EG Deutschland GmbH

Convenience provider reduces mail processing time by 90%

Find out how EG Deutschland GmbH uses Caya to digitise its mail and automate distribution across the company.

The EG Group is one of the world's leading independent convenience retailers, with an extensive network of sites across North America, Europe and Australia. The headquarters of EG Deutschland GmbH are in Hamburg, with further offices in Nordhorn and Munich, while the accounts department is based in Blackburn, England. At the start of 2023, the company chose Caya as the solution to digitise its mail and automate its distribution.

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Challenge

EG Deutschland GmbH receives around 1,500 letters a month, and processing them manually was a highly administrative task. Letters had to be opened by hand, stamped and forwarded to the relevant employees. As these staff are spread across multiple sites, documents often had to be sent by post, which took extra time. Processing paper-based supplier invoices was particularly cumbersome. Once received, EG Deutschland GmbH sent these by courier to the accounts department in Blackburn, England, several times a week. There, staff would scan and process the documents before emailing them back to the relevant contacts in Germany for approval. This process was very time-consuming, meaning EG Deutschland GmbH could not take full advantage of early payment discounts, and in some cases, even incurred additional costs.

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Requirements

The goal was to stop receiving mail in paper form at EG Deutschland GmbH and move to digital receipt instead. This required a service provider that could guarantee same-day digitisation of incoming mail. Another key requirement was the automated distribution of mail to the relevant employees. Therefore, the chosen provider needed to be able to perform full-text recognition on the letters and offer a workflow solution that could route documents to the appropriate department or file them in the correct subfolders based on predefined rules.

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Solution

Caya set up a PO box address for EG Deutschland GmbH, which the company shared with its business partners. In addition, the EG Group set up mail redirection with Deutsche Post, allowing Caya to receive the company's incoming mail. Certain internal documents are also scanned by the EG Deutschland GmbH office management team and uploaded to the document management system (DMS), the Caya Document Automation Suite. Letters arriving at the Caya scanning centre are then opened and scanned fully automatically.

During the digitisation process, OCR technology extracts the content from the documents. The full-text searchable PDF files are then uploaded to the Caya Document Automation Suite. The software offers the ability to set up flexible workflows that automate document processing based on defined rules. Caya has already set up 150 such workflows for EG Deutschland GmbH. These ensure that letters are forwarded or filed in subfolders based on their content without any manual intervention.

After digitisation, Caya stores the letters for 90 days before destroying them in compliance with data protection regulations. An exception is made for documents that EG Deutschland GmbH requires in their original form, which are delivered to the company. To ensure the transition to a digital future was a lasting success for EG Deutschland GmbH, Caya supported the employees involved in changing their working methods, for example by regularly attending coordination calls to clarify any questions or concerns.

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Result

Although the partnership between EG Deutschland GmbH and Caya has only been in place for just under a year, 70 per cent of mail is already being automatically forwarded to the relevant departments or filed in subfolders using the established workflows. Across all departments, EG Deutschland GmbH saves approximately 90 per cent of working time per letter, totalling around 290 hours per month. This also eliminates the need to post invoices received in Germany to England. Instead, the accounts department in Blackburn receives invoices directly in a digital, dedicated inbox. Processing and payment are now significantly faster.

EG Deutschland GmbH plans to expand the automated forwarding of mail, for example by connecting its operating sites. The company is also considering digitising its existing paper archive. A pleasant side effect of the digitisation: because the Caya DMS archives documents in an audit-proof manner, EG Deutschland GmbH no longer needs to store mail physically, which saves further administrative effort and space.

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About EG Deutschland GmbH

EG Deutschland GmbH is committed to providing first-class convenience formats for the modern customer. Every site in the company's global network is easy to reach and offers a comprehensive range of food service, grocery and merchandise, and fuel under one roof. The German headquarters are in Hamburg, with further offices in Munich and Nordhorn. The company operates petrol stations, catering outlets, hotels and motorway service areas at almost 1,200 locations across Germany. It works closely with well-known local and international brands such as Esso, KFC, Burger King®, REWE express, Tchibo, Ditsch and Backwerk, and employs more than 4,000 people.

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