CASE STUDY

Industry Sector - Retail

Property Acquisition Processing at Major High Street Retailer

Scenario:

A leading UK retail group with diversified interests was seeking to implement a solution that would manage the processes, people, information and IT systems associated with the acquisition of new properties.

Background:

The client required a scalable solution to facilitate team-working between employees and external architects and surveyors that would optimise the efficiency of processes involved in acquiring a large volume of properties on an ongoing basis. The FloSuite business process management solution was selected as the best match for these requirements.

Implementation:

FloSuite was implemented across multiple internal departments and linked remotely to partners and suppliers via a Web interface. The solution’s flexible process design module enabled business managers to create workflows that integrated and managed the activities of all those involved in the end-to-end process of property acquisition.

Business Benefits:

FloSuite has created a virtual working environment for the client and its many disparately located partners by enabling direct access to, and interaction with, processes and data, plans, drawings and financial calculations in real time. It has also facilitated increased team-working and knowledge transfer both within the organisation and across external partner agencies.

In summary, the key benefits of this High Street retailer implementing FloSuite are:

  • Standardised procedures across departments and partner organisations involved in the process of purchasing property, without losing the flexibility necessary to manage different work types
  • Improved team-working practices, both internally between departments and with external organisations
  • Improved quality assurance and efficiency
  • Ability to expand the operating environment across different departmental areas in a structured, incremental manner
  • Shorter implementation time scales
  • Ability of knowledge workers to add to and amend processes on an ad hoc basis, without any scripting or programming

"FloSuite has enabled us to achieve the optimum mix of automated and manually executed processes, increasing efficiency whilst ensuring that the people with the requisite knowledge remain central to the process. In addition, the increased sharing of knowledge and team-based working has dramatically reduced risk and improved the speed with which property acquisitions are completed," said the client's IT Director.

As a result of the successful implementation of FloSuite to manage property acquisitions, the client is now considering rolling the solution set out across different areas of function. Due to FloSuite’s generic architecture, this is able to be carried out in a structured, incremental manner as only one skill set is required to operate the solution – regardless of the departmental area or work type it is aligned with.

Technical Overview:

There were a number of technical criteria that the client specified. These were that the solution should:

  • Provide a fully functional Extranet-based working environment
  • Allow knowledge workers to add to and amend processes without any requirement for scripting or programming
  • Be built using a multi-tier architecture that divides application code between databases, business logic and front-end user interface
  • Be able to integrate with legacy systems, leading third party applications and industry standard diary, email and messaging systems
  • Be capable of deployment over wide and local area networks
  • Have a flexible component-based architecture that supports cost-effective enhancement and evolution over time
  • Be suitable for wide-scale roll out/implementation across different functional areas in future, in line with changing requirements

Operational requirements were that the system should support:

  • Simple drag-and-drop workflow builder
  • Easy-to-use Web-based interface
  • Automated scheduling of reports, documents and actions

The FloSuite solution was best able to meet the criteria and most suitable for wide-scale roll out across different areas of function. It was therefore ideally placed to meet the client’s immediate and future needs.

Summary:

The client has benefited from a streamlined, structured approach to acquiring new properties by deploying FloSuite to manage and control the business processes associated with this activity. This in turn has reduced timescales, increased efficiency and improved team-working across internal departments and with external suppliers and partners.