Achieving Global Standardization, Simplification and Automation through application modernization by consolidating into a singular cloud platform
The Problem
As a 130-year-old worldwide company which has acquired various companies over time, Kodak has faced a variety of business process challenges. Multiple fractured systems and processes created inefficiencies across locations and countries. Regional differences in tax laws, language, and country-specific regulations such as Brexit, GDPR, European Worker’s Council, and Nota Fiscal in South America led to countries developing their own packaged and home-grown systems.
Critical business processes were supported differently in each country, and they did not work well together. Kodak needed to focus on uniting the back-end processes and simplifying systems to provide standardization for employees and management around the world.
After emerging from bankruptcy, the new Kodak management group was determined to drive simplification and efficiencies and engaged a dedicated team to effect change. They planned to overhaul the company from top to bottom, standardizing sales and service offerings across the globe.
This transformation program would impact the entire enterprise, starting with the approach to selling high-end printing products and services. In every country, changes would affect organizational roles, business processes, and enterprise applications that support them.
Kodak selected Salesforce and Service Max Asset 360 as the foundational platforms to support these changes. Kodak’s Vice-President of Automation, Bill Mates, engaged T4S Partners advisory consultants who brought in business and technical experts to serve in leadership roles and bring the new solution to life.
Our team joined the program in its early planning stages and has contributed to many areas: business and technical requirements, solution design, system configuration, multiple environment user testing, training, and production planning. T4S consultants earned this client’s respect and are trusted advisors on this global transformation program.
The Solution
To align with the primary business directive to automate, simplify and standardize processes and systems across the globe, Kodak chose to make a large investment in the Salesforce platform. Kodak sales teams would utilize the Salesforce CPQ functionality globally to prepare quotes, manage approvals, generate proposals, and close opportunities.
Kodak redesigned its global business processes, starting with sales practices, to allow Kodak to collect better information upfront to drive downstream processes. Pricing strategies and product catalogs were restructured to streamline processing and shorten the sales cycle for sophisticated printing solutions.
Key business activities were automated, such as contract administration, credit worthiness checks, pricing, and pre-sales site evaluations. Global case management workflows were established to provide end-to-end visibility with escalation as required.
T4S advisors led workshops with experts around the world, helping analyze requirements and design new business processes within Salesforce to support Kodak’s unique requirements.
VP of Automation, Bill Mates, said “the addition of the T4S resources to our project team gave us the expertise we needed to ensure we were able to standardize our overall processes and reduce the amount of customization we had develop on our new platform.”
“We were very pleased with the output of the T4S team and would highly recommend their services to any other corporation considering their services.”
Kodak’s service organization would use Service Max Asset 360 to enhance and track the asset base, service contracts, and asset management processes. The new solution provides full visibility to an asset throughout its lifecycle: time of sale, credit approval, manufacturing, shipping and equipment installation or removal, maintenance timeline & other service requests.
Kodak would adopt a “follow the sun” process and mentality for customer support, including service level agreements across the enterprise. By replacing multiple systems with Salesforce Service Cloud, this client was able to standardize processes across the globe, meeting one of the overarching program directives. They have increased efficiency, improved reporting, and gained visibility into the numerous tasks required to service sophisticated printing equipment.
Along the way, the team decommissioned several versions of a homegrown service application based on Oracle Right Now Technologies. Lotus Notes applications for time and materials quotes, numerous SharePoint solutions and offline spreadsheet applications were also removed. This has helped simplify the application portfolio.
To enhance the customer service experience, Kodak expanded its use of Genesys for call center telephony across the globe. This allows customer care representatives to provide a more streamlined service experience. A Salesforce Communities portal for Kodak’s customers was also created to replace the current online service portal. The new customer consumer portal gives customers full visibility into all various sites they are associated to, their assets at specific sites, service history and real time communication updates on active cases.
It also allows online ordering for services and consumables without the need to speak to a customer care agent. The Salesforce mobile application allows onsite technicians to produce service summary reports and receive customer sign off at the completion of a service appointment. This functionality reduces the number of billing disputes by providing documentation and agreed upon signoff in real time.
Why T4S Partners
Since the beginning of this multi-year transformation program T4S Partners has worked closely with our client partner, Kodak, in a variety of areas:
- Lead business workshops with global teams, during the pandemic, to document global requirements and design Salesforce-based workflows to align, simplify, and automate business processes.
- Designed new roles and worked with Kodak to help their organization adopt new business processes.
- Assisted with Salesforce design and configuration, including complex integration between Salesforce and (legacy) SAP, Oracle, and other applications.
- Conducted unit and functional testing, trained end users on the innovative solutions, and helped with production readiness planning.
T4S Partners has earned the trust of the entire Kodak team involved with this complex global solution. As this client prepares to go live, T4S Partners consultants are working as mentors to those Kodak employees who will eventually fill their roles after this solution is in production.
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