New order management workflow integrated in Google Apps work environment

Aerospace consultancy improves purchase-order management with RunMyProcess solution

Background

Ascend Worldwide is the world’s principal provider of data, analytics and advice to investors who finance aircraft. For over four decades it has supplied the most reliable, trusted and up-to-date aviation industry information and insight available anywhere. Ascend is based in London with offices in New York and Hong Kong.

Challenge

To make it easier and more cost effective to manage its IT infrastructure, Ascend decided to move to Google Apps. By migrating to cloud computing, the company hoped to simplify backups and improve system resilience. But the move also required Ascend to migrate existing business applications. One of them was a purchase-order approval application built on Microsoft SharePoint. The company needed to find a new solution that would offer at least the same functionality as the existing application.

Ascend consulted with ZumZum, the cloud-computing specialist that had helped with the migration to Google Apps. ZumZum is also a RunMyProcess partner. They suggested developing a new solution using the RunMyProcess platform.

Ascend compared RunMyProcess to the competition, but was unable to find a solution that offered the same level of customization. As a result, it decided to give ZumZum the green light to use RunMyProcess. It also gave ZumZum just under two months to implement the new solution.

Solution

“With RunMyProcess we basically had a blank piece of paper and could place things where we wanted with the web interface builder toolbox. To achieve user buy-in, we wanted the new solution to resemble as much as possible the previous solution,” says Steve Davies, IT Manager, Ascend.

With the new solution, Ascend uploads a spreadsheet with the marketing budgets of the different departments. Requests for new purchase orders are checked against the budget available and a temporary provision is made. Then the request goes through a series of electronic sign-offs by management. Once a PO is authorized, the requester is informed via email and the PO is sent out. The system also enables the Finance Director to approve exceptional expenditures not allotted for in the original budget.

The solution provides finance and operational managers with clear, detailed views by department of requested and paid spend. The flexibility and detail of the RunMyProcess solution are much better than the old solution. Reports that used to require five screens to view now only require one. Everything can be monitored from a dashboard accessible from a Google Site. “This helps save time and reduce frustration at month and quarter end,” says Davies.

Benefits

Working together, ZumZum and RunMyProcess had the new application up and deployed in under two months. Since then users have been quick to adopt the new application and to praise the new features. “We can do things that were impossible with SharePoint. For example, the new solution was being applied to every profile in Google Apps with one click. With the old application we would have had to update each user profile separately.”

Finally, Ascend got more than it expected with RunMyProcess. It went into the project simply wanting to replace an existing business application with one that worked with Google Apps and that provided the same or better functionality as the previous solution. “RunMyProcess provided all this plus better reporting, customizable options and lower costs,” concludes Davies.

Zum Zum is a leading Google Apps services provider in the UK and RunMyProcess Partner.

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