Breakthrough Process Improvement case study submitted by The Kanoo Gorup during 3rd Continual Improvement & Innovation Symposium organized by Dubai Quality Group's Continual Improvement Subgroup to celebrate World Quality Day 2011.

1. SERVICES DIVISION
Breakthrough Process Improvement Case Study
“IMPROVING VISA INVOICING PROCESS”
The Kanoo Group Central Accounts Team
(Ashraf Ahmed, Mr. Ahmed Ali,
Mr. S.A. Kapadia)
1

2. Introduction
• The Kanoo Group Services Division
provides the following services to Kanoo
Divisions, JVs and associated companies:
– Arranging employment visa
– Visit visa from Immigration
– Consulate services (visa, passport renewal etc.)
– Attestation of papers from Chamber of
Commerce, Ministries
• Six full time employees
• Covers Dubai and all Northern Emirates
2

3. Business Case
The processes involved in providing above services had the
following problems:
• Excessive paperwork
• Manual handling of documents
• Manual job registers
• Manual typing of invoices
– Approx. 400 per month
– Each includes 10 to 15 transactions
• Manual checking and correction of errors in invoices
• No information on status of jobs
• Delays in invoicing causing
– Blocking Company’s cash in work in progress
– Delays by customer departments in their own invoicing to external
customers
– Difficult to PROs to account cash float (AED 250,000) 3

4. Stakeholders
• Internal customer departments, Kanoo
employees
• External customers (JVs, customers of
internal customers)
• PROs
• Service Accounts
• Central Accounts & Credit Control
• IT
• Development team (Gemini)
4

5. Voice of Customer
• Meetings held with internal customers (Kanoo Shipping,
Kanoo Travel and JVs) to understand their service level
requirements.
• Each internal customer gave their needs and
expectations:
– Cycle times for
• response to queries
• Invoicing
– Cost and service charge details in invoices
– Periodic account statements and status reports
5

6. Voice of People
• Meetings held with PROs to know their problems and
suggestions..
• PROs’ required:
– Shorter cycle times for
• Re-imbursement of cash float
• Reduction in paperwork
• Easy access to information to be able to answer
customers’ queries
6

7. Project Charter
The Problem Statement:
• Reduce paper consumption for invoices (1,200 sheets per
month) by 50%
• Reduce man-hours required for manual typing of invoices
from 300 per month to 50 per month.
• Reduce time wasted in searching for job status from 50
hours to less than 5 hours
• Reduce errors from 25 per 100 invoices to near zero error.
• Reduce invoicing cycle time from 30 days to 1 day.
• Reduction in customer complaints (from 10% of
transactions to near zero).
• Reduction in cash float from AED 250,000/- to less than
AED 100,000/-
7

8. Project Team
The teams involved:
– Service Accountant
– PR Department
– IT Department
– Software developer (Kanoo JV).
8

9. Project Timeframe
– Start Date January 2010
– Target completion by 30-April-2010.
9

10. Process Flow (Before)
Standard documents
requirements and Record payment other
Start details in the manual Customer
service fees informed
job register complaints
to customers
for lack of
Receive request from
information
customer Check manual job
Answer
register periodically
customers’
and follow up for
queries
Records details in a pending jobs
Job Register
Collect processed
Delivery to
document from the
Excessive paper Customer
customer
Verify documents to be concerned authority
consumptions complaints
submitted (1,200 for delays
sheets/month)File all papers in job
25% error
file, update register
Retyping lost
Not OK rate, 50 man Dispatch invoices
All OK? PRO’s cash float per
hours invoicesto customers
Delays, time
OK month Type manual invoices consuming
reconciliation of
Corrections
& costing sheet
PRO submits cash float
Reimbursement
documents to the to PRO
Not OK
relevant authority and Check by
pays required fees Accounts OK
End 10

11. System Specification
A.The team developed a specification
document for an IT system considering the
VOC and VOP.
B.Designed formats for:
• Invoice
• Cost statement
• Job Status Report
• Work In Progress Report
• Proforma cost re-imbursement form
11

