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Spotlight: Customer Case StudyDTE Energy: IncreasingProductivity Across theBusiness with RPABluePrism.com
Market conditions in the utility industry are rapidly changing—and companies areunder pressure to increase productivity and reduce operational costs in order to keepcustomer rates affordable and increase shareholder value. In response to this challengingenvironment, DTE Energy turned to Intelligent Automation as a key component toachieving their operational goals.DTE Energy, a Michigan-based provider ofenergy services including electricity and naturalgas, serves 2.2 million customers and has over10,000 employees. Every year the companyestablishes a corporate productivity goal withthe objective to keep costs as low as possible.Business leaders in the corporate controllersoffice were aware of the potential of RoboticProcess Automation (RPA) technology, anddecided to embark on a proof of concept usingBlue Prism to investigate how the technologymight streamline their business processes.“Now we can run our processes more consistently. Previously, therewere times we wouldn’t be able to run the process because ouremployees didn’t have the time. With Blue Prism, the automations arealways running and we can handle exceptions more quickly.”—AJAY GUPTA, RPA Lead, DTE EnergyBlue Prism DTE Energy Case Study2
Pilot Program Demonstrates ValueThe proof of concept aimed to answer twoquestions. First, is the solution easy to implement?Second, does it result in time savings?One pilot process from the finance organization,bank reconciliation, answered both questionspositively. The bank reconciliation processinvolved 300 bank accounts that had to bereconciled each month by several employees toensure that the bank statement balance matchedthe general ledger balance. This process can nowbe completed by Blue Prism’s connected-RPA—which saves time for the employees and allowsthem to move to more value-added tasks.“During our pilot process, we realized that RPAis a major tool and an enabler for us to meet ourcorporate productivity goals,” said Ajay Gupta, RPALead for DTE Energy. “If we could implement andscale it fast enough, we could effectively close theproductivity gap that we have acrossthe organization.”Source “DTE Energy RPA Journey”. January 2019Blue Prism DTE Energy Case Study3
DTE ENERGY IS THE 2019 WINNER OF PEOPLE’S CHOICE & INNOVATION EXCELLENCE AWARDSfor its process automation across customer service, finance, human resources, informationtechnology services and electric and gas operations.Building a Focused TeamWith two successful pilots under their belt,DTE approached their next phase in a uniqueand deliberate way. DTE decided to create adedicated team that would focus solely onthe automation program—the IntelligentBusiness Automation Team (IBAT). Guptarecruited process architects, who have a deepunderstanding of process functionality, andtechnical architects, who design the overallsolution. Lastly, he brought on softwarearchitects and trained them on the BluePrism platform and bot controllers whowould watch the automations closely andmaximize their value.Once formed, the team knew how importantit was to gain the support of all stakeholdersin the company—from the executive to theindividual contributor.“Our RPA program was envisioned, designedand implemented with the express intentof making DTE’s human capital moreproductive. For our RPA program to be trulyinclusive with an organization-wide impact,it was important to gain the buy-in frombusiness and functional leaders within theorganization,” said Gupta.Educating the OrganizationThe IBAT conducted roadshows to educatebusiness unit leadership and individualcontributors about RPA’s potential totransform their business and to allay fearsabout automation. DTE is committed toretaining staff, so employees were assuredthat their jobs were not at risk. RPA was ableto fill the gap left by people who retired ormoved to other positions.The fact that DTE has a stated corporategoal to increase productivity helped to getbusiness leaders on board. IBAT’s broadbased approach led them to speak to businessunits ranging from finance and customerservice to supply chain, electric operationsBlue Prism DTE Energy Case Study4
DTE UNDERSTANDS THAT THE QUALIT YOF THE ROLLOUT IS MORE IMPORTANTTHAN THE QUANTIT Y.Customer Service: High BillsWhen an unusually high bill is generated for aspecific customer, it raises a red flag. Beforesending the bill to the customer, DTE needsto confirm that the bill is correct. Prior toautomating this process, employees wouldcompare the bill to the customer’s monthlyaverage, what their bill was in the samemonth a year ago to determine if somethingwas out of the ordinary. This was a laboriousprocess and would often lead to a delay insending the bill to the customer. Blue Prism’sRPA is now handling this process and hasreduced the number of bills that need to bereviewed by an employee by 40-50%.Qualification EvaluationsThis automation goes through DTE’s SAPsystem to identify all employees whoseoperational qualifications are expiring withinthe next 30 days. Once these employees andtheir qualifications are identified, the botcreates an assessment template for eachindividual based on rules around locationand organization unit.These excel templates are then used byevaluators for recording the outcomes ofqualification assessments and put in ashared folder. The automation picks upthe significant leg work at this point byupdating each qualification in SAP againsteach employee. This becomes an important,time-critical task since the daily reports arereviewed by business leaders for employeeswho might be missing their qualifications.This also saves the audit time in SAP sincethe bot follows a defined logic for updatingSAP and “exceptions out” all cases whichdon’t meet the stated criteria.Blue Prism DTE Energy Case Studyand fuel supply. Energized by Blue Prism’s abilityto transform their business, each group suggestedprocesses for automation. The processes wereevaluated and then prioritized based on theirbusiness value and implementation complexity.Governance is Key to SuccessAdhering to strong governance has allowedfor DTE’s RPA program to get off the groundquickly and successfully. The architects in theIBAT stringently evaluated and observed eachprocess before and after implementation. It wasimportant that the processes were not going tobreak and, if they did, they would be fixed rightaway. “If you select junk processes you will neverbe successful,” warns Gupta. “So, you wantto make sure you select the right process forautomation and test to make sure it is stable.”DTE rapidly scaled their RPA program,automating 35 processes over the course of ninemonths. Customer service, finance, HR andcorporate functions benefited from these firstautomations and 250,000 annualized hours weregiven back to business.DTE understands that the quality of the rollout ismore important than the quantity.“I can turn 35 automated processes into 505
tomorrow, but the idea is to go from 35 to 50and maximize the value that we get out of it,”concludes Gupta.RPA is seen as a key value creator for DTE andthey are poised to introduce 35 new automationsthis year in new business units like supply chain,IT, electric operations and gas operations. Withstrong internal support and an experienced teamin place, they are certain to continue to scaletheir RPA program successfully.About Blue PrismIn this digital era where start-ups are constantly disrupting markets, only the most agile and innovative enterprisessurvive and thrive. At Blue Prism, we pioneered Robotic Process Automation (RPA), emerging as the trusted andsecure intelligent automation choice for the Fortune 500 and public-sector market. Now we bring you connectedRPA supported by the Digital Exchange (DX) app store—marrying internal entrepreneurship with the power ofcrowdsourced innovation.More than 1,000 major enterprise customers leverage Blue Prism’s digital workforce, empowering their people toautomate billions of transactions while returning hundreds of millions of hours of work back to the business.Visit www.blueprism.com.Blue Prism DTE Energy Case Study6
DTE ENERGY IS THE 2019 WINNER OF PEOPLE'S CHOICE & INNOVATION EXCELLENCE AWARDS for its process automation across customer service, finance, human resources, information technology services and electric and gas operations. Blue Prism DTE Energy Case Study 4. Customer Service: High Bills
