of process maturity.
Profile:
Location: Texas
Company Size: 10,001+ employees
Industry: Oil & Energy
MSFT CRM
Customer since: 09/30/2016
Company Overview: ETP is one of the largest Master Limited Partnerships with one of the most diversified portfolios of energy assets in the United States totaling more than 71,000 miles of natural gas, crude oil, natural gas liquids and refined products pipelines with associated terminalling, storage and fractionation facilities in 38 states.
1. Contracting Challenges
Not full DOA approval being obtained
Agreements staying open and never closing
Limited Visibility to contracts being negotiated or those that were actually active
Project Managers Challenges
Data request for new contracts not formalized; phone calls, emails etc. Not all required data obtained in efficient time manner.
PMs not knowing who was physically at the job site
Rate approved vs rates invoices was a manual process
Tracking of commitments was a manual process if done at all
Vendor Challenges
Limited visibility to all jobs being done for ETP
Controversy of which rates were are applicable or should be billed for specific scope of work
Vendor Audits due to
continuous audit findings of over billings and illegit employees being billed (Inadequate controls)
Exec. Mgmt
Reduce continuous audit findings, overbillings, illegit employees being billed
Visibility to rates, remaining commitments, utilization of vendors etc.
Understanding redlines/changes being requested on contracts when asked to approve.
3 Rs for executives
PM Benefits
Auto approval for approved rates vs billed rates; manual before
Improved reporting on active contracts and commitments
Rate comparisons for like services
Electronic approvals on contracts based on Company approval matrix, for contracts, timesheets & progressive payment schedules
Improved clarity on agreement types and payment terms
Vendor Benefits
Consistency with agreements regardless of the PM, transparency to what rates are applicable to each agreement and visibility to ERP payment info
Ability to pre-qualify for larger scope projects within the Apttus system
May do business with limited PM’s today but if low rate provider will have broader visibility throughout ETP
Exec. Mgmt.
Reduced audit findings of over billings, work being performed without an agreement in place
Visibility to vendors being utilized and rates for comparative services, remaining commitments on projects
Ex: SAP PI – Apttus was able to integrate with our existing platform
--No ‘file drops’ for data transfers. Real-time handshakes and confirmation of data transfers.
-- We can respond to issues as they happen,
1. Naveen to update the Architecture Diagram
-- Early we talked SOA in general. In build we were talking different languages. SAP PI vs. other 3rd party middle ware.
-- Send grid was a last minute solution to limitation of CRM that should have been identified up front, could not email external
-- They may not be used to being a high profile target; fake news;
-- future internal projects – impact decisions you make today. IE B2B collaboration
-- Get an auditor in early to identify what is required. Get other opinions.
-- can be hard to convince people to let go
-- get real. “will not having that document actually matter 7 years from now??? REALLY?”
Ex: SAP Migration of Data
Just use Chrome wasn’t going to cut it.
200 vendors in 12 months was a success, we had more than that before the lights we turned on. Over 700 in first 6 months.
ShutterFly! Cheap communication.
-- Host shared docs online. Force people to edit online and collaborate. We were able to capture a lot of input that would have been missed ‘just taking notes’
-- pictures - Not everyone has the same first language.