12. System Specification
A.The team developed a specification
document for an IT system considering the
VOC and VOP.
B.Designed formats for:
• Invoice
• Cost statement
• Job Status Report
• Work In Progress Report
• Proforma cost re-imbursement form
12

13. System Specification
C. The team identified various job types and
defined their require:
– Labour Department related
– Immigration related
– On-line visa
– E-wallet jobs
– Consulate jobs
• Sub categories of main job types were also
identified.
D. Modules were defined for each job sub-type.
13

14. System Specification
E. Interfaces with other systems were defined:
– Pay roll system
– Main financial system
– Accounting rules were defined based on HR &
Accounting policies
– Auto generation of accounting entries were
specified based on the above rules
14

15. System Development
A. Development team (Gemini) developed a
proto-type
B. Presentation was made to the project team
C. Proto-type system was evaluated by the project
team and auditors for one week.
D. Taking the feedback, the development team
developed “Visa Invoicing System”.
15

16. Modified Process
PR Deptt Secretary Accounts verify the
Start expense claims and
allocates jobs to PROs
and hands over settle the cash float
PR department documents to them amount
receives request from
customers
PROs carry out jobs Accounts raise invoice
Verify documents to be with the concerned to the customers
submitted govt. deptt. and pays
the required fees
Not OK When the concerned
All OK? Govt. Deptt. approves /
PROs updates job
disapproves the
OK status in the system on
application, PRO
daily basis
collects the documents
PR Deptt Secretary and delivers to the
enters job details in the customer
Visa Invoicing system PROs prints the
and creates a job Expense Claim form
on daily basis from the
system
Customer queries
End
are answered
16

17. 17

18. 18

19. Trial Implementation
A. “Visa Invoicing System” was implemented on
trial basis in April 2010.
B. Parallel run was carried out for the first one
week.
C. Minor problems were reported to development
teams and these were fixed.
19

20. Full Implementation
A. “Visa Invoicing System” was fully implemented
in May 2010.
B. System was updated in October 2010 to
include reference numbers given by the
authorities (e.g. Ministries).
20

21. Benefits
1. Invoicing for Service Jobs become instant (invoice is raised soon after completion
of a job)
2. Response time to customer’s queries was reduced.
3. Customer complaints reduced from 10% of transactions to less than 0.1%
4. Internal customers’ cycle time for invoicing to their customers was reduced (e.g.
Kanoo Shipping)
5. Tailor made reports could be provided to customers.
6. Cash float reduced from AED 250,000 to AED 90,000/-
7. Man-hours required for invoicing and corrections reduced from 400 to 50 man-
hours / month. This enabled us to take care of additional volume of business
without increasing man-power.
8. Net Income increased from AED 0.6 million to AED 1 million p.a. with the same
number of employees.
9. Month end accounts closing became shorter due to integration with Payroll and
Accounting systems.
10. Paper consumption for invoicing reduced from 1,200 sheets to 200 sheets per
month.
11. Increased employee satisfaction due to shorter reimbursement cycle.
12. Auditors satisfied with process due to reduced risks.
21

22. Horizontal Deployment
• The same system is being implemented in:
• Kanoo Group Abu Dhabi
• YBA Kanoo Group, Oman
• YBA Kanoo Group, Bahrain
• YBA Kanoo Group, KSA
• The system can be commercially marketed to other big
corporate groups and business services providers.
22

23. Further Improvements
• The system will be made web-based so that customers
can query job status on-line from anywhere in the
world.
• Modular structure is flexible and it can take up more
modules with changes in Government policies (e.g.
Mission Visa)
23

24. Single Point Lesson
• By involving stakeholders and systematically taking
their inputs, a flexible, user friendly and efficient
system can be designed.
• Consultation with stakeholders at each stage of
development helped faster implementation.
24

25. Recognition
• Appreciation received from external and internal
customers.
• Appreciation of project team by Group Management.
25