AGL runs retail technology transformation in two phases

AGL has provided its first detailed look at portions of a large-scale retail transformation project it started last year, which involves new CRM and billing systems, and process automation.

iTnews revealed in June last year that the project would see AGL switch from SAP CRM to Salesforce and use Appian for low-code process automation.

The company backed Kaluza as its next retail billing platform in June this year.

However, the mechanics of the transformation programme have been largely unclear up until this point in time.

Business transformation strategic operations manager Rohan Ware told the recent Gartner Data & Analytics Summit that the technology portion of the transformation is occurring in two phases.

Phase one is a transition step, where AGL has applied Appian’s intelligent business process management (IBPM) platform within its existing technology environment.

“We’re currently using Appian to automate and get benefits in the short term, and then we’ll be using it in our future-state as well,” Ware said.

“Appian’s in our phase two, so we’re kicking off our phase two piece of work now which is rolling out Salesforce and Kaluza.”

Phase one work has seen AGL focus process automation on supporting and streamlining “customer journeys” - essentially, end-to-end transactions - with an intent to ensure internal processes are streamlined and functioning as intended, and an aim to “improve our cost-to-serve”.

Ware said that AGL had called upon Gartner in the software selection process for an IBPM platform.

He said Appian was selected because it contained multiple capabilities.

“The first is data fabric. We have data across multiple systems. The data fabric in Appian enables us to pull together the appropriate data that we need to then use on the platform to either automate, provide reports or insights,” Ware said.

“The next one is … a whole suite of out-of-the-box capabilities that you can draw on to automate a process. 

“There’s [also] a whole stack of automation optimisation capabilities in there.”

One of the early big developments under phase one is a workflow app called eAGL - pronounced ‘eagle’ - that leans on the data fabric capability to “replace our legacy system of managing manual work” involved in provisioning services, meter reading or other activities that back-of-house teams and agents at AGL need to coordinate.

“This is what agents use to ensure the right work goes to the right person,” Ware said. 

“It’s the very starting point for us in terms of our automation journey.”

The company has also used Appian in process mining and optimisation - “mapping out what an agent does or should be doing to resolve issues”.

It has produced animated visualisations of existing processes that show how customer cases progress through the process, and where they get stuck.

“The nice thing about [the animation] is the speed is proportionate to the time that it takes, and you can see where there’s rework and looping,” Ware said.

“This has been a pretty powerful tool for us to show to our functional owners to say, ‘Hey, this is what your process is actually looking like, I think there’s an opportunity to improve it’. 

“We’ve been able to identify a lot of rework that’s occurring in a process - unnecessary steps - and we’ve re-engineered the process.”

Ware said that work created demand for greater use of Appian - and the company has started using “accelerators” produced by the vendor to tackle additional process management use cases.

“We’ve been looking at accelerators for fraud management as an example,” he said.

“Our field management team is keen on getting an accelerator out of Appian, too, so you pick that up and customise that slightly for your use.

Ware said that AGL is now operating with a “high degree” of process automation, though there would always be some manual handling as there were things that were too expensive to automate.

“When we look at an automation, we apply the 80-20 rule,” he said. “You could spend a lot of time and money getting it all automated, but there’s not really a benefit in doing that.”

Still, he noted that what has been achieved so far with Appian meant that it would be “a key platform for us moving forward.”

“We’re currently in transition state, so we’ve got our legacy systems and we’re using Appian to automate there and getting benefit, before we transform to and actually have deployed our future-state architecture, but we know Appian’s going to play a role in our future-state architecture, spanning processes across multiple systems.”