Linköpings universitet SE–581 83 Linköping
Linköping University | Department of Computer and Information Science
Master’s thesis, 30 ECTS | Information Technology
2021 | LIU-IDA/LITH-EX-A--2021/045--SE
Digitalizing the workplace:
im-proving internal processes using
digital services
–
A process improvement by digitalization, emphasizing chosen
quality factors
Digitalisering av arbetsplatsen: förbättring av interna processer
med hjälp av digitala tjänster
Madeleine Bäckström
Nicklas Silversved
Supervisor : Jonas Wallgren Examiner : Kristian Sandahl
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© Madeleine Bäckström Nicklas Silversved
Abstract
In recent years, the number of digital services and tools available has increased rapidly. When companies want to digitalize their business, they have the opportunity to browse a large number of existing platforms and applications available on the market to find a good match for their specific needs. However, when a company wishes to digitalize a work task that already has a well-established workflow, problems may arise. Due to this, a tailored digital solution may in some cases be the better suited option, rather than the ones available on the market.
The intention of this work was to investigate the challenges that companies face in relation to digitalization of the workplace in general, and the challenges of a company’s expense management process in particular. As an example of how a workplace digitaliza-tion can take place, a collaboradigitaliza-tion with a forest industry company was conducted. An evaluation of their analog and internal expense management process was done, where the found challenges were assessed with respect to chosen quality factors. The evaluation and the found challenges regarding digitalization constituted the basis for a process mapping and a digital solution aiming to improve the company’s expense management process. The resulting work emphasizes how a digital solution can be tailored with simple means within a limited time frame, taking specific needs and existing challenges into account in order to digitalize the workplace. In addition, the work presents what challenges that exists within the concept of digitalizing the workplace and regarding expense management, and how quality factors can be used in combination with a process improvement in order to relieve and eliminate them.
Acknowledgments
We would like to thank Richard Haag, Andreas Olofsson, and Sofia Edman at Holmen, for their valuable support and feedback throughout this project. A big thank you is also directed to everyone at Holmen who participated in interviews and user tests. In addition, we would like to thank Sogeti Linköping for the opportunity to conduct this work with their support. A special thank you is directed to Jonas Jaani who has been of great importance as our main contact and supervisor at Sogeti.
We would also like to thank our examiner Kristian Sandahl, and supervisor Jonas Wall-gren at Linköping University for all their help. Lastly, we thank Mimmi Cromsjö and Linn Hallonqvist for their important feedback on our work.
Contents
Abstract iii
Acknowledgments iv
Contents v
List of Figures vii
List of Tables viii
1 Introduction 1 1.1 Motivation . . . 1 1.2 Aim . . . 2 1.3 Research questions . . . 2 1.4 Delimitations . . . 2 2 Theory 3 2.1 Defining digitalization . . . 3 2.2 Expense management . . . 4
2.3 Process evaluation and improvement . . . 6
2.4 Technologies . . . 10
2.5 Related work . . . 12
3 Method 14 3.1 Overview . . . 14
3.2 Digitalizing the workplace . . . 15
3.3 Digitalizing the expense management process . . . 15
4 Results 20 4.1 Digitalizing the workplace . . . 20
4.2 Digitalizing the expense management process . . . 25
5 Discussion 48 5.1 Results . . . 48
5.2 Method . . . 53
5.3 The work in a wider context . . . 54
6 Conclusion 56 6.1 Future work . . . 57
Bibliography 59
B Interview Questionnaire: cardholder 65 C Interview Questionnaire: attesting manager 66 D Interview Questionnaire: finance department 67
List of Figures
2.1 Overview of the five phases of DMAIC. . . 7
2.2 An overview of the method PDCA for the Improve phase of DMAIC. . . 9
3.1 Overview of applied way of working. . . 14
3.2 Overview of method analysis phase. . . 17
4.1 Process map, card purchase. . . 27
4.2 Process map, invoice receival. . . 28
4.3 Process map, invoice handling. . . 29
4.4 A simplified version of the current expense report. . . 30
4.5 Wireframes of the initial prototype sketch. . . 37
4.6 Home screen, cardholder. . . 38
4.7 Home screen, manager. . . 38
4.8 Creating a new expense, part 1. . . 39
4.9 Creating a new expense, part 2. . . 40
4.10 Invoices and receipts screen. . . 41
4.11 Submitting expense report screen. . . 42
4.12 Approve expense reports overview screen. . . 43
4.13 Review submitted expense report screen. . . 43
4.14 Decline expense report screen. . . 44
List of Tables
1
Introduction
This section aims to give an overview of the work as a whole, introduce the motivation and aim, and present the research questions that are to be answered with this thesis.
1.1
Motivation
The constant development of new technology has over the years helped companies change their way of working, reduce their costs and improve their efficiency by making analog and time-consuming tasks digital. However, not only are there benefits with moving towards a digital workplace. In an article written by Parviainen et al. [32], both challenges and benefits regarding digitalization are discussed. The discussion is based on a literature study together with several case studies of companies that have made a digitalization journey. In order to get a broader understanding about these challenges and benefits, companies from various domains took part in the case studies. One of the benefits mentioned in the article is that converting an analog process that includes a lot of information into a digital process can re-duce costs by up to 90 %. However, they mention that digitalizing a process could also be challenging since it might cause disturbance in the company’s current way of working. In ad-dition to the previously mentioned benefits, Haddud and McAllen [22] explain that a digital workplace is said to have positive impact on an organization when considering productiv-ity and employee engagement. Having a digital workplace can also be considered beneficial when facing issues regarding work at a physical site. Due to this, one can imagine that or-ganizations can benefit from digitalizing analog tasks to reduce the need of working at a specific location. An example of this is the covid-19 pandemic [31] where the restrictions that followed forced many companies to work from home. This created a greater need for organi-zations to make it easier for their employees to work remotely. Digitalizing the workplace in order to make it more mobile for possible future challenges can therefore be beneficial.
This thesis has been carried out in collaboration with Holmen, a Swedish forestry com-pany that is in the middle of an ongoing digitalization journey to achieve, as they say, Digital happiness [48]. By exploring the possibilities of using digital services, they have managed to make it easier for employees to work from home, simplified how computers are distributed and updated within the company by moving services to the cloud. In addition, they have succeeded in creating an AI model that automates the distribution of invoices for employees’ expenses through email.
