The Customer
Voka, Flanders’ Chamber of Commerce and Industry and the biggest Flemish network of enterprises, stands as the preeminent and most dynamic business network in Flanders. Established in 2004, Voka has evolved into a robust advocate and supporter for businesses across the entire region. With its headquarters in Belgium’s capitol Brussels, Voka represents a substantial portion of the economic activity in the region, encompassing over 18,000 member companies. These members collectively contribute to 65% of the added value in Flanders. Voka’s mission extends beyond business advocacy, offering a wide range of services including networking events, training sessions, and expert advice, all aimed at fostering a thriving business environment for growth and innovation.
The Challenge
Voka faced two distinct yet significant challenges at the start of a new digital transformation journey. The first involved preserving digital records in their CRM system, of various Voka activities and events, which were crucial for compliance and reporting to stakeholders, such as Flanders Innovation & Entrepreneurship, VLAIO for short – and the European Commission. The second challenge was efficiently managing and integrating data from their Digital Quick Scan tool into their CRM system, a key process for personalized customer engagement and strategic decision-making, and initially a arduous manual process for each Voka project supervisor. These challenges highlighted the need for an innovative solution to streamline and automate complex data management tasks.
The Solution
To address these challenges, Voka introduced “VIKTOR of Voka,” an advanced Robotic Process Automation (RPA) system, developed by robonext. For the first challenge, VIKTOR was programmed to retrieve and save detailed information from event pages on Voka’s website as PDFs, which were then stored in the corresponding CRM campaign. For the Digital Quick Scan data integration, VIKTOR automated the process of extracting, downloading, and uploading Quick Scan results – again PDF’s – to the CRM, handling complex filtering in Voka’s back-end to match data and execute tasks with precision. This solution ensured that no critical information was lost and that all relevant data was accurately integrated into Voka’s – most important – CRM system.
The Results
The deployment of VIKTOR enhanced Voka data management and documentation processes. In the case of event record-keeping, VIKTOR ensured the preservation of essential digital content, enabling Voka to maintain compliance and streamline reporting. The automation of the Digital Quick Scan data integration into the CRM system not only saved time and reduced manual errors, but also provided Voka with immediate access to valuable customer insights.
In the words of Arnout Deriemaeker, Project Manager Entrepreneurship, Financing, Innovation & Digitization at Voka Shared Services: “Our two RPA projects with robonext have strategically prepared our organization, laying the crucial foundation for our next steps on a strategic level in terms of more intelligent data management.”
