Portfolio Details

Problem Statement:

The customer, a leading power and utility company, required a more efficient way to conduct credit checks during contract creation. Their current manual process led to higher operational costs and delayed decision-making, impacting both liquidity and receivables management. Challenges included:

• Complex Manual Processing: The manual credit check process increased processing times and errors.
• Operational Overhead: High costs associated with manual handling of credit checks.
• Scalability Issues: The company’s growing customer base required a solution capable of scaling quickly without increasing operational burdens.
• Data Integration and Transparency: The need for reliable integration with third-party credit check providers and a transparent view of all processes.

Proposed Solution & Architecture:

Unified Technologies proposed an automated event-based system that integrated with the customer’s existing contract management system, facilitating automated credit checks for contract creation. The workflow used AWS services such as API Gateway, Lambda, and SQS to ensure reliable and secure event processing:

• Contract Creation and API Call: Upon contract initiation, the system would trigger an API call to initiate the credit check.
• Credit Check Processing: The credit check process was initiated through an API call, reading the necessary configurations and forwarding the request to the third-party credit check provider.
• Event Processing and Business Logic: SQS queues were used to manage event traffic and ensure asynchronous handling. Lambda functions processed the business logic for each event.
• 3rd Party Interaction: The system reliably forwarded events and credit check requests to the third-party service provider through API calls, receiving feedback for contract approval or rejection.
• Decision Making: Depending on the result of the credit check, the system would automatically approve, reject, or flag the contract for manual review.
• Process Monitoring: The solution included automated monitoring to ensure transparency and accuracy in the entire workflow.

Architecture:

Metrics for Success:

• Reduced Process Costs: Automation reduced manual handling of credit checks by 70%, minimizing operational costs.
• Improved Processing Time: Contract credit checks were completed within minutes, accelerating decision-making.
• Enhanced Reliability: With automated workflows, error rates related to credit check processing dropped by 90%.
• Scalability: The solution scaled seamlessly to accommodate the growing customer base without increasing manual intervention.

Lessons Learned:

• Automation Lowers Operational Overhead: Automating the credit check process significantly reduced the labor-intensive nature of the previous system.
• Seamless Third-Party Integration: By leveraging a reliable event-driven approach with AWS services, the company could maintain data consistency and improve decision-making.
• Scalability Ensures Future Readiness: The architecture’s flexibility allowed the system to easily scale, reducing the need for additional resources as business needs grew.