An interim digitization manager with extensive technical know-how, many years of project management experience and the necessary sense of technology trends was able to successfully drive the digitization of the company.
The Situation
The advised company is a German listed housing company. The high number of rental apartments, especially in the low-price segment, and the constant growth had a significant impact on the internal processes, the complexity and diversity of the issues to be considered, and the workload of the employees. Particularly in the area of receivables management and financial accounting, there was a significant need for digitization solutions. The goal was to find a technical solution to support frequently recurring issues so that employees could focus on the more complex issues and direct contact with tenants. Against this backdrop, the company was looking for an interim digitization manager with industry experience who, above all, would bring in-depth knowledge of project management and independent process optimization in order to record and document processes in receivables management and financial accounting or set up entirely new processes.
In summary, the company should take a big step in the area of digitalization, but not neglect change management in the process. After the conceptual design, the processes and projects should also be implemented directly.
Here, HANSE Interim, in cooperation with Warth & Klein Grant Thornton, was able to provide the experienced Digital Officer Maik Brinkhaus, who, in addition to his many years of project management experience in digitalization and technology consulting and his agility, understood the needs of the company very well. His understanding of the real estate industry and related processes rounded out the skillset. In addition, Warth & Klein Grant Thornton provided an experienced SAP Blue Eagle and IT expert, for one-stop project implementation.
The Solution made by our Interim Digitization Managers
A central digitization solution was the booking robot, which supports the company in clearing incoming payments in receivables management. The robot takes over processes in the company’s system in order to relieve the receivables managers so that they can concentrate on their core business. The concept of the booking robot includes the reading of the incoming payment, including the usage provision that the tenant has noted for it, the intelligent interpretation and identification of the associated receivable, and the clearing of the items. This applies to monthly rent payments as well as one-time payments such as the settlement of the annual utility bill, legal fees and tenant encumbrances. A wide range of posting variants is considered in order to achieve a high degree of automation with a low error rate.
In addition, further processing steps, such as the write-off of small amounts that fall below the de minimis limit, are possible in order to clean up tenant accounts accordingly and provide tenants with a comprehensible and easy-to-understand account statement.
The use of Robotic Process Automation (RPA) represented another building block regarding possible digitization solutions.
This technology can be seen as a virtual workforce that carries out defined and repetitive activities (actions) on the basis of structured data and thus significantly reduces the workload of employees.
With the help of RPA, parts of traditional financial accounting have also been automated. This includes the query of the need for the formation of provisions in the individual departments including the control of the completeness of the return.
Through the additional establishment of a Center of Excellence and targeted training of employees in a wide range of process automation technologies, infrastructure and process management, they were enabled to expand or adapt existing automation solutions.
The Result – Achieved by the Interim Digitization Manager
The experts from HANSE Interim and Warth & Klein Grant Thornton provided comprehensive support to the company. The result of the collaboration is a growth-compliant alignment of receivables management, accounting and other processes while relieving employees of repetitive tasks.
Conclusion
The interim digitization manager is primarily important for quickly bringing extensive digitization knowledge and project management experience into the company and thus significantly accelerating the digitization of central areas. Furthermore, it is a good basis for building up an own CDO resort.