1.2. Aim
Continuing their journey to achieve digital happiness, they now wish to digitalize their ex-pense management process. Today, this process consists of manual paper handling between different departments of the company as well as the need to log in to different applications in order to complete the task. The number of invoices that have been managed and reported has been approximately 4,000 a year for the past 3 years, spread over 750 company credit cards. The current process is described as time-consuming and tedious by the employees, which is challenging for the company as the employees may feel unmotivated to perform the task. Therefore, Holmen is looking to develop a tailor-made solution that is adapted to their cur-rent systems, requirements, and needs. Holmen wants to continue investigating the digital services already available for the company, so purchasing a system available on the market for this type of task is therefore not an option. This creates an opportunity to research how digitalization can be performed when prerequisites exclude the possibility of using existing solutions available on the market. The tailored solution should make the expense manage-ment process easier and faster to perform, reducing or removing the number of steps involv-ing manual paper handlinvolv-ing. Examininvolv-ing how digital services can improve the time efficiency of this process and making it easier to perform will hopefully work as a baseline for future digitalization in the company, and for similar organizations who wishes to move towards a more digital workplace.
1.2
Aim
The aim of this thesis is to investigate the challenges that organizations face when they wish to digitalize their workplace. In addition, the thesis examines if a common organizational process, in this case the process of managing employee expenses, can be optimized using digital services. This is done by researching common challenges regarding digitalization in general as well as of the workplace. The researched area is then investigated more specifically by mapping the current expense management at Holmen to identify potential challenges and issues in their way of working. Based on the process mapping, a search for quality factors that can be used to improve and optimize the process is conducted. The results are then to be evaluated in order to implement a high-fidelity prototype, solving potential challenges based on the sought quality factors for the company. The prototype implementation is then compared to the previous process to see how organizations can benefit from digitalizing their current way of working.
1.3
Research questions
From the motivation and aim presented above, the following research questions have been derived and are to be answered with this thesis:
1. What challenges do companies face when moving towards a more digital workplace? 2. What are the current challenges that exist within a company in terms of expense
man-agement?
a) What are the key quality factors related to the expense management process? 3. How can the process of expense management be improved using digital services, with
respect to key quality factors?
1.4
Delimitations
Due to requests from the collaborating company in this work, only services provided by Microsoft have been taken into consideration when conducting research on digital tools and creating the prototype presented within this thesis.
2
Theory
Within this chapter, theory and background information for key concepts related to this thesis work is presented. In addition, research related to the area of concern is conveyed.
2.1
Defining digitalization
The word digitalization can often cause confusion due to existing similar terms digitization and digital transformation. Even though the words have a syntactic similarity, their seman-tics are slightly different. Frequently, attempts to differentiate and reason about the terms have been made in articles and blogs since they can often be used interchangeably. In or-der to avoid confusion throughout this report, the three terms are now to be presented and semantically compared.
In an article written by Savi´c [37], the author states that it is important to have a proper understanding of the scope and semantics of these terms when communicating human to hu-man. In the same article, these terms are examined based on five different factors: focus, goal, activity, tools, and challenges. It is said that digitization can be seen as a way of converting analog data into a digital format while digitalization has its focus on information processing, concerning for example converting a process that includes a lot of manual work into an auto-mated process. Lastly, digital transformation relates to knowledge leveraging which affects the current way that a company conducts their business. The main focus is re-thinking how things are done, involving new technology like Artificial Intelligence (AI) or cloud comput-ing, and how to start doing things differently.
Saarikko et al. [36] adds another perspective to the discussion about these three terms, describing them as different layers related to one another. Digital transformation is depicted as the outer layer, placing digitalization and digitization as sub-layers within. Digitization is said to have the same semantics as mentioned earlier but in addition, it is described as a virtualization of physical activities and it is often used when talking about the capacity of a technology. Digitalization on the other hand, can according to the authors be seen as a collection of technologies that are digitized and it is used to describe how the technology can be used in a process. Digital transformation is again said to target the organizational structure of a company, where the focus is to see how the company can adapt to both the digital technologies themselves, and to a new way of working.
2.2. Expense management
Since the work in this thesis involves all of these aspects in one way or another, it is im-portant to create a common understanding of which term to use in order to define the work. Digitization might reflect the work regarding decreasing the manual paper handling used in the current process, while parts of digital transformation can be seen in the final results where the introduction of a digital process changes the day to day work of the employees at the company. Due to the fact that the transformation only covers a minor part of the company’s process, the term digital transformation is too broad. The main focus of this report is to find a way to convert, automate and improve parts of the process of managing expenses and due to this, the term digitalization is used to define the work. It is also common to use the word analog as opposed to digital. In this work, an analog task is defined as a non-computerized way of performing something, where an example would be using pen and paper to send a message.
Another important distinction that needs to be mentioned is that digitalization in the workplace can relate to both internal and external aspects, depending on where the com-pany seeks to make a change. Internal digitalization could be a way to refine a process or improve efficiency within the walls of the current organization, making employees shift fo-cus to things that actually create value for the company. In contrast, external digitalization can be performed by using digital formats to create value for a customer or client [4]. The key to digitalization in the context of this report, is to add value to the company’s internal way of working, by refining an in-house process.
2.2
Expense management
To give an overview of the topic of the study conducted within this thesis, being expense management, this section aims to explain important foundations and challenges.
The concept of expense management can be explained by describing what a business ex-pense is to begin with. In an article by Brodin [6], who is working at SAP which is a company that has been in the business of expense management for over 25 years, a business expense is defined as any cost that an employee pays for, connected to the company and the employees’ daily job. Expenses could involve paying for a travel by train or taxi, for a night at a hotel, or for food and beverages when meeting with a client.
Expense management is described by Taunay [44] at Rydoo, a company focusing on pro-viding software for travel and expense management, as the way a business manages its em-ployees’ business expenses related to travel, lodging, and meals connected to company pur-poses. The company can provide the employee with the resources they need to cover these expenses or use a reimbursement process for expenses that the employee would pay for with their own holdings. This definition is strengthened by Rao Kaki [24], working as a Content Marketer at an expense management software company. The author defines expense manage-ment as a system that a company can use to process expense reports and manage employee reimbursements in an efficient way that could benefit the company and the employees. Hav-ing a well-functionHav-ing process for managHav-ing employee costs makes it easier for companies to keep track of, control, and analyze costs for future budgets but it can also increase the employee productivity [44].
