Q. What kind of operations do you use Questetra for?
In SMBC Finance Service Co. Ltd. of the Sumitomo Mitsui Financial Group, we provide a variety of services for different payment methods. These include account transfer, payment through convenience stores, credit card and electronic cash.
For example, the CATS payment collection service realizes efficient account transfer payment from customers. This service is recognized as the No. 1 in the industry.
We have introduced Questetra (On-Premises Edition), the Business Process Management system to promote paperless processing and provide real-time progress updates for the outsourcing operations of Sakura Information Systems Co. Ltd.
In order to improve services for the customers, various operations are processed on a daily basis. This may include payment collections through money transfers or through convenience stores.
These processes were usually carried out by issuing request forms which required a signature. We have now implemented paperless processing in the entire procedure in order to prevent mistakes and delays.
We currently have about 60 types of request forms for processes. We have converted 80% of them into an electronic format in just 3 months since the system was introduced.
Q. What is the major advantage in implementing Questetra?
When we make a process request, the operation requires us to provide a number of pieces of personal/corporate information or other payment details.
The total amount of the transactions can reach several trillions of yen. Thus, the system should not allow delays and leakages. With Questetra, the paperless process eliminates the need to manage and maintain a general ledger. This, in effect, greatly improves efficiency in the entire operation process.
Moreover, with the large amount of daily transactions, easy access to the progress updates is highly beneficial.
Any authorized personnel can easily check the progress of operations using the “token” in the business flow diagram. With this advancement, the communication cost is greatly reduced compared to the old ways of checking via telephone or e-mail.
Q. Please provide information about your security measures.
In the implementation of Questetra in both SMBC Finance Service Co. Ltd. and in Sakura Information Systems Co. Ltd, security is of utmost importance.
In order to have access to the group-wide network (extranet) of SMFG (Sumitomo Mitsui Financial Group) and the virtual hosting service (cloud service) of Sakura Information Systems Co. Ltd., a number of requirements must be fulfilled. This includes authentication (single sign-on), clearing the route’s branch or utilization of indicated remarks. Questetra On-Premises is the total solution to this challenge. It is a powerful tool that can be used to fulfill all the said requirements.
Moreover, the capability of easily modifying complex business flows through changes in settings proved to be an important requirement.
- Provide settings just by drawing flow diagrams
- Pass data to other flows
- Implement concurrent processing
These processes can be accomplished with simple settings changes and without the need for any development work.
Q. Please tell us about your future initiatives.
The immediate goal is to establish a system that can track the entire outsourcing business.
For real-time features, we would like to provide authorized personnel not only with progress updates, but also additional mechanisms that automatically detect errors. We also plan to provide electronic traces of all request contents.
Moreover, we are inclined to continuously improve the current business flow over a span of 6 months to one year. As we commit to bring our service quality to a higher level, we continue to search for solutions to provide the ideal business flow.
