Let us inform you how John Lewis, the well-known retail brand, improved its performance with RPA. One example for a start – during the Christmas 2018 Black Friday week, five digital workers processed nearly 15,000 never knowingly undersold queries – which saved 62 days of equivalent human resource.
Challenge
The rise of pure online retailers has added pressure to the industry and, like any large company, John Lewis wanted to optimize operational efficiencies and increase productivity– while addressing unique retailer challenges, which include streamlining work volume peaks and providing competitive pricing to consumers.
Vendor
To ensure that stakeholders across the business embraced the concept of RPA, and to address any apprehension of automation and its impact on jobs, the company communicated that RPA would bring “better jobs, better performance and better pay”. Blue Prism’s connected-RPA was chosen as the platform that could deliver these benefits due to its proven track record of operating and scaling well in highly demanding, enterprise environments.
Solution
John Lewis was able to scale their RPA program quickly and have seen a positive impact across their business. Currently, there are over 40 automated business processes running across John Lewis’ contact center, online, merchandising and buying operations, Waitrose’s supply chain, group human resources and finance operations. Key processes being transformed relate to checks for fraudulent orders, price match requests from customers and returned goods.
The bottom line
Ultimately, by integrating Blue Prism’s connected-RPA to other technologies, John Lewis has created a high performing, empowered ecosystem – driven by a team that’s highly efficient, productive – with a focus on continuous improvement. Scaling connected-RPA across the business has driven better outcomes by creating better jobs and generating greater value. Those productivity savings and human capacity are being reinvested back into the John Lewis Partnership to deliver better customer experiences.
