About Skandia
Skandia Fastigheter is one of Sweden’s leading property owners, hosting buildings for offices, housing, shopping malls, and community properties. Its approximately 200 employees manage over 125 properties or 1.1 million square meters from offices across Sweden.
The challenge
Skandia Fastigheter previously had some light modeling tools, but it wasn’t meant for more extensive processes and wasn’t automated. For example, connecting a workflow to an automated work task was not something they could achieve.
Meanwhile, physical papers were still very much present in the organization. This led to longer decision-making routes and uncertainties about the actual status.
” All the forms we were using to sign and for documentation within decision administration for investment projects were physical papers we sent via post throughout the country. Immediately when we saw a demo of InRule Process Automation, we could see what value it would bring to the organization.”
Susanne Winqvist – Sustainability Controller
Another challenge Skandia Fastigheter faced was that the different entities and departments within the organization worked with different kinds of investment projects for our properties. It ranges from property development, minor adjustments, and building large shopping malls to housing estates. Doing this while still maintaining consolidated ways of working was close to impossible.
The must-haves
When researching new software, there are always a few incremental features for deciding to buy. And Skandia Fastigheter was, of course, no exception to this rule.
Being able to map out workflows and how the process should run was one of the most obvious deal-breakers. Another deal-breaker was directly connected to the onboarding process, authorizing permissions and granting access to different systems. Permissions and access rights must happen before a new employee starts their first day.
Integrations were also something Skandia Fastigheter needed. Initially, this only concerned application documents for investment project decisions, but they are always looking into new possibilities to scale and streamline their ways of working, and that’s an area where integrations play a significant role.
Connected to the process were also approval flows. Building these and supporting the approval flows was deemed a necessity.
“We needed to see who had done what, that it’s done, and who approved it. Basically enabling traceability which is crucial for a process such as onboarding.”
Baltasar De Arteaga – Project Manager IT
Security was an area Skandia Fastigheter did thorough research in being a bank subsidiary. Questions that soon put to rest through InRule Process Automation’s extensive security protocols and licenses.
Furthermore, there’s always a learning curve when implementing new software. Skandia Fastigheter wanted a system that they could manage themselves, but they also wanted help in the very beginning from InRule experts to learn the ropes.
“We felt comfortable choosing InRule Process Automation since we were given the option to try it out for ourselves first. That trial period and the initial help from InRule experts helped us hit the ground running.”
Baltasar De Arteaga – Project Manager IT
Identifying low-hanging fruit
Before implementing a process automation solution, Skandia Fastigheter used paper documents to track and manage its processes. The first process Skandia Fastigheter identified as a suitable candidate for implementing InRule Process Automation was HR Onboarding. A process considered low-hanging fruit and a previously relatively manual process that could benefit from digitalization.
“When we first started to automate the HR Onboarding process in InRule Process Automation, the initial need was to mitigate risks and optimize time usage by automated emails, for example.”
Baltasar De Arteaga – Project Manager IT
Onboarding may seem like a simple process. In reality, however, it includes several steps and multiple departments. New employees need access rights and equipment; they need it on the first day to become productive immediately. The same goes for offboarding, which is often onboarding in reverse. On top of that, everything needs documentation.
“In our current onboarding process hosted in InRule Process Automation, we have 30-40 different activities. These activities were previously 30-40 manual work tasks that are now largely automated, which is a huge time-saver for us.”
Baltasar De Arteaga – Project Manager IT
Implementation
After identifying the onboarding process as the first area to automate in InRule Process Automation, Skandia Fastigheter turned to another area, project administration workflow, and began workshops with InRule experts.
“The first workshop was incredibly structured and efficient and guided us into the new and powerful possibilities we were experiencing for the first time.”
Annika Graflund – Consultant & Project Leader
After this first workshop, it only took them a couple of months to set the solution live in the organization. It was a bold move by Skandia Fastigheter to go live at an early stage, but it was also a great way to identify areas for improvement.
“We wanted to be brave and go live with the application early. We could feel the support from the rest of the organization, and we were confident with the support and instant help from InRule if something needed fixing.“
Susanne Winqvist – Sustainability Controller
From there, Skandia Fastigheter has improved the solution in iterations to perfect it even further. But everything started from an embryo of the solution developed by InRule experts.
