• Create a customer-centric operation based on transparency and visibility of all activities from inception through to completion • Define procedures to ensure timely responses and meet commitments to the members and general public • Deliver positive financial results to ensure fiscal sustainability of the system in the long-term Customer • Supervise and control to ensure quality service, measured by KPIs Colpensiones • Raise the general public awareness on how the pension system works Colombian government • Generate national savings schemes to allow more than 9 million Colombians Industry of low socioeconomic levels to have access to the financial benefits Public sector • Obtain cost reduction and efficiencies through centralized processes that are monitored, controlled and measured Location Colombia • Process in a timely manner all benefit claim applications ranging from disability, old age, and death payments through to funeral expenses
A new state pension unit,
Colpensiones, was created by Achievements the Colombian government • A successful design and implementation of the new entity, Colpensiones, to reduce costs, automate in its entirety from a process perspective; modeling and automating all processes and improve the core and non-core processes with a BPM solution quality of service offered by • Completed in a record time of 9 months and during the first month of the the old state pension system. operation, the team timely responded to over 118,000 customer queries • The new operation performs more than 1 million monthly payments • In 2012, geographical reach increased from 65 to 92 offices in 49 cities 118 processes went live in • Colpensiones deals with over 41,000 cases per day, at its most busy a record time of 9 months to period 138,000 cases were created in one day administer the contributions • Automation of business processes delivered a consistent level of service of 6.5 million citizens. as well as standardized business rules • Centralized information system successfully delivered quality decision- making based on accurate and timely information Today, the new system performs 28 million activities and manages 900,000 Overview & Challenges cases each month. The 60 year old Colombian government state pension system suffered poor quality of service, as it was managed by 60 databases which contained the job histories of its members, most of which were not digitized but filed manually. It was also facing 84,000 lawsuits and nearly 100,000 complaints, resulting in high costs and delays in delivering efficient services.
The Colombian government decided to replace the old state pension unit, and create a process-driven entity, Colpensiones, which was tasked to improve the services provided to its members, contributors and the processes, standardization of procedures for each public. application and a definition of ambitious but achievable SLAs and KPIs. The challenge was huge as in record time Colpensiones had to take over the monthly payment for nearly one The aim was to speed up members’ applications for million pensioners and administer the contributions of 6.5 benefits from several perspectives: million affiliated workers, reliably, quickly and efficiently • Significantly reduce the lengthy application times through agile process management. • Minimise claims and legal demands if applications were refused The decision was to transform the system from mainly a paper based structure to a truly process-oriented • Avoid incorrect settlements or retroactive payments paperless organization. While the previous pension entity due to the delayed approval process rarely answered its members or took a long time to resolve • Improve efficiency, control and customer service the outstanding queries, the new entity was focused on • Timely response to telephone enquiries customer service guarded by ambitious SLAs.
The BPM Solution Results
To tackle the challenge, Colpensiones was Colpensiones implemented Bizagi’s BPMS
designed in its entirety from a process among other solutions to automate more than perspective, modeling and automating all core 118 business processes in the first stage and and non-core processes, with a BPM solution. 200 at a second stage. Operationally, all decision-making processes were centralized including the management The key project objectives to reduce costs, and control of business procedures and legal streamline the processes and improve the proceedings, to ensure consistency and quality of service were all met in a record time. transparency across the board. As a result, 184,000 citizens were served by the new system over a period of 6 weeks in the Cultural changes were required to remove local autonomy autumn of 2012. and local decision making habits; this was accomplished through comprehensive management coaching workshops There were also evident reductions in the execution and a change management program. time frames of the processes and sub processes; new processes were streamlined and lean while information Major business process obstacles were presented at the was easily accessible which improved customer service time of the definition and standardization of processes and response times. The effective integration of the BPM due to the number and diversity of areas and stakeholders solution and the pension system brought out business involved, especially as the old pension system had very agility and improved problem resolution. few processes in place. It was important to define the transition plan from the existing pension schemes and get the agreement of all Best Practice stakeholders. This was achieved by the gradual design and deployment of the BPM solution and a phased delivery. • Involve the whole organization especially senior management and key representatives The new business strategy was based on process of all major departments that require process standardization and well-defined business rules and automation. procedures. This strategy required the unification of information, the clean-up and reconciliation of job history • Develop and deliver the project in clearly defined phases. data, the use of robust technologies for digitizing and documents transfer, thus achieving transparency and • Focus on key processes and add new ones reliability when building new relationships between once the main processes are fully tested. pensioners and Colpensiones. • Focus not only on processes but the way they are used internally. The technological and business challenge was to ensure the integration of all databases and legacy systems in • Be always mindful of the organizational parallel with on-going clean-up and reconciliation of culture and address these challenges with information, as well as the automation of all business ‘change’ management workshops.