In 2019, Certify Inc. made a survey where they investigated the trends of travel and ex-pense management in North America [9]. The survey was aimed at financial employees who worked at companies of various sizes, where the number of employees in the companies varied between less than 100 employees and more than 1,000 employees. The survey had more than 500 responses and the results were presented in a report where key takeaways were highlighted as well as recommendations for companies about using Travel and Expense management in their organizations. Some of their findings were that dedicated expense man-agement systems is a good investment for organizations and that ease of use and mobility was prioritized when organizations valued a system.
2.2. Expense management
Similar findings are mentioned in a report from 2018 by PayStream Advisors Inc. [33], where a survey with more than 300 responses was analyzed. Their survey targeted organiza-tions from various domains and industries, also in North America. One of their key findings was that the size of the organization had a significant impact on expense management, were smaller companies tend to apply more manual and paper-based expense management.
A complication for many organizations was the lack of understanding regarding what was needed for effective Travel and Expense management, where many organizations did not intend to refine their expense management [9]. More than 40 % of the organizations that participated in the survey did not use expense management and about the same amount of organizations still conducted their expense management with manual reports. It was men-tioned that organizations might not know about the inefficiencies that belongs to Travel and Expense management and that it is important to put effort in reviewing current processes, mapping out each step of it in order to find how organizations can benefit from refining it.
Policy compliance was also mentioned as one of the key challenges for organizations us-ing Travel and Expense management since a lack of policies makes the organization more accessible to fraud. The benefit of having a policy is to create a common understanding for all of the employees about the process as well as the potential consequences if the policy is violated [9]. Other challenges organizations face with expense management are, according to both of the surveys presented earlier, said to be: lost paper receipts and expense reports, reports submitted without receipts, reports that are not submitted on time, lead times in the overall process, submissions of incorrect material and a lack of overview about the expense data [9, 33]. It was emphasized that organizations who had moved from a manual Travel and Expense management solution to a technical one could see several improvements with the overall process. Increased efficiency of the employees, reduced costs connected to storage and postage and process accessibility on the go are some of the benefits mentioned in both of the reports [9, 33]. The most valued features with the digital solutions were the mobility of capturing receipts and creating and approving reports on the go.
An automated expense management process is seen to reduce the costs and time it takes to process and create expense reports. Improved compliance to organizational policies con-nected to Travel and Expense management is also mentioned as one of the benefits in [9]. According to the survey, about 37 % of the organizations saw an improved satisfaction from their employees when adapting to a technical solution for managing expenses.
2.2.1
Legal requirements
The expense management process is linked to various legal aspects in Sweden, and comply-ing with the laws and regulations that apply to the management of expenses can be quite complicated. The most important aspect in the context of this report applies to the storage of the original receipt, in paper as well as digital format, and the legal requirements that comes with that. According to the Swedish Book-keeping Act [1], a receipt must be stored in the format it was originally received for 7 years before the original receipt can be destroyed. However, if the receipt was originally received in a digital format, or if a paper receipt has been transformed into a digital format as a copy, the original one can be destroyed after ap-proximately 3 years of storage as long as there exists a digital copy elsewhere.
In May 2020, an investigation was put into place in Sweden, published by the Government Offices of Sweden [18]. The aim of the investigation, that is currently still in progress, is to bring forward propositions regarding simplifications of the regulations on the Accounting Act. In the investigation documentation, critique regarding the regulations on how to handle accounting information is presented. The regulations are described as not being adapted to today’s modern technology, and that they entail difficulties to use cloud services. The reason why it is difficult is due for example to the fact that the companies do not always know where the accounting information is being stored if they are stored on the cloud, where the servers
2.3. Process evaluation and improvement
can be located elsewhere. This investigation could point to an upcoming change on how receipts need to be stored in the future.
2.3
Process evaluation and improvement
With the intent of this work being partly to understand and improve an internal process within an organization, this section aims to present concepts that can be used to perform such tasks.
2.3.1
Process and process mapping
In order to establish a common terminology foundation for this work, it is of importance to define the recurring term ”process”. In an article by Hunt [23], the author states that a process can be defined as steps performed in a series in order to produce a product or service. In addition, the authors state that the term ”administrative process” can be interpreted as a type of process that serves the purpose of producing a product or service internally within an organization that is of importance for the management. In [42], Strnadl gives a partially different definition. The article defines a process as a series of steps that are performed to result in a desired output based on its input. The definition is bundled upon multiple recent works and is presented together with the additional definition given by Davenport as ”a structure for action” [12, p. 5]. In addition, Strnadl describes a business process as a collection of activities, that either results in deliverable value to a customer, or the fulfillment of a goal within the enterprise.
In [23], the author describes that within the concept of re-engineering business processes, a reoccurring problem is the insufficient knowledge of the importance of understanding cur-rently performed processes among business leaders. To be able to gain thorough understand-ing of how an organization performs a task, or process, process mappunderstand-ing can be used. Usunderstand-ing this concept can help describe a business process, using diagrams and text. In addition, it can be of help when aiming towards improving and/or changing a currently practiced one.
In [12], Davenport describes that processes have a cost and require time, deliver output of a certain quality and lead to a resulting customer satisfaction: if some, or any, of these factors are improved, the process itself is considered improved.
With the presented definitions and descriptions in mind, the intent of this work is to use the following vocabulary with the following summarized definition: ”process” is a collection of activities that aims to fulfill a goal within an organization. This means that the terms administrative process and business process will be excluded to reduce the risk of confusion. When capturing practiced business processes in a process map, a known modeling no-tation standard for this is called Business Process Modeling Nono-tation (BPMN). A BPMN process uses BPMN elements to describe the process in focus, which are divided into five categories: flow objects, data, connecting objects, swim lanes and artifacts [29]. Flow ob-jects (events, activities, and gateways) are used to show how the process behaves, connecting objects (sequence flows, message flows, associations, and data associations) show how dif-ferent flow objects are connected to one another, and swim lanes (pools and lanes) group the used elements. BPMN provides a graphical way of presenting and understanding performed business workflows and processes and communicating them in a standardized manner with external parties. The primary goal of BPMN is to provide a common language for the convey-ing of a business process, that is easy to understand for all involved parties, and it has become a standard for these types of diagrams [8]. The notation used within BPMN has some simi-larities to other business process modeling notations such as the one for Unified Modelling Language (UML) activity diagrams [13].