“The speed at which the InRule experts were able to develop an embryo of the solution was something I thought impossible. They instantly understood our needs, and maybe more importantly, they assured that the application was reliable and appropriate, taking care of every situation that can arise. Nothing was left to chance.”
Susanne Winqvist – Sustainability Controller
As aforementioned, Skandia Fastigheter has received a helping hand from InRule experts to help streamline development and share best practices.
“I’d like to emphasize the level of service we’ve received from InRule’s experts. They’ve always been at hand as soon as we needed their support.”
Annika Graflund – Consultant & Project Leader
Interest begins to spread
After seeing a platform demo and going through the first workshops held by InRule’s specialists, Skandia Fastigheter rapidly implemented the solution. As aforementioned, HR Onboarding was the first application. But others were soon to follow.
“The interest and potential use cases started to spread fast within the organization when we saw the product.”
Susanne Winqvist – Sustainability Controller
The Project team was one of the first departments to realize they could benefit from implementing InRule Process Automation. At first, they simply used the modeler tool to map out processes and for reporting.
“The first use cases were quite simple. Then we received inspiration on how we could leverage the data collected in the system and have that information pulled into our BI system.“
Annika Graflund – Consultant & Project Leader
Integrations are not always an easy feat
When integrating multiple software spanning various departments, there are bound to be some obstacles. Skandia Fastigheter currently has around 20-25 integration points. These integration points can base on activity, i.e., something happens that triggers another action, such as an automated email for example. They can also be strictly data-centric and move data from one system to another.
Skandia Fastigheter realized the value of simple things such as clear naming conventions and error management since multiple systems gather data from different data points. This might sound like a breeze, but it’s not always as easy as it appears on paper.
It was also a question of what was possible in InRule Process Automation. But these ambitions were made possible through the open APIs provided in the platform.
Results
Since implementing InRule Process Automation, Skandia Fastigheter has seen several positive outcomes.
With its old way of working, the finance department audited the project decision application in the last instance. Since implementing a digital workflow, they’ve added an early check of specific information, such as deductible VAT, allowing Skandia Fastigheter to execute the right task at the right time. Mitigating risks and taking them one step closer to operational excellence.
“It has brought tremendous value for us to incorporate our guidelines, policies, and decision paths into the process. This way, we get an automated internal control.”
Susanne Winqvist – Sustainability Controller
Having disparate departments working on different projects made it troublesome to have cohesive ways of working. InRule Process Automation enabled Skandia Fastigheter to comply with its project guidelines. Something that was previously a distant vision.
Eliminating double work has been one of the most prominent results since implementing InRule Process Automation. This is a direct result of Skandia Fastigheter having structured its processes and integrations to other systems. Alleviating employees to copy-paste data between different systems.
“We’re managing large quantities of data. And that data needs to be fed into different systems for reporting and analyzing. This was a manual exercise before InRule Process Automation. Today it just happens automatically thanks to the integrations we have in place.”
Susanne Winqvist – Sustainability Controller
One of the benefits Skandia Fastigheter has noticed since implementing InRule Process Automation is the ability to quickly determine the status of a current project. Whereas they previously sent documents via post, where it’s virtually impossible to get a holistic overview of the process. It could even be that the mail got lost on its way. Today, that overview is only a few clicks away.
Generally speaking, the reception has been overwhelmingly positive. A few months after implementing the solution, Skandia Fastigheter surveyed the organization, and over 72% graded it as four or higher on a scale of five. There is typically a curve of change when deploying new software, and Skandia Fastigheter is confident that the grade will rise over time.
What happens next?
Skandia Fastigheter wanted a system where they could manage development themselves from the business side. Something they’ve now achieved to a degree where IT sometimes feels the need to slow down the development of new applications just to keep up.
Moreover, Skandia Fastigheter plans to add Robotic Process Automation on top of InRule Process Automation to automate its work processes further.
“I’m extremely optimistic and impressed by InRule Process Automation thus far. Now we’re just adding more functionality to perfect it and implementing it in more areas of the business.”
Susanne Winqvist – Sustainability Controller
