How Solvay Increased Customer Service Efficiency by 20%

SAP visibility gaps prevented supply chain optimization across 115 global sites

Order-to-Cash process was a "black box" hiding critical inefficiencies

While SAP enabled Solvay to operate standardized processes across 115 industrial sites in 61 countries, they lacked visibility into day-to-day operations and employee experiences within the system. About 10% of their 24,500-person workforce—nearly 2,500 employees—had regular customer interactions, creating massive volumes of data in SAP without clear insights into process performance.

45% of customer orders required costly rework

Solvay's Order-to-Cash process suffered from multiple inefficiencies: order confirmations taking too long, sales orders requiring rework, late invoicing, changing delivery dates, and unreliable pricing master data. These issues slowed processing, increased costs, and frustrated customers expecting faster service.

No way to identify improvement priorities or measure impact

Without process visibility, Solvay couldn't distinguish between high-impact improvements and minor fixes. They needed fact-based analysis to identify unconscious opportunities, size and evaluate improvements, and prioritize initiatives that would deliver the greatest value.

Comprehensive Order-to-Cash analysis reveals the "Happy Flow" and conformance gaps

Analyzing the Order-to-Cash process

QPR ProcessAnalyzer connected directly to Solvay's SAP data using QPR Connectors. After building and confirming the process mining model with Solvay, the analysis began using QPR ProcessAnalyzer's extensive ready-made analyses and presets, making the analysis process straightforward for the customer.

Creating a Design Model representing the Happy Flow

The Happy Flow represents the best-case scenario for Solvay's Order-to-Cash process. Through analysis, QPR determined the as-is process (how things actually operate) and calculated the ideal Happy Flow path that minimizes delays and rework.

Performing Conformance Analysis

Conformance analysis identified deviations from the agreed Happy Process. The initial analysis revealed that 45% of Solvay's customer orders included some form of rework. QPR ProcessAnalyzer's built-in Conformance Checking dashboard made it simple for Solvay to identify quick improvement wins.

Creating process mining dashboards

Custom dashboards provide managers with real-time visibility into the entire process, including critical insights like:

• Cases in the non-happy path take double the time → opportunity to cut lead times
• Net price changes are the most common happy path violation → opportunity to reduce extra work
• Rework affects on-time delivery and creates operational costs → opportunity for cost savings

From efficiency gains to revenue growth: transforming customer service into a profit center

20% increase in customer service efficiency

QPR ProcessAnalyzer enabled Solvay's customer service representatives to work 20% more efficiently by eliminating process inefficiencies and providing clear visibility into order handling with lead times, bottlenecks, and root causes.

30% sales revenue growth potential unlocked

Rather than simply cutting costs, Solvay chose to reinvest the efficiency gains strategically. The time saved through process mining enabled customer service representatives to engage in commercial activities and add-on sales, creating an estimated 30% sales revenue increase opportunity in certain teams.

Process lead times cut in half for problematic cases

Cases that deviated from the "Happy Flow" previously took double the time to process. By identifying and addressing these conformance issues, Solvay significantly reduced lead times and improved customer satisfaction.

Fact-based improvement prioritization replaces guesswork

Solvay now uses process mining complementary to traditional brainstorming, with QPR ProcessAnalyzer providing fact-based analysis to identify opportunities while human insight adds the strategic perspective for mobilizing teams and driving change.

Continuous monitoring prevents future issues

Real-time dashboards and automated alerts enable process owners to monitor key processes continuously, getting warnings when something goes wrong and drilling down to root causes before issues impact customers.