2.3. Process evaluation and improvement
Figure 2.1: Overview of the five phases of DMAIC.
2.3.2
Define, Measure, Analyze, Improve and Control
Define, Measure, Analyze, Improve and Control (DMAIC) is called a quality strategy, that serves the purpose of improving a process [39]. An overview of the strategy is shown in Figure 2.1. DMAIC is both an important part of the Six Sigma method, and considered a standalone method [7]. In an article written by Tong et. al [45], the authors state that Six Sigma through the DMAIC approach has been proven to be successful for businesses in terms of for example reducing costs and eliminating defects.
In [38], the method is described to take on a problem that has been found within an or-ganization, and by the use of a collection of techniques and tools it delivers a solution that can be considered sustainable. With this, the author states that the found problem(s) should be considered either minimized or in some cases eliminated. This is done by applying the strategy on the chosen problem, that results in a solution that has had the root cause(s) of the problem as main focus. However, it is also mentioned by the author that an organization that wishes to use the method does not have to feel the need to eliminate a problem, but can practice it with the purpose of continuous improvement as well. The method has reportedly been applied to several different types of businesses, with the purpose of improving quality. In a literature review conducted by Srinivasan et. al [40], 23 papers regarding researches on DMAIC are reviewed, that all belong to a specific domain: manufacturing sectors, service sectors, or unconventional sectors. In the review, the authors present conclusions from the literature that point to DMAIC being beneficial from several points of views, including in-creasing profit, enhancement in customer service, and increase of performance of the supply chain.
The strategy consists of five steps, or phases, describing the different parts that form DMAIC and the tools needed to perform the tasks [7]. The five phases, including a short summary of their corresponding objectives, are:
• Define, that serves the purpose of defining the problem/project and the process, and identifying the area of improvement,
• Measure, investigating the current performance of the defined process,
• Analyze, where the measures are used to determine the root causes of the performance impairments,
• Improve, that aims to eliminate the identified causes of the performance issues, and • Control, keeping track of the improved process and how it can be maintained.
Each phase in the method builds on the results of the previous one(s), which all aim to produce a permanent solution. According to Berardinelli [3], the method is a good option for process improvement when the underlying problem is complex and/or there are high risks involved.
In upcoming sections, a more in-depth (but still a simplified) description of each phase is given.
2.3. Process evaluation and improvement
Define
As stated, the Define phase of DMAIC aims to define different aspects of the project over-all. This includes defining the problem, the end goal, the process, and the user (customer) requirements [14]. In short, the phase is described by Shankar to begin with identifying the problem that is in focus, and end with an understanding of the scope [38].
Defining the problem can be done by creating a Problem Statement [14]. The purpose of this is to determine whether or not the problem is an appropriate subject to the process improvement and if its impact is substantial. The Problem Statement gives information about which process measurement describes the problem. This can either be related to lead time or quality. Answering if the wish is to make a business process faster, or to improve a product or service, can be used to find what measurement to use. In addition, the Problem Statement includes a description of the severity of the problem.
The goal of the process improvement is defined by creating a Goal Statement. This state-ment describes the results that one hopes to reach. It should be simple and include something that is measurable. However, the statement can be subject to change in the Analyze phase.
When defining the process, a process map (described in subsection 2.3.1) is created. This can be used as a basis when a process evaluation is to be performed. As a complement, a process walk, also known as Gemba walk, can be performed as well. The Gemba walk is a technique where one walks through the process with people who usually perform it and observe how it is executed in reality in a familiar environment [46]. With this technique, it is possible to find out how something is done in reality and not only how it is described in a manual [10].
Lastly, defining the user requirements deals with understanding what the users need, which is done by converting collected information from users to requirements that are to be considered.
Measure
In the Measure phase, the goal is to ascertain the current performance of the process in focus. With this measuring, the baseline is created, which constitutes the data that is used when it is time to evaluate the updated process [14].
When the baseline has been established, a plan for how to collect the data is created. This includes defining where, how, when and who to collect the data. If multiple measures have been defined, each measure should have its own plan defined.
Lastly, this phase includes collecting the actual baseline data. However, measuring will be present throughout all phases in one way or another [14].
One popular data collection method is interviews. Interviews can be categorized as structured, unstructured, or semi-structured. Collecting information when there are already known problems is best addressed with structured interviews which can contain a mixture of open-ended and closed-ended questions [51].
According to Wilson in [51], a structured interview is described similar to a questionnaire, but instead of filling out predefined questions in a form it is conducted with a conversation where the interviewer threads the questions to specific and prepared topics. There are both pros and cons when conducting a structured interview. It is quite easy and straightforward to conduct the actual interview and the data gathered can easily be compared between intervie-wees, but creating the relevant questions is a bit harder. Another negative aspect mentioned by the author is that the interviewee is quite locked, and it is harder to grasp previously unknown opinions and issues that the interviewee might raise.
An unstructured interview is described in [51] as more of a loose conversation between the people involved and it is mostly used to gather as much information as possible with-out predictable with-outcome. One benefit with unstructured interviews is mentioned to be the amount of information that can be retrieved, but at the same time the relevance of the
infor-2.3. Process evaluation and improvement
Figure 2.2: An overview of the method PDCA for the Improve phase of DMAIC.
mation can be questioned. When the topic and potential issues are known, semi-structured interviews might be the way to go since a combination of structured and unstructured ques-tions can be used to dig deeper into the thoughts of the interviewee or to further discuss new topics and ideas that arise during the interviews without deviating too much from the topic. According to Gillham [21], there are drawbacks with in-person interviews and that is the amount of time it takes from starting the process, creating relevant questions, and setting up the interview until it is completely processed and transcribed. He states that the time it takes is underestimated, and that an interview that takes about one hour to conduct could generate another ten hours of work transcribing it. However, there are also advantages with the technique. Compared to questionnaires there is a greater likelihood that people would attend an interview than answer a questionnaire. With interviews, it is easier to ask open-ended questions where follow-up questions can be added to clarify, or point the interviewee in the right direction, or to gain greater insight about the answers.
