Sony Austria turns to SAPERION for revision-proof workflow
ECM solution frees up resources for projects and customer support
Sony Austria has selected the Enterprise Content Management solution from Berlin-based SAPERION and partner AMMONIT of Vienna to run its back office workflow. Among other things, the system is used for approval of travel expenses and archiving of receipts, delivery certificates, information collected by outside salespeople, and investment approvals. Since implementation of the new system, throughput times for internal procedures have been greatly reduced because individual business cases can be handled much faster. As a result, employees can dedicate more time to important projects and support for individual customers.
Sony's success is founded upon a wide range of high-quality products coupled with professional brand management and comprehensive customer support. To keep these pieces of its strategy running as smoothly as possible, this global leader in consumer electronics depends on a SAPERION back office workflow. The solution was implemented by AMMONIT EDV Consulting GmbH (www.ammonit.at). “Every employee who is integrated into specific procedures utilizes these workflow components," according to Norbert Gutmann, director of the IT department at Sony Austria. "We use SAPERION just as often as we use SAP or any of the programs in the Microsoft Office environment."
In one example, the investment approval process runs electronically through preconfigured forms in SAPERION. These documents are automatically forwarded to all involved departments. "If I need new hardware in the IT department, for example, I start an investment request. My request is given an ID number and moves into controlling, where it becomes part of the budget approval process. This investment request is then sent to the CFO. If he approves the request, it is sent back to the IT department so the order can be placed," according to Mr. Gutmann. "Compared to our old process, which utilized paper forms and the internal mail system, we are much more efficient and save a great deal of time and money. Investment requests can be accompanied by remarks such as "urgent", so the history of the document can be traced at any time. Everyone involved in the process can now see where the bottlenecks are. “
Rudolf Gessinger, CEO of SAPERION, explains how it works: "The software is highly flexible and integrates into existing IT structures. This permits electronic capturing, distribution, management, archiving, and retrieval of important information. The applications can also be used for operations that span multiple countries. This is enormously important for international companies like Sony Austria because it allows them to integrate other national subsidiaries, such as Sony in Switzerland, into approval processes."
