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OWNDAYS Singapore’s Journey in Implementing RPA

by sol-admin
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OWNDAYS is an international optical retail company founded in Tokyo, Japan in 1989. The company also operates in other regions, in particular, there are over 30 stores in Singapore. Here is how OWNDAYS was using its Singapore Finance operations as a testbed to try out RPA solutions, with the vision of applying them across other subsidiaries worldwide.

Before Automation
OWNDAYS Singapore struggled with manually keying in thousands of receipt transactions into SAP. Every day, OWNDAYS Singapore receives separate statements for each of the five payment methods they accept. A staff member had to process them manually, one by one. This took eight hours every day and besides, not without human errors. For example, item 470 may become 740, or it may go into the wrong shop code. That’s why the management tried to think of automation ways and the seed of RPA started to grow.

Vendor Selection
UiPath was selected because it is a very well-known vendor in RPA, not only in Singapore but also in Japan and other countries. Furthermore, the vendor has many case studies proving stable work after the implementation of bots.

After Implementation

The bot can work 24/7. It does not take MC, it does not take annual leave, and it is very consistent. This means that as long as we have tailored and designed the process to the kind of process that we want, I will not see transposition error, I will not see an error in the GL account or in matching the terminal ID to the shops. So we can reduce a lot of human errors. We have more than double rewards: we had rewards in reducing the errors, we had rewards in reducing the time needed, and we had rewards in making compliance better. Very coincidentally, around one month after our RPA went life, the staff who was performing this process went on maternity leave. And I did not have to hire any person to stand in for her. The bot could start almost immediately. So that is the very first tangible benefit that I can see. Fortunately, OWNDAYS is a growing retail company. We are consistently constantly growing and we are in need of a new headcount. So, for company management, I can reassure them that with RPA, it is akin to adding two, or three, or even more headcount at a very low cost. And to my staff, they are free from the boring and mundane tasks and they have the chance to upskill themselves. And as a result, they are able to progress in their career.”

Cherie Sim, Group Financial Controller, OWNDAYS

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