Analyze
The third phase of DMAIC is the Analyze phase. The goal of this phase is to find the root causes to the problems of the process in focus. Its intent is to reduce the risk of implementing what is thought to be a solution to a problem, which might end up not improving the process at all [14].
Given the information collected through process walks and the developed process map, this collection is to be reviewed with the goal to find pain points. The data can in turn be used to create visuals (such as graphs) that demonstrate insights about the process. The root causes that have been found are then to be verified. This can be performed through for example observing the problem happen, or by running tests.
Improve
The penultimate phase of DMAIC is Improve. When this phase is entered, the root cause(s) of the problems within the process has/have been established and it is time to find a way to resolve it/them. Solutions are produced, and data collections are again performed to assert whether or not the presented solutions solve the established problem(s). Finding the most
2.4. Technologies
compatible and suitable solution can be done in many different ways and when the solution is decided upon, a new process map can be created. This new process map should reflect the new process, which shows the differences compared to the old process map.
Throughout the improve phase, some testing can occur in order to be able to assess what improvements to the new solution that can be made. This testing can be done using a method called Plan Do Check Act/Adjust (PDCA), shown in Figure 2.2. In this strategy, four steps in a cycle are performed in order to continually improve a process. In the first step, Plan, the issue and root cause is defined. In the second step called Do, the fix to the problem is applied. Thirdly, in the Check step, one investigates whether or not the problem is remedied. Lastly the Act/Adjust step handles the refinement of the proposed solution.
When the proposed solution has been evaluated and tested, it is time to implement it. This work also includes training its users and documenting, making the transition easier.
Lastly, when the implementation is in place, another data collection is to be performed, to assess whether or not the new process has been improved compared to the baseline. This data collection can take a long time (varying from a week, up to several months), depending on how the new process can be evaluated [14].
Control
The last phase of DMAIC concerns the maintaining of the new solution. Here, a way of monitoring the solution is established and it is used to define what actions to take if the performance decreases. The Control phase also includes finalizing the documentation. This documentation aims to make the transition easy for all its users [14].
2.4
Technologies
In order to provide a general understanding for technologies that are relevant within this work, this section aims to give an overview of such services.
2.4.1
Microsoft Azure
Microsoft Azure is a public cloud platform that provides online access to services and prod-ucts in a pay-as-you-go manner that is scalable on demand [11]. A public cloud implies that it is the vendor of the service that is responsible for both maintenance and the hardware that is used for storing data. In addition, the vendor often provides different platforms that its cus-tomers can make use of. Within the cloud, Azure provides many different types of services. These services relate to central concepts of computer science such as computation, Internet of Things, big data, and AI. In upcoming sections, some of the more relevant services related to this work will be explained in more detail.
Azure SQL Database
Azure provides multiple options for the storing of your data. One of these options is Azure SQL Database. Azure SQL Database is a part of Azure SQL, which is the collective name for the services within Azure that provide SQL cloud databases. SQL Database is a Platform as a Service database engine [41] based on Microsoft SQL Server database engine, which lets the user focus on only the database and has Azure responsible for the OS and server. With an active Azure subscription, a user can create an SQL database through for example the Azure portal.
Azure Blob Storage
In order to store for example images and other types of unstructured data, also known as Binary Large OBjects (BLOBs), within Azure, Azure Blob Storage can be used [43]. Azure
2.4. Technologies
Blob Storage holds three different types of resources: storage accounts, containers within storage accounts, and BLOBs within containers. A storage account creates a namespace (that is unique) within Azure for the data that you want to store. When an object is stored in Azure Storage, it is given an address that refers to the storage account name. To be able to organize objects that are stored, containers are used. The containers can be seen as the directories inside a file system, and inside the containers, the BLOBs can be stored.
2.4.2
Low-code programming
The traditional way of programming to create apps or software from scratch is done by typing lines of code in a coding environment with a language of choice and then compile this code so that a machine can use it, well-known as pro code, high-code, or traditional code. With the concept of low-code programming, applications or software can be created with drag and drop components using a graphical user interface, reducing the need of writing traditional code [20]. This creates a simple and more graphically appealing way of creating applications where most of the coding is already done by someone else, making it easier for people with lower programming skills to quickly create business applications that they want.
Microsoft have used their own low-code language for some time, but the actual name for it was more or less introduced in March 2021 as the open-source language Power Fx [26]. This low-code language is both functional and declarative, and it builds on the direct sim-plicity and syntax used in Microsoft Excel to manage data and generate functions. Utilizing low-code development is beneficial for developers with any type of experience in the field, but especially for non-developers, since the general programming knowledge required to de-velop applications is significantly reduced. The ability to use predefined components without writing code increases the reusability and decreases the time it takes to create valuable appli-cations.
2.4.3
Microsoft Power Platform
Some of the products that Microsoft provides in their cloud services are grouped under the collective name Power Platform. These cloud services are: Power Apps for developing low-code applications, Power Automate for creating automated workflows, Power BI for analyz-ing business data, and Virtual Agents for creatanalyz-ing chat bots [17]. In this work, Power Au-tomate and Power Apps are the most relevant services and they will therefore be explained further.
Microsoft Power Automate
Microsoft Power Automate provides users with the ability to reduce the workload of per-forming repetitive processes by creating workflows that automates one or more tasks. It can be used to make decisions, sign approvals or schedule reminders - things that are commonly done in a regular workday. Tasks that are time-consuming and repetitive to do manually can be automated and managed by a computer instead [16]. This is done by using predefined drag and drop components that the user customizes and adapts towards the specific needs. The components can be set to depend on one another and can perform tasks such as retriev-ing rows from a database table, compose and send an email, or update a document. In short, the purpose of this service is to deliver an easy and effective way to reduce workloads so that people can put their time into things that are considered to generate more value.
