Case Study
How one of the largest LatAm Financial Institutions Reduced Lead Time for Bidding Processes by 80%
Summary:
Since implementing Pipefy in 2020, a LatAm leader financial institution – with dozens of millions of customers – has found new ways to use the business process automation (BPA) platform. Today, more than 2,500 users manage their processes with Pipefy. The bank’s usage spans 9 departments and more than 600 processes.
A critical factor in the decision to choose Pipefy was its impact on IT. It needed a cost-effective solution that could be implemented faster than the 9 - 12 months it would take to build a solution in-house. Other options would also take too long to implement, and risked adding even more to the IT backlog. Additionally, the IT team knew they’d need a tool that could meet the requirements set by the Enterprise Architecture Team.
Pipefy enabled the team to deploy faster and gave them the flexibility to easily adapt their workflows, an important consideration since bidding regulations shift frequently. Pipefy also helped their teams avoid adding stress to the IT backlog while remaining in full compliance with stringent security standards.
Initially, the team started building one new workflow per month, and today they’ve reduced bidding process lead times by 80%. The big factor in achieving this speed and efficiency? Fewer manual workflows like storing and managing paper documents.
The challenge: automate without the wait
The bank’s Public Sector department serves government entities, providing tailored financial solutions such as payroll for government employees, revenue collection contracts, and investment options for the government employee retirement system.
A key component of the bank’s work with government agencies is the contract bidding process, in which rules and regulations can change quickly. To stay in compliance, the team must be able to respond and adapt by strict – and often short – deadlines. But fast adaptation proved to be a challenge, due to the high volume of forms and paperwork involved in these processes.
We had to draft every email, extract information from documents, and type it manually. We used to print all the emails sent and stored them in a cabinet. The process had several manual steps, and we spent a lot of time on small tasks. We had to manage workflows through emails only, with a lot of paper and poor visual management. That's why we couldn't determine which tasks were urgent or not.”
V.
Bidding Analyst
The solution was to digitize their workflows in order to
- improve visibility
- reduce manual work
- eliminate errors and delays
- speed up the end-to-end processes
- modify processes quickly as requirements changed
To develop a solution in house would have taken a full year, and the team knew they couldn’t wait that long. As they considered other options, they realized some alternatives add stress to their IT teams. "We also looked into Salesforce and ServiceNow, but those tools would require an IT-based implementation, and keep us in the IT backlog," reflects L., a Bidding Analyst.
The impact of any solution for the IT team was crucial since they were already at capacity handling day-to-day operations and incoming requests from all parts of the business. But then someone suggested they consider Pipefy, a tool that another internal team had been using to manage a rewards program.
The solution: security, quick automation and cost-reduction
The team managing the public sector processes compared Pipefy to their in-house option. It became clear almost immediately that Pipefy offered some important advantages.
But there was still one more hurdle to overcome. No solution would be approved unless it could support IT governance and meet the requirements defined by the Enterprise Architecture team responsible for software validation.
The Architecture team considered Pipefy the most suitable solution. With their support, we went through an entire governance process. Pipefy was already a company vendor, but we needed to go through some validation issues, such as director approval. Pipefy was assessed by various departments, including compliance, and met the necessary requirements."
L.
Bidding Analyst
After considering the advantages Pipefy offered over their other alternatives, and vetting the solution with their Enterprise Architecture Team, the department was ready to move forward.
Implementation: achieving new levels of agility
With Pipefy, the team finally had the means to build and automate digital workflows. But Pipefy also made it possible for teams to adapt those workflows in pace with changes to regulatory requirements. The plans for Pipefy were ambitious, and teams were able to fully automate their first 3 workflows within three months of implementation.
One of their first and most urgent needs was to optimize a workflow used to manage legal requests related to public resources. The team was on a tight schedule: they had just a few weeks to meet a new set of requirements.
Pipefy enabled the team to deploy the modified workflow in just 10 days. The changes were going to impact 370 customers, all of whom were required to respond to notifications of the changes. Notifications were delivered through emails automated with Pipefy. Then, customer responses were collected, recorded, and consolidated through automation, sparing the team hours of manual work. "We wouldn't have been able to achieve this with any other tool," V. says.
Pipefy emerges as an ideal option because it's a cost-effective solution, easy to implement, and offers a very smooth self-service learning experience. It's a win-win situation. The Public Sector department is a smaller area compared to the rest of the bank. If we relied solely on the traditional solutions development, we wouldn't be prioritized."
G.
Product Manager
Results
With Pipefy, the Public Sector department was able to assert more control over their processes, reduce manual work, and eliminate the risk of information loss by automating the collection and storage of data. Critical information is now organized in databases, and the connections between processes and databases reduces the need for manual data entry.
Even further, the constant back-and-forth of email threads which once slowed down operations has been automated. Forms and business rules can now be easily modified in minutes, so workflows can be updated faster than ever before.
Best of all, overall productivity improved without adding any new headcount. Other results include:
- 80% reduction in bidding process lead times
- 1.15 hours saved on every bid processed
- Less manual data entry throughout the process
- Better use of team resources
- Deeper process visibility
As a result of their gains in efficiency and productivity, this team has become an example for other teams at the bank. And one of their most important achievements since implementing Pipefy is their transition to a bidding hub that has increased their capacity to identify and analyze new bids.
"Today, we offer various products, and our team has become a reference for bidding processes in such a big and important organization," L. says. "We're able to support various areas of the bank because of this efficiency."
We fight tooth and nail for Pipefy, because of the autonomy it brings to the team.”
L.
Bidding Analyst
