Process Engineering for Revenue Services
When a revenue services government agency embarks on a tax compliance drive they were faced with a dilemma: How to handle additional volumes with the same amount of staff? The solution would involve implementing a process architecture, which would reduce turnaround times, increase productivity and ensure that consistent service levels could be delivered across the business.
The Business Challenge
A tax compliance drive would see a huge increase in volumes, however handling these with the same amount of staff would prove challenging. To address this, our client required an end-to-end enterprise-wide process view and architecture in its business in order to standardise and optimise activities, as well as identify waste: processing of returns was taking too long, with too many errors and multiple hand-offs. The process architecture would need to be rolled out to the existing 15 000 staff in 133 branches. Specialists in process and with a strong delivery reputation, our client brought in IQ to support them in achieving their goals, helping to preserve the integrity of the tax system.
The Solution
The IQ team were brought in to implement multiple projects using their knowledge to ensure their client met set targets. By engaging with all stakeholders information was gathered and analysed. Process links and hand-offs were identified and all interactions were modelled, including the descriptions of each area and its role in the bigger picture.
Benefits
IQ’s ability to remain flexible and adaptable given the fast pace of change in business requirements, enabled their client to achieve immense benefits. These include:
- Optimised turnaround times in all areas
- More support through customer-focused approach
- Queries could be tracked
- All submissions and documents could be tracked
- Minimal queuing times through the alignment of the front and back office processes
- Process and system design for replacement systems
- Increased compliance of small businesses
- Reduced tax evasion
- Taxpayers were educated on the new bills and laws that might/ will affect them in the future.
- 20% reduction in the turnaround time for the recruitment process
- Standardised processes and templates
Ultimately, the process solution enabled IQ’s client to be able to address the massive peak the business experienced during income tax collection periods, whilst ensuring consistent service levels. Uniformity was achieved across 133 branches with 15 000 staff (in total) and the process of assessing income tax returns was streamlined. The controls in process enabled duties to be segregated, and importantly avoid possible fraud.