Company: IBM, Armonk, NY
Company Description: IBM is a leading provider of global hybrid cloud and AI, and consulting expertise. IBM helps its clients capitalize on insights from their data, streamline business processes, reduce costs and gain the competitive edge in their industries. IBM's breakthrough innovations in AI, quantum computing, industry-specific cloud solutions and consulting deliver open and flexible options to its clients.
Nomination Category: Sales Awards Team Categories
Nomination Sub Category: Sales Support Team of the Year - Technology Industries
 Nomination Title: APAC TLS Transformation Journey
- Which will you submit for your nomination in this category, a video of up to five (5) minutes, explaining the achievements since July 1, 2022 of the nominated team, OR written answers to the questions? (Choose one):
Written answers to the questions
- If you are submitting a video of up to five (5) minutes in length, provide the URL of the video here, OR attach it to your entry via the "Add Attachments, Videos, or Links to This Entry" link above, through which you may also upload a copy of your video. If you are submitting written answers to the questions for this category, provide them in the spaces below.
- Briefly describe the nominated team: its history and past performance (up to 200 words):
Total 200 words used.
IBM APAC & Japan Quote-to-Cash (Q2C) Operations Team provides quote-to-cash (Contracting, Billing, Collections) and operational services to IBM’s clients, sellers, partners, and stakeholders.
IBM Technology Lifecycle Services (TLS) provides technology lifecycle services to plan, deploy, support, optimize and refresh hybrid cloud and enterprise IT data centre infrastructure.
APAC & Japan Q2C team had the opportunity to standardize and automate the pre-sales quote & contract creation process for IBM TLS business, as part of global transformation, from 3Q2022.
The team started with several discovery sessions with the Global Transformation team to understand the current processes and identify any unique country regulatory requirements that needed to be addressed prior to tool deployment.
In collaboration with the Global Transformation team, an e2e integrated Contract Life cycle platform deployment project was initiated to redesign the ‘Configure, Price, Quote’ (CPQ) journey for efficiency and speed. It offers a premium digital experience for Q2C with improved transparency, 360-degree view, client management and sales analytics for sellers, operations and leadership.
The entire sales cycle from opportunity identification through client billing is improved with new leading-edge technologies, redesigned processes, augmented intelligence and a common data platform. Post-deployment, all new transactions are processed in an integrated, end-to-end services platform.
- Outline the team's achievements since July 1 2022 that you wish to bring to the judges' attention (up to 250 words):
Total 236 words used.
TLS transformation journey was challenging as it started with a sunset of legacy contract management application, complex processes and minimal integration on the platform. This led to tedious, time-consuming workflow activities, increased wait time and cycle time.
The deployment of the integrated end-to-end services platform redesigned the ‘CPQ’ process and streamlined the Q2C process for IBM TLS.
APAC Q2C TLS team had to make this transformation valuable by identifying non-standard solutions and practices, unique customer requirements in signed contracts that resulted in manual billings, AR Disputes and impacted client satisfaction. Best practices and initiatives implemented by the team for better results:
- Interactive workshops with users to identify problems, gather innovative ideas for process improvement/tool enhancement.
- 50+ ideas gathered during the workshop, which were evaluated and implemented.
- These ideas were related to the process redesign, automation or tool enhancement resulting in a) improvement in minimizing manual billings; b) QTQ improvement in invoice accuracy; c) AR collection by minimizing AR disputes.
- This was well-received by the business stakeholders as they have appreciated team’s innovative skills to explore opportunities to enhance and optimize processes to benefit all of IBM.
- E2E integrated and automated solution for TLS PO registration in GPO tool with data insights on PO utilization.
- Successful partnership with APAC TLS Transformation to implement new ideas to simplify/automate contract management process.
- Implementation of strong management system with stakeholders with a 31% reduction in agreements signed but not activated.
- Reference any attachments of supporting materials throughout this nomination and how they provide evidence of the claims you have made in this nomination (up to 250 words):
- Explain why the achievements you have highlighted are unique or significant. If possible compare the achievements to the performance of other players in your industry and/or to the team's past performance (up to 250 words):
Total 235 words used.
Highlights:
- Implementation was accomplished in a very efficient and agile manner, with practically no unplanned handoffs and in accordance with the established plan.
- Regular interlock and retrospective among stakeholders were held to collect feedback allowing course correction and continuous improvement.
All these efforts led to the successful implementation of end to end Configure-Price-Quote (CPQ) and Contract Lifecycle Management (CLM) application, reaping the following benefits for IBM:
- Process standardization across countries in APAC and Japan region.
- 70% of the quote creation steps automated with minimal intervention required from user.
- Over 50,000 hours saved, eliminating manual data re-entry, and data validation is reduced through the embedded controls.
- 32% reduction in AR disputes QTQ in 2024 – positive impact on AR Collection.
- Contract Registration Cycle Time is 18% better than the target hours in 1H2024.
- Average NPS is 99.3 for 1H2024.
As part of business continuity, this team successfully supported the migration activity post application deployment:
- Migration of millions of dollars’ worth of maintenance contracts for 5000 customers active until 2038 across APAC and Japan, supporting Direct Customers and Business Partners.
- 14,580 contracts successfully migrated in 5 waves between May and October 2023 for APAC region.
- 22,983 contracts successfully migrated between September and November 2023 for Japan.
- Post-migration, these 37,563 contracts are managed and billed to customers from CPQ TLS application. Active contracts from 15 countries were migrated to CPQ within 6 months.
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