Microsoft Power Apps
Microsoft Power Apps is a visual tool for creating low-code applications for a mobile or tablet environment, where creation is mainly done by using drag-and-drop functionality of compo-nents and features that are wanted in the application [15]. Power Apps uses the open-source
2.5. Related work
language Power Fx (section 2.4.2), to modify and customize the behavior of components in the application [26]. In Power Apps, there are a few premium or preview features that al-ready have been developed and are al-ready for use, for example the AI-builder which includes services for text recognition, object detection or form processing. Applications can also be connected to other services like SharePoint, Excel, and SQL servers, in order to store and manage data for the application. In addition, connections to automated task flows created with Power Automate can be established in order to move the workflow from the application to another task manager.
Even if Power Apps is a low-code environment, there is room for more experienced devel-opers to make changes to customize features or behavior with the use of traditional coding languages like JavaScript [15].
2.5
Related work
Within this section, related work with respect to different important aspects of this thesis is presented. First, earlier work in the context of analyzing and evaluating existing processes in organizations, as to be done in this thesis, is presented. Next, related work concerning digitalizing a process is presented.
In order to optimize the expense management process in a large organization, the process needs to be analyzed so that challenges and issues are clearly motivated. Because of that, the right approach is needed so that the mapping of the process is performed in a thorough way, producing a proper map.
J. Bal compares different tools that can be used to model a process [2]. Both paper-based and software supported tools are compared and one of the conclusions drawn is that pro-cess analysis tools are more beneficial when improving operational propro-cesses than strategic processes. Furthermore, the author states that a process has different characteristics depend-ing on the perspective that the process is modeled from: the functional view, the behavioral view, the organizational view, the informational view, or the decisional view. The software supported tools discussed in the article might not be fully applicable on our work since the article is more than 20 years old. However, the article emphasizes the importance of inves-tigating a process from different angles to get a broader understanding of where challenges and issues might be located.
Reducing the amount of manual paper handling is one requirement when moving to-wards a digital workplace. In [30], Orantes-Jiménez et al. present an idea for the paperless offices for companies of various sizes in order to improve organization processes where the ”Internet and Communications Technology”, ”e-government” and ”Information Society” can be seen as central concepts. The authors discuss an issue with the transformation to a paper-less office, being that the introduction of new technology or automation of processes might not reduce the actual use of paper. Misuse, reluctance to change and the misconception of value in digital documents are mentioned as potential causes to the issue. Further, they present a comparison between benefits and difficulties of transitioning into a paperless of-fice. The benefits are categorized by if they affect the organization processes and services, the environment or the customers, companies, or other entities. Their paper shows that the approach of transitioning into a paperless office can reduce costs and make it easier to trans-fer documents electronically between diftrans-ferent departments in the company, but it is highly dependent on a study of the organization so relevant information is used. The employees involved in the process to be changed are vital in order to determine where the essential information is located before a process change [30]. This strengthens the importance of map-ping the process from different views, investigating the thoughts of different departments and the employees that are involved in the process to be refined.
The discussion of reducing the amount of physical paper documents in the workplace is followed up by Mahendra et al. [47], presenting an approach for improving efficiency in
2.5. Related work
terms of the time it takes to retrieve information in a Document Management System. The authors’ main focus in the paper is to compare different ways to tag, index and search PDF documents and their results can work as a foundation for companies considering possible alternatives to reduce physical paper management in their organization. With the previous articles in mind, looking at the presented challenges and solutions can be helpful when opti-mizing a process with the aim of reducing manual paper handling.
In the article written by Falk et al. [19], an exploration of a digital transformation within the oil and gas industry regarding the maintenance documentation for systems of systems (SoS) is performed. The purpose of this work is to investigate how to streamline the pro-cess of producing maintenance documentation and the research is based on semi-structured interviews. The interviewees of this study are stakeholders working with for example docu-mentation. Using the results from the interviews, requirements and personas are produced and are used to portray the needs of the users. Given the results, the study presents the complexity of the current process and proposes a three-step implementation to improve the current way of working. In addition, the work shows how personas can be used in order to evaluate how the introduction of digitization can be done.
In a work by Bretting [5], a study similar to the one performed within this thesis is pre-sented. The study aims to present important aspects to consider when an organization wishes to digitize currently manual processes. To reach the aim, a case study was performed with the purpose of investigating a manual process within a real organization that is to be dig-itized. The investigation is performed using multiple activities. To be able to analyze the process, the author conducts a field study where employees are interviewed to be able to collect information regarding the way of working. In addition, a focus group performing braindrawing (shortly summarized as a graphical brainstorming technique [50]) is used to prototype an interface for the digitized design of the process. The work highlights the impor-tance of developing an extensive understanding of the process in mind in order to digitize it so that it has the potential to improve the current way of working. This, to understand how an organization can benefit the most from a digital transformation.
3
Method
This section presents information about how the work within this thesis was performed. This includes how the process mapping and evaluation was carried out, how a new digitalized process was produced, and how the new process was tested with its future potential practi-tioners.
3.1
Overview
The initial work within this thesis focused on gaining a basic understanding of the different areas of concern, being both within the concepts of digitalization and in expense management in general. This initial work created the baseline for the remainder of the work, both in terms of how to structure the method and knowing what areas that needed research.
To be able to answer the research questions presented in this thesis (given in section 1.3), the way of working was somewhat separated into two different parts that were executed in parallel. This approach was chosen due to the slightly different natures of the research questions: the first having a more theoretical and literature study-focused approach, while the second had more of an actual case study approach. The third research question can be interpreted as being dependent on the results from both previous research questions.
3.2. Digitalizing the workplace
The first part involved research regarding common challenges in the area of digitalization. This research was performed mainly through the reading of blogs, websites, news articles and previous work in scientific reports and papers. In addition, this research was also extended into including some insights through interviews with employees working at the collaborating company. This is explained in more detail later within this chapter.
The second part of the applied method followed the basics of DMAIC (section 2.3.2). Since the process in focus involves legal requirements, it is reasonable to say that it is to be consid-ered a process that includes high risks. Due to the strategy DMAIC being an encouraged choice when the risks are high, as mentioned earlier, this method was chosen.
