Business Process Automation

with Bizagi™

Tony Stone

Vice President/Director Business Applications

AgFirst Farm Credit Bank:

Who we are…

• Located in Columbia, SC., since 1916

• Part of the Farm Credit System- the largest

agricultural lending organization in the United

States

• $29 Billion assets

• 350 Employees

• Cooperative corporate structure

AgFirst: Our Owner/Customers

• 19 farmer-owned financial cooperatives in 15 eastern states and Puerto Rico

• These cooperatives, operating as Farm Credit and Ag Credit agricultural credit associations, provide real estate and production financing to more than 80,000 farmers, agribusinesses, and rural homeowners

AgFirst: What we do…

• Provide business and technology services to our customer Associations

• Technology Services:– CRM

– Loan Origination/Servicing/Accounting

– Financial Accounting

– Human Resources

– E-Commerce

– Data Warehousing

– Data Center/Infrastructure

Competitive

Advantage!

Why BPMS?

• It is very difficult to ensure that operational processes are executed precisely in accordance with documentation

• Measuring, monitoring and reporting on process execution is very difficult

• The learning curve for new employees is very high

• The goal is to make processes, across the enterprises, more efficient and effective

Why Bizagi?

• Robust visual process modeling tool (free

download)

• Comprehensive training curriculum

• Intuitive user interface for web and mobile

access

• Architecture supports integration with

other platforms

• Rapid application development

Implementation Project

• Launched project in October 2013

• Infrastructure– Deployed non-product and production environments.

– Integration with data warehouse and imaging systems.

• Platform Training– Completed comprehensive analyst and developer

training.

• Pilot Process– Automated the loan approval process for one of our

District Associations.

The Loan Approval Process

• Crosses several roles in an organization

• Based on the type and amount of the loan action, different decision paths are required

• Directly impacts our ability to service retail loan customers

Loan Approval Form

Process Portal

Process Model Example

Project Results

• Project was completed in 9 months

• Only needed 3 months of one onsite Bizagi

consultant

• AgFirst is now completely self-sufficient

• Made a significant positive impact on the

customer’s business operations

• By all measures, the project was one of the

top successes in 2014!

Completed Processes

• Loan Approval

• Standards-of-Conduct

• Check Requests

• Appraisal Requests

• Crop Insurance

Next Steps

• Several more processes solutions are under

development

• By the end of 2015, we expect to have over

30 business processes in Bizagi

• We are now able to design, develop and

deploy a new process solution in less than 2

months

Recommendations

• Proof-of-concept for product selection

• Carefully select your pilot process

• Develop a center of excellence

• Use the visual process modeler as a tool to

bridge the gap between the business and

IT