A multinational FMCG Organization in the food & beverages segment uses Skelta BPM to build a CAR (Capital Acquisition Request) online approval system.

1. C A S E S T U DY
A Multinational FMCG Company
LOCATION: INDIA
INDUSTRY: Food & Beverages
PRODUCT: Skelta BPM.NET
CUSTOMER PROFILE
The Customer is a Multinational FMCG Company in the Food & Beverages segment with operations in several
countries and India. The Indian operations of are driven through multiple companies and each company is
responsible for one or more business units. Every business unit also has marketing units and other
subordinate units.
THE CHALLENGE
As a part of its organization strategy, the Customer adopts centralized budget management with integrated
budgets for capital acquisitions for all business units. The Customer had implemented a custom built application
for Capital Acquisition Requests (CAR). A centralized Intranet application, this system was used to manage
approvals of all capital acquisition requests within each Business Unit (BU). CAR approvals were routed based on
an authority matrix for spend type, amount, and whether the expenses was planned or unplanned.
The Customers application had inbuilt inflexibilities – it could not support changes in CAR policies for approval
limits, new spend types, changes in process and changes in hierarchy. Retrieval of prior approvals and storage of
documents were not simple. The application did not provide for easy tracking of CAR requests through the
approval process. The system did not provide for visibility and transparency in the approval process.
The system was also not easily scalable – new business units and marketing units could not be added without
reprogramming.
The biggest drawback of the current system was the inability to quickly define and implement new processes or
changes in existing processes for CAR. For example, any modifications to the authority matrix for authority limits
or approver roles could not be implemented without new coding.
Because of these disadvantages, the system had not been implemented across all business units in India – a
factor that led to delays in approval of capital expenditure in these units.
THE SOLUTION
The Customer decided to replace its current application with a new CAR Online Approval system built on Skelta
SharePoint Accelerator and hosted on the Customers SharePoint Portal Server deployed on a small server farm.
The Skelta CAR Online Approval system was designed with these performance characteristics:
Number of Users: Support for up to 25,000 users
Process 37 requests per second (including 5 searches per second)
SharePoint Portal Server extended document management characteristics to the CAR system with the ability to:
Index 5 documents per second
Store up to 100,000 documents
Index up to 1 million documents
Host up to 10,000 team and personal sites
Host up to 5 portal sites (using shared services)

2. Skelta's powerful process designer enabled the Customer to easily model and deploy its processes
for CAR approvals. Any changes in the authority matrix could be applied by business users in the
process designer.
The system provided a transparency and visibility to capital acquisition requests as users were now
able to view the exact status of their requests at any time. As the system was 100% web-based,
users could fill out approval requests online. Requests are routed to the appropriate authority levels
for the business unit and are delivered by email and on an activity list of the approvers. The
approver could either approve or return the request for clarifications. Approvals were no longer
held up because the approver was not available – the approver now had the ability to delegate or
reassign approvals for absence periods.
The new system also enabled the Customer to introduce collaborative approvals for unplanned
expenditure.
BENEFITS
Centralized approval system for all business units: The Skelta CAR Online Approval system enables the
customer to implement the system in all business units. The system allows the customer to easily define
individualized processes for different business units and market units. The system's load balancing and
clustering features enabled the customer to scale it out. The customer has thus been able to reduce
approval times in business units that had manual approval processes.
Transparent and visible approval processes: The CAR approval process enables the heads of different
business units as well as the requestor to track online the status of the request, reasons for rejection, and
additional information requests. Business Unit Heads can also track the status of budget utilization for
sanctioned items. The system also provides a clear audit trail and simplifies internal audit processes.
Centralized Document Management: Skelta CAR Online Approval system integrates seamlessly with Innovation Center:
SharePoint Portal Server. The supporting documents for budget requests are stored in the specified 2nd Floor, Salarpuria Touchstone
SharePoint library and allow for easy retrieval. Sarjapur Outer Ring Road,
Bangalore - 560087, India
Faster approvals align investments to business need: Skelta's features for escalations, re-assigning and Tel: +91 (80) 4060 2600
delegation ensure that CAR approvals are no longer bottlenecked due to non-availability of approvers. Faster Email: sales@skelta.com
approvals have enabled the customer to align capital investments to match the immediacy of business Web: www.skelta.com
needs.
US Office:
Skelta Software, Inc.,
1050 Winter Street, Suite 1000
Waltham, MA 02451, U.S.A.
Tel: 617 963 8312
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