View our case study on how Sutherland helped Global Courier automate to improve debt recovery, cut costs, and increase customer satisfaction.
The Challenge
Boosting Efficiency to Improve Results
The world’s largest international courier and logistics company, with more than 400K employees operating in more than 220 countries and territories around the world, provides express mail services delivering in excess of 1.6 billion parcels per year.
The client was experiencing low recovery rates for importation taxes and duties on inbound shipments into the United Kingdom which compelled them to take a new approach.
Challenged with a fragmented cash application process and delivery delays, they required a solution for reducing their daily sales outstanding (DSO) by collecting duty and value added taxes (VAT) prior to parcel delivery. The client also needed to reduce allocation turnaround times (TAT) and write-offs while improving customer query resolutions.
This transformation required a strategic partner with the necessary industry knowledge and expertise, paired with technology enablement capabilities, to design and implement a robust solution.
The Outcome
Digital Transformation Through Process Automation
Sutherland had previously partnered with the client to execute their accounts receivable operations for another regional business unit, offering multiple internal tools to enhance and support their daily business requirements.
Facing this new challenge, the team deployed a customized version of its Prodigy AR platform featuring multiple technologies to help digitize as well as automate the client’s payment and collection processes.
One digital point solution included Sutherland Robility — an innovative enterprise automation software — to help improve payment allocation efficiency and TAT. Leveraging embedded predictive analytics, automated customer detail capture enabled account prioritization based on risk and propensity to pay analysis. The digital transformation also provided easier data centralization, indexing and payment allocation referencing.
The process was transformed with automation, a customer-centric, empathy-driven and proactive collection campaign. The transformation featured chat and email support with text alerts to increase upfront payment and VAT collections with faster customer outreach. Sutherland also provided back-office services to ensure collected cash was posted timely and accurately leveraging digital automation and process standardization.
The partnership with Sutherland enabled the client to become more profitable by collecting more cash, reducing write-offs and improving its customer experience. Overall, they achieved a 40% reduction in costs while improving collection rates by 70%, cash posting TAT reduced from 72 hours to 24 hours, and DSO reduced by 22% following solution implementation.
Improvement in collections through Prodigy AR
Improvement in DSO
Reduction in cost through RPA
Reduction in payment allocation TAT through Prodigy SmartOps (from 72 hours to 24 hours)
Learn More About How Sutherland Can Transform Your Operations
Services
Automation, Data & Analytics, Robility®, Prodigy
Industry
Logistics and Transportation
