Siemens’ shared service centre in northwest Europe has focused heavily on high-volume low-complexity tasks. An early transformation initiative used robotic process automation to sort and analyse high volumes of data, create automatic journal vouchers and email them to cost centre managers. This effectively created a ‘digital worker’, granted the same logins and access rights as a human worker, to carry out repetitive processes. The initial focus was on repetitive tasks, such as sales-order processing, procurement activities and payroll queries, aiming to reduce the transactional workload of employees. Soon the scope grew to encompass more advanced use cases for robotics, AI and analytics, and it became clear that the digital worker had a lot more potential. For example, Cash Collection has seen a significant improvement in efficiency following the introduction of its Cash Collection Management Tool which enables Collection Strategy automation, Workflow and Low Complexity No-touch Collections. By combining Chatbots with Process Bots, the time for query resolution is significantly reduced, leaving skilled employees to tackle exceptions and complex cases.
Siemens introduced around 30 digital workers into the finance function to work on processes such as month-end close. Recurring journals are fully automated, with digital workers checking logic and ensuring that values are correct before posting the journal.
Recognising workforce concerns over the impact of automation, Siemens developed a suite of future-focused ‘digital accountant’ roles and job descriptions. These digitally enabled roles do not exist in today’s organisation but are expected to become an important part of the business over the next five years. This approach has helped realise future business and professional needs, enabling individuals to recognise gaps and tailor their own skills development.
Recognising that cultural change is crucial to transformation, Siemens uses an internal communication platform for peer-to-peer sharing of learning and best practice. Shortfalls in digital literacy across the company are being addressed through a series of online training modules. This includes a digital leadership class that focuses on change and the future world of self-managed teams.
To encourage digital development and home-grown innovation among those with more advanced digital skills, a finance hackathon was set up to explore new ideas and inventions. This resulted in the Board funding the development of two new finance applications.
“The people side is about communication, communication, communication. The cultural change and bringing the organisation with you is really important. So, tell your people what you’re doing, why you’re doing it, why it is important.”
Angela Noon, CFO of Siemens UK
