Lyse is a fast-growing renewable energy production and distribution company, supplying fiber networks and broadband services to households and business across Norway. With more than 1,300 employees and 100 years of experience in building and operating infrastructures, they have established themselves as the number one fiber-optic broadband company in the country.
The company’s unprecedented rate of growth and success put many parts of their business under pressure. Lyse looked at process and framework improvements and quickly realized RPA was the technology they needed to invest in. Automating the repetitive tasks that were essential to operations but didn’t generate any extra value, released employees to concentrate on more productive and impactful work.
— Eirik Østrem, Continuous Service Improvement Manager
The Lyse team sought management buy-in early on to help gain momentum for the concept of RPA. They needed to prove RPA could deliver the results expected to justify their investment. This was achieved through an in-house POC workshop where test bots were created to deliver the necessary data needed to validate the business initiative. The first bots created were used to help the IT, HR, customer service, back office, and procurement departments execute repetitive, manual tasks.
Even though Lyse was growing rapidly, due to the nature of their business, they had to manage a lot of slow processes. As a Norwegian company creating the regional power infrastructure, they had to dig a lot of trenches for cables while also navigating through the rigorous process of government approvals. To dig just one trench, applications had to be submitted to multiple local and national departments through different channels and in different formats. To reduce valuable manpower, Lyse automated this process. Now, they only write an application once and then a bot distributes it in the required format to the relevant agencies.
This successful adoption of RPA has helped employees recognize the value of automation. Employee involvement in automation initiatives has led to a better understanding of their own value to the business, increasing both productivity and engagement.
Lyse wants to take advantage of the momentum they’re seeing with RPA by implementing automation across the entire business. To efficiently manage growth, they are in the process of industrializing their bot building and delivery. Their RPA team has the goal of cutting the average delivery time for a bot in half; implementing one in only a week’s time.
New RPA process ideas are screened to evaluate the value to the business, considering both the complexity and the time required to build them. Value creation is the focus, rather than the actual number of bots created.