.png)
This FogLifter® customer, who operates in the defense and aerospace industry, faced major challenges with accuracy and punctuality for IT billing processes, starting with complexities around storage consumption. Existing manual processes were time-consuming, prone to errors, dissatisfying for customers and delayed payments to their Service Provider. To address these issues, the Service Provider turned to FogLifter®, a comprehensive software solution designed to automate and streamline IT infrastructure data management and billing, to produce nearly one-hundred IT invoices in 81 Countries worldwide.
The End Customer had a highly complex business process to aggregate, normalize, deduplicate and properly correlate IT assets to external customers. Data used in this complex process included dozens of data files ranging from structured data from data storage management systems to very unstructured data produced manually by people in disparate organizational groups. The manual process for storage consumption and reporting was a burdensome task that required fourteen people to produce spreadsheets and CSVs, that were then manually aggregated by a single person. This inefficiency not only delayed the billing process but also caused inaccuracies and disputes in customer invoices.
The Service Provider needed a solution that could automate the collection and aggregation of data from multiple systems of record in different formats (API, CSV, Text), expedite invoice generation, and ensure compliance with business and tax rules across multiple countries and currencies. The challenge was compounded by the need to handle enterprise-wide Resource Units (RUs), including storage, server, middleware, database, backup, and labor, while accommodating constantly updated business rules and generating highly customized invoices. They also needed a solution that enabled custom configuration for their invoicing needs and services to implement continuous changes that would be requested monthly, as business rules and tax changes constantly drove invoicing changes. FogLifter® was an excellent fit, as all implementations include services to ensure that data curation meets changing needs.
FogLifter® provided a blend of business services and automation to meet these challenges. The software automated the ingestion of multiple data sources, enabling the efficient production of 73 invoices and 35 QA reports. This included enterprise-wide RUs and the application of international and country-specific tax rules. The solution also featured:
- CMDB management, programmatically updated through API calls with ServiceNow.
- Custom trended dashboards and reports for data visualization, analysis, and forecasting.
- QA Report exports to facilitate data pivoting and deeper understanding.
- Continuous application of billing rule changes to ensure accuracy.
FogLifter®'s Visual Data Analysis capabilities allowed the End Customer to drill down into business hierarchies, view historical trends, and align data with operational groups for improved clarity and planning.
The implementation of FogLifter® at the End Customer through their Service Provider resulted in significant operational efficiencies and cost reductions. Key impacts included:
- A substantial improvement in customer invoice accuracy, leading to an 85% reduction in billing disputes and improved time to cash.
- Enhanced visibility into storage management, identifying approximately 140TB of orphaned storage, equating to potential revenue of $50,000 per month.
- A dramatic reduction in invoice generation time from days to mere hours.
- Automation of billing data management, housed in FogLifter® and continuously updated via ServiceNow.
- Enterprise-wide generation of 73 invoices both domestically and internationally, billing over 200 RUs one week after the month’s close.
- An all-inclusive dashboard providing invoice review and insights via trends and QA reporting
Overall, the FogLifter® solution enabled the End Customer to streamline its storage and billing processes, significantly reducing operational expenditures (Opex) and enhancing the accuracy and timeliness of its invoicing. This transformation not only improved customer satisfaction but also ensured timely payments, contributing to the financial health and operational efficiency of both the End Customer and their Service Provider.
