Case Study: How Police Bank Automated Vendor Onboarding

The system is responsive, intuitive, and very easy to use. It’s also highly configurable meaning we can adapt the workflow modules to cater for changes in outsourcing standards or regulatory requirements.” - 

Len O’Hanlon, Head of Procurement, Police Bank

Name: Police Bank
Description: Police Bank is a secure, modern financial institution offering access to a wide range of products and services through enhanced delivery channels combined with a discounted fee structure.
Location: New South Wales

Summary

Before working with Gatekeeper, Police Bank experienced pain points with onboarding third-party suppliers. The business came to market for a solution that could:

1. Reduce supplier onboarding time by automating the procurement and contract development process
2. Help achieve and maintain flawless compliance with Police Bank’s strict outsourcing and regulatory requirements. 
3. Replace manual processes associated with tracking contract development and key dates that were kept in spreadsheets and registers. 

Following a comprehensive RFP process, Gatekeeper was selected to help the business achieve these goals.

Since working with Gatekeeper, Police Bank has been able to build all necessary assessments and due diligence checks for suppliers into the workflows, streamlining the process while allowing the business to meet all regulatory and reporting obligations. 

Gatekeeper also provides a dedicated supplier repository and full audit trail of supplier onboarding and management processes. The ability to track key dates, approvals and sign-offs has allowed Police Bank to increase its oversight and transparency over its third-party supplier management. 

Why Gatekeeper? 

1. Automation capabilities. Police Bank needed to alleviate pain pressures associated with supplier onboarding and reduce the time taken to complete this process. Using Gatekeeper’s Kanban Workflow Engine, the business was able to automate onboarding, while contract generation has also been streamlined throughout the business through the use of Gatekeeper’s clause library and templates.
2. Cloud-based solution. Before coming to market for a solution, Police Bank manually stored and tracked contracts through a combination of a shared drive, registers and spreadsheets. This presented many challenges including the risk of missing key steps in onboarding suppliers, or potentially missing key milestone dates. Gatekeeper provides a centralised repository and a streamlined way to track key milestone dates, contracted spend, targets and SLAs.
3. Scalability. Gatekeeper offers an uncapped total number of users and contract records that can be created, making it easy for Police Bank to add new suppliers when required. It also provides the capability to deploy additional modules in the future, integrating with other financial & risk management systems to help support regulatory compliance.

The Full Story

Police Bank is a secure, modern financial institution offering access to a wide range of products and services through enhanced delivery channels combined with a discounted fee structure.

The organisation originally started as NSW Police Credit Union (PCU) in the early 1960′s when a group of Police Officers at Clarence Street Police Station in Sydney had the vision of forming a mutual organisation for the benefit of all Officers. PCU was officially registered and opened for business in 1964 with just 60 Members.

Today, with over $1.7 Billion in assets, Police Bank has grown to be one of Australia’s largest Mutual Banks serving the financial needs of the NSW Police Service, their families and other related industries.

As the business has grown, it has experienced challenges around its onboarding process for third-party suppliers. Its previous methods of storing and tracking contract development and key dates through shared drives, registers and spreadsheets increased supplier management risk.

The Procurement Team at Police Bank sought to make the process more efficient, whilst providing increased governance and compliance with its strict outsourcing and regulatory requirements.

The businesses completed an extensive RFP process, including a mix of Australian-based and international providers. A total of six vendors were explored for their suitability based on:

• Supplier capability
• Implementation timeline
• Solution design and user experience 
• IT/data security
• Price

The best match with these key criteria was Gatekeeper. Offering the ability to automate onboarding and contract review processes, as well as provide a centralised repository, reporting metrics and a full audit trail, Gatekeeper has been able to help Police Bank meet reporting and regulatory requirements.

“We’re thrilled to be working with Police Bank as they continue to focus on their supplier management processes,” says Patrick O’Connor, CEO at Gatekeeper. "A world of ever changing regulation and compliance requirements can be difficult to navigate, especially when a business uses manual processes. We’re delighted to have helped Police Bank increase their visibility, automate their processes and meet their regulatory obligations.”

Offering dedicated support through the implementation, Gatekeeper developed a number of workflow processes and dynamic questionnaires to assist with supplier onboarding. Our experts not only made technical amendments and changes promptly, but also completed Train-the-Trainer sessions with Police Bank.

“The train-the-trainer format allowed me to assist with data migration, building users, and editing/updating fields as we went so that the system was complete and accurate by the time the workflow modules were ready for go-live.” - Len O’Hanlon, Head of Procurement, Police Bank

By using Gatekeeper, Police Bank has automated its processes, built due diligence checks for suppliers into workflows and streamlined their onboarding times. With complete visibility over its supplier management processes, the business has been able to ensure it still meets all obligations.For more information on how Gatekeeper is helping its customers manage their third parties effectively, contact us today.