IPA AS THE KEY OF PROCESS IMPROVEMENT INSIDE A COMPANY – THE CRITICAL SUPPLIER CASE

Nowadays companies around the world are increasingly investing in solutions that automatize their internal business processes. Generally, in the context of Managerial Information System – MIS, this is done because having effective tools for managing information, data, and processes, leads inevitably towards a reduction of costs, resources, and process time. It also increases revenues and productivity by automating key business processes through computing technology. In fact, Management Information Systems is the study of people, technology, organizations, and the relationships among them and thanks to the MIS professionals, enterprises can finalize the maximum benefit from investments in personnel, equipment, and business processes. If we go more into details, having those internal processes automatized is not only beneficial for the company itself but also from the workers’ point of view. To mention few advantages, in an automated context, the employees can save enough time that could be dedicated to higher-value activities that otherwise would be difficult to accomplish or, if we analyze the implementation of a robotic solution that automatically carries out repetitive operations, there will be the elimination of the probability of incurring in human errors. The following thesis represents the attempt of making the reader aware of which processes inside a company are more inclined to be automatized; the various solutions of automatization that are available nowadays. More specifically the focus will be on the RPA – Robotic Process Automation, and the BI tools like Qlik Sense which is a software able to generate dashboards and visualization that help the user and the entire company (by introducing the concept of Open Data Model), in making easier and effective analysis even on large amount of data. Furthermore, another very useful instrument that we could find on the market are all the programs of the Microsoft Power Platform. The main applications are Microsoft Power BI, Microsoft Power Automate, Microsoft Power Virtual Agents, and Microsoft Power Apps. Those applications are able to optimize and automate digital operations not only within the Microsoft Suite (like all Microsoft 365 programs) but also interacting with third party’s programs. Finally, there will be also explained all major benefits that emerge from the implementation of those systems. To consolidate the thesis itself, the document will also describe the business case derived directly from my internship experience inside the Purchasing department of a multinational company called CNH Industrial and its Iveco brand. Regarding the company, the thesis contains different sections: the first one will give a general overview of the core business (both of CNH Industrial and Iveco) including the historical background. Another section is dedicated to the description of the activities carried out within the Purchasing Area and inside the entity responsible for the automation of the entire company called World Class Finance - WCF. The final section will be thoroughly dedicated to the critical supplier case. After an introduction of the process per se including the explanation of why there has been the need to establish it, the case will describe how inefficient in terms of time and costs, was the activity of monitoring the “critical” suppliers’ invoices over time, and how easy and effective the same activity was turned into thanks to optimization and automation.