This work included interviews with people involved in an expense management process at the collaborating company. The insights from the interviews were used as the founda-tion for the development of a prototype which aimed to investigate how a digitalizafounda-tion can improve the process in terms of the chosen quality factors.
The initial research regarding challenges within digitalization created the baseline for the interviews and common challenges in previous research papers worked as inspiration when formulating interview questions. This approach was selected to get as much detailed in-formation as possible about the process in focus from the interviewees. Summarizing and compiling the interviews made it easier to develop a prototype that would reflect the way the employees wished to conduct the process.
Figure 3.1 gives an overview of the described working method and how it was conducted, which will now be explained in more detail.
3.2
Digitalizing the workplace
In order to find challenges that organizations face when moving towards a more digital work-place, a combination of literature study and qualitative interview study approach was chosen. This, to ensure that the results found were supported both by previous research done within the field, and applicable on real world examples in today’s organizations.
The first step within this work was to study existing material within the field of digitaliz-ing the workplace. This was done by collectdigitaliz-ing articles, papers, and other more recent sources (such as newspaper texts and blog posts), and investigating their similarities and differences. To find a variety of academic and non-academic sources about digitalization, the search en-gine from Linköping University’s own library was used together with both the standard and Scholar search engines from Google. Common search terms were "digitalization", "digitiza-tion", and "digital transformation" in combinations with "challenges", "issues", "workplace", "business" or "processes". In order to find relevant material, reports that seemed interesting were chosen by first looking at the number of citations in other papers and by reading the ab-stract of the reports. After reading the abab-stract and the report still seemed to be of relevance for this work, the result and conclusion of the report was skimmed through. Lastly, the in-formation that was found relevant was gathered and summarized. The collected knowledge acted as the basis for formulating interview questions (see Appendix A). These questions served the purpose of investigating the attitude towards digitalizing a workplace among em-ployees at the studied company. The interviews were conducted with three emem-ployees of the collaborating company, and they were to answer questions regarding their attitude towards digitalizing the workplace. By combining the results from the literature study with the inter-view answers, the information was used to draw conclusions towards answering the related research question.
3.3
Digitalizing the expense management process
In order to find the current challenges that exist within an company in terms of expense management, the work of the strategy DMAIC that is used to improve processes was carried
3.3. Digitalizing the expense management process
out. This approach was chosen due to the nature of the method being similar to the aim of the performed research. However, the method has been modified to fit the time frame and prerequisites of the thesis, and to match its purpose.
In the upcoming subsections, the actions taken within each step of the followed method are presented and described. In addition, modifications compared to the followed method are presented.
3.3.1
Define
The first step in order to define the problem and the areas of improvement involved two start-up meetings. The main purpose of the first meeting was to get a brief overview of the process in focus, to identify the areas that the company wished to improve and agree upon the aim of the work. This initial meeting was unstructured and conducted as more of a conversation with two of the employees at the company’s IT department and one employee from the finance department. Notes were taken throughout the meeting in order to create a base for the process mapping and future data collections. During the second meeting, which was more structured, a demo (or process walk) of the current process in focus was conducted by one of the employees at the finance department. The purpose of the demo was to get a deeper understanding of all the steps involved in the process as well as investigating potential problem areas and quality factors based on the point of view of the employees at the finance department. The second meeting was recorded so that important steps of the process was not missed when completing the process mapping.
With the summarized interview basis as a foundation, the process mapping was per-formed. The result from this was a process map, displaying different actions and items that took place in the process. As stated earlier, that in order to get a full understanding of the performance issues within a process and how it can be improved, it is of importance to have a good understanding of the process itself. To achieve this, an additional check was per-formed by presenting the interpreted process to the studied organization. This was done by presenting the constructed process map and receiving feedback on the work.
The resulting material from this phase was a process map of the entire process in focus and chosen quality factors that were to be used as a foundation for upcoming decisions, related to the refinement of the process.
3.3.2
Measure
The process in focus involved employees with varying roles in three different phases of the process. As Bal [2] emphasizes the importance of investigating process characteristics from different point of views, the interviewees were chosen so that each of the three steps in the current expense management process of the company was represented: an employee in pos-session of a company credit card generating expenses, a manager responsible for attesting expense reports, and an employee responsible for expense accounting at the finance depart-ment. The interviewees had different roles in the company as well, where one is working as a manager at the IT-department, one working at the finance department and one working as a manager in finance and human resources. Two of the interviewees represented both the role as a cardholder and as an attesting manager and because of that, questions related to both of their roles were asked during the same interview session. Interviews with one employee from each of the three steps within the current process was conducted in order to locate as many potential challenges and issues as possible, spread across the entire process.
Since there was already a brief understanding of the existing challenges in the process, semi-structured interviews were chosen in order to collect the thoughts of the employees. Semi-structured interviews gave the interviewees a chance to provide additional information about important areas for improvement that might have been unknown from previous data collections, which introduced the opportunity to ask additional questions to dig deeper into
3.3. Digitalizing the expense management process
Figure 3.2: Overview of method analysis phase.
the thoughts of the interviewee based on the current content of the interview. Three inter-view templates, seen in Appendices B, C and D, were generated with a varying collection of questions depending on the role of the interviewee and focused on how the interviewee normally performs and experiences their part of the process.
In order to get a general understanding of the quality of the interview questions, and of how much time an interview would take to conduct, a pilot interview was carried out. This pilot interview was performed with our primary contact at the company. The insights collected from the pilot interview were then used to improve the interview outlines for the upcoming interviews.
In the beginning of each interview, a short introduction about the work and the purpose of the interview was given to the interviewee. After that, the interviewee gave consent to partic-ipate in the interview and gave us permission to record the interview, which was important in order to narrate better when their experience of the process, in relation to the quality factors for improvement, was analyzed.
The collected material from this phase served as the data for the upcoming analysis phase.
3.3.3
Analyze
To be able to determine the root causes of the performance issues of the investigated process, the data collected within the previous steps needed to be analyzed. In order to structure the phase, five different steps were constructed. An overview is given in Figure 3.2.
