CASE STUDY - Ecolab

Ecolab is the global leader in innovation. 

Providing innovative products and services to help maintain a safe and clean environment and to save energy all throughout the world. It operates in more than 40 industries in 170 countries worldwide and employs approximately 47,000 people.

Executive Summary 

Ecolab’s expansion, particularly in the Asia Pacific suggests that more countries will be needing sustainable water, food, and energy, hence the demand for a smooth operation in delivering quality products and services to its clientele. Transparency is a top priority for every transaction in Ecolab, especially for the Credit and Collection Department. Ecolab must find a service provider that will enable them to determine and monitor the status of every service invoice being delivered to clients. Ecolab worked with Drake Business Services Asia who offers: 1. A Mailroom Management Service that oversees the incoming and outgoing documents, based on client’s operations. 2. A technology solution that changes the way operation is dealt with. 3. A comprehensive approach to the workflow process that results to an efficient management. About Ecolab in the Philippines: Ecolab is the biggest product merchant of chemicals and cleaning agents in the Philippines. In 2010, it combined its operations with NALCO Water in order to service the Manufacturing, Food and Beverage, Quick Service Restaurants, Hospitality, and Energy, sectors in the Philippines. Their main service is the production of chemicals such as pests’ controls, dishwashing machines, and high-value cleaning agents. 

The Challenge

Ecolab’s Credit and Collection team faces a high volume of service invoices monthly and such invoices are major contributors to the company’s monthly revenue. These service invoices are in correspondence to clients’ payment and renewal of Ecolab’s products and services. The office issues a job order for deliveries of the invoices to clients, all of which are time sensitive and top priorities, however, due to its entirely manual process by another third-party service provider, Ecolab experienced lost invoices which eventually resulted to profit loss. The Company has been seeking out alternative solutions for over a year, even tapped providers abroad to develop a highly advanced system that will ease their credit and collection process. After product evaluation, they reached a conclusion that still, the system could not meet the objective that they want to achieve. Drake Business Services Asia (DBSA) was made aware of Ecolab’s growing pains when they reached out to DBSA’s Business Development Officer. Immediately after, DBSA responded by setting up a meeting with them to hear out the problem and later by proposing a solution that would centralize, transform, and automate the process of distributing and collecting service invoices. 

The Solution

Upon recognizing the need for an overall aligning of the process and a technological innovation, Drake Business Services Asia immediately proposed its customized Mailroom Management Service integrating the IWF and IPT Technologies, and the Track and Trace, an online monitoring system, to the management of Ecolab. The IWF and IPT Technologies enable individual access for the Order to Cash (O2C) stakeholders, data capturing, automatic payment posting, email notifications and actual monitoring of any development on the invoice status. The Track and Trace technology allows the user to receive, view, and keep an eye on the whereabouts of every invoice dispatched and delivered by the Mailroom Hub staff. It provides real-time updates on the document once it is released and countersigned. This kind of technology eliminates additional workload of sorting out missing invoices and paves a way for a faster collection. 

The Results 

The quick implementation of solutions enabled Ecolab to save time and increase productivity. Drake Business Services Asia successfully aligned the process with Ecolab’s goals of increasing automation and efficiency all throughout. The innovation brought by Drake resulted in a significant increase in Ecolab’s collection efficiency. From only hitting a 70%-80% collection since, today, the Company managed to reach, and even go beyond its 100% target. Given these benefits that Drake was able to provide for Ecolab, Mhel Talbo, Service Manager for Credit Services only has high praises and much respect for the team that led to the success that the company is experiencing, at the moment. Drake Business Services Asia offers clients an extensive approach to streamlining and analyzing processes for your mailroom needs. Most notably, DBSA continuously evolves with the times and the modern technology, to help businesses in various verticals achieve their objectives, right on time.