For this work, the data in question to be analyzed are the recordings of the conducted interviews. Therefore, the first step within the analysis was to transcribe the material. To get a collective overview of the information, separate documents including answers to the questions were formed, where the answers from each interviewee was added. This, to be able to investigate what similarities and dissimilarities that were given to each of the ques-tions. As stated earlier, the purpose of the conducted interviews was twofold: understanding the process and discovering factors that affects the overall performance. This resulted in two different steps being performed concurrently, as displayed in Figure 3.2. In the figure, two different approaches for the analysis are presented. One part of the analysis focused on finding the pain points within the process, i.e., within the process mapping that had been performed. Secondly, the analysis focused on evaluating the root causes for the previously found pain points. These root causes were then mapped to the chosen quality factors and the results of the evaluation constituted the foundation for the prototype sketching.
3.3. Digitalizing the expense management process
With the process map and the documented interview answers as basis, the work contin-ued by concluding what root causes to the performance issues that were present and iden-tifying quality factors. The quality factors that had been identified, were used to be able to track the improvement of the process, serving as an improvement scale when comparing the versions of the process. The root causes were concluded in order to find what is causing the issues with the process in general: focusing on eliminating these causes is said to be the aim of DMAIC.
After having identified root causes, the last step of this phase was to construct a sketch of the system prototype. In order to produce a prototype that satisfied the needs of the users, the interview data and process map were again revisited to interpret what functionalities and features that were both mandatory for the system overall to work and what could be introduced to improve the workflow. In addition, the types of digital services that would be required in order to create the digitalized process was established.
The sketch of the prototype was then briefly evaluated with the help of an external User Experience consultant. This brief evaluation was performed in order to get some general feedback on the idea for the digitalized process, making somewhat sure that it seemed like a reasonable approach from a user experience perspective.
3.3.4
Improve
With the prototype sketches in mind, the initial prototype was created. An agile approach was chosen when developing the prototype so that it could be tested and refined in an it-erative manner. The prototype was continuously tested with external parties so that issues regarding the user experience could easily be discovered at an early stage of development, before testing the prototype with the actual employees at the company. In order to catch user perception aspects of important functionality of the system, the first prototyping phase only included a mocked behavior of its features. With this approach, less time had to be spent on implementing actual behavioral flows within the system application, making the process faster in determining how the application should work. When the basic idea for the appli-cation interface and how it should work in general had been established, the prototyping continued into developing its actual features.
During the development phase, the prototype was tested against employees at the com-pany to see if it actually would be perceived by its future practitioners as an improvement of the process in focus. This was an important step of development in order to get feed-back from the users so that the prototype actually fulfilled its purpose. During this phase the previous way of conducting the process was compared to the results from the user tests with respect to the chosen quality factors and previously discovered pain points. Each em-ployee that performed the user test was asked to answer questions regarding the experience of using the prototype, in contrast to the previous way of working in the process. In contrast to the participants in the conducted interviews during previous phases, the user tests only included participants that were considered being either cardholders or attesting managers. This means that process practitioners within the last step, being employees at the finance department, where not in focus.
The final user tests were conducted with five employees at the company, three of them were men and two of them were women. The employees chosen were all target users of the application, representing both cardholders and attesting managers.
The tests were conducted remotely, and each test user was given a walk-through over screen share in order to start the application before the test. After the initial setup, each user was asked a few questions regarding their previous experiences of digital expense manage-ment systems.
After the initial questions had been answered, the user was presented with 5 to 7 differ-ent tasks to be performed using the new digitalized process implemdiffer-entation. The user test template containing all the tasks and questions can be found in Appendix E. For instance,
3.3. Digitalizing the expense management process
the tasks involved the user to save a receipt in an expense, create a new expense and sub-mit an expense report to the attesting manager. For managers, two of the tasks involved reviewing and taking action on submitted expense reports. During each task, the user was asked to think aloud so that their experience and thoughts about the graphical user interface and the flow of the application could be captured. After each task, the user was asked to answer some questions related to the performed task and the application. The test session was finished with some final questions about how the user experienced the digital expense management with the application, in comparison to the currently practiced one within the company.
The results from the final user tests served as the baseline for evaluating the new, digital-ized, process, with the quality factors as assessment basis.
3.3.5
Control
The work described for the Control phase of DMAIC was in this work somewhat disregarded. This, due to the work not extending into including a long enough time frame. However, some work was performed within this phase.
In order to be able to deliver a new digitalized process and a useful system, the system needed well worded documentation, making it easy to understand for its users, and its future maintainers. Therefore, this step within the work included documenting and creating man-uals for how to use the system and how it was implemented. With this, the risk of having users feeling uncomfortable using the system would hopefully decrease and therefore a plan for how to control the future of the system was established.
In addition, documentation on ideas for future improvements and additional features was presented, together with shortcomings related to both the digital services used and im-plementation flaws. This documentation was introduced to make it possible for the company to further improve its new process and unveil what had not been dealt with.
4
Results
In this chapter the identified challenges that a company faces when moving towards a more digital workplace will be presented. Furthermore, the results from each step of the followed method regarding mapping, analyzing, and improving the process in focus will be presented. The result of the process evaluation, being the new digitalized process, will also be given.
4.1
Digitalizing the workplace
This section presents the challenges and issues with the digital workplace in general, based on the conducted interviews and the literature study of related work.
4.1.1
Literature
In [28], Okkonen et al. conducts a survey that aims to investigate how the work of employ-ees in Finnish organizations is affected by a digitalization of their workplace. Challenges mentioned by the respondents of the survey are that they experience a pressure to always be available no matter what, and that digital communications cause disturbance regarding the employees’ work as well as their time management. Other challenges mentioned in the survey are related to technological shortcomings, stress and well-being, procrastination, and information overload.
Further, more challenges are presented by Kane et al. [25], who conducts an executive study and research project on becoming a digitally mature enterprise. Their study points out some of the challenges hindering organizations from making benefit of digital trends. Five of the most voted barriers are: too many competing priorities, security concerns, insufficient technical skills, lack of organizational agility, and lack of management understanding. They find that many unsuccessful digital transformations were due to companies not changing their mindset and processes. As described by the title of the article, the authors say it is not the technology, but the strategy, that guides the work of digital transformation of the workplace.
Digitalization can also have various effects on an organization, and as mentioned by Saarikko et al. [36] it is highly dependent on how the digital technology is perceived. If there is a good understanding of the relevance of the technology, strategies tied to it and the
