Solution Benefits

  • Streamlined printer fleet with bespoke configurations
  • Easily accessible documents via digital document management system
  • Feature-rich telephone system that’s optimised for modern working
  • Significantly improved efficiency and control over invoice processing

Customer Profile

  • Retail
  • UK HQ: Wokingham, England
  • Worldwide operations

About Citizen Watch

Citizen, a trusted name and brand leader in the watch industry for over 100 years, is known the world over for its uncompromising values: technical precision, innovative mindset, quality craftsmanship and design excellence.

The first to create quartz crystal and titanium timepieces, Citizen was also an early pioneer in advocating for the environment, launching the first light-powered watches with proprietary Eco-Drive technology in 1976, thus adding eco-mindful as a core value.

Challenges

In an ever-changing world, like many high-profile and global brands, Citizen endeavours to keep up with new technology and ways of working.

Just like their world-class watches, Citizen are always keen to operate smarter.

We worked with them across four of our key service pillars to help them achieve this.

Managed Print
Service
Document
Management
Hosted VoIP
Telephony
Automated Invoice
Processing

”Agilico have been a pleasure to deal with and nothing seems too much trouble. We’ve got a lot of confidence with Agilico, and we are always open to their suggestions and ideas around how we can work smarter, and in their words MAKE WORK EASY which is my main priority for both the business and our staff.

Chief Finance & Operating OfficerCitizen Watch
The result

Managed Print Service

Citizen Chief Finance & Operating Officer, Brian Gillingham, and Agilico Senior Account Manager Mike Salmon have been working together for almost a decade.

The first solution was streamlining their printer fleet and providing appropriate devices with bespoke configurations in each department. Their most recent fleet refresh was in 2018 and the Canon devices are standing the test of time, providing a significant improvement in reliability.

”Printers are easy nowadays, I just want them to work, you know, be reliable and enable our departments to be as efficient as possible. Agilico ensure that we have both these boxes firmly ticked and that is a headache I no longer have.

Document Management & Digital Archiving

During the various lockdowns when Covid was rife, it became very apparent that Citizen had a surplus of physical documents stored in filing boxes, cabinets, drawers, and a significant portion of this was historic paper invoices. Every quality watch that leaves the Citizen production line comprises of numerous components from various suppliers and manufacturers, and this in turn generates a vast number of invoices.

One of Agilico’s most popular solutions since emerging from Covid is transferring physical information into a digital format that is easily accessible. INVU Document Management is a document management solution that enabled the Citizen finance team to scan in, index, store, and then access their invoices whenever they want and with great ease.

”Going digital or “digitising” is terminology that has been thrown around for over a decade and like many, we were apprehensive about this kind of change, because it can be so disruptive. But this was truly seamless and just makes sense for our Finance Team, as well as the whole business.

Hosted VoIP Telephony

Citizen approached Agilico with regards to their hosted telephony requirement back in early 2022. Following the easing of Covid lockdowns and changing working habits, they no longer needed so many desk phones and wanted to enable MS Teams integration, along with call recording, reports, and an interactive live-data dashboard for inbound and outbound calls.

Furthermore, like a number of businesses, they had been using the same equipment and solution for a number of years and it had become clunky, slow, and not fit-for-purpose.

Agilico have worked continuously with the Citizen Technical Team over the past 12 months to provide additional features and add-ons to their new Hosted VoIP Telephony solution which provides an efficient, modern solution that suits their users and their day-to-day requirements.

”We managed to find a way forward with the Agilico Hosted Platform and have a plethora of features and capability within their solution that has really transformed our internal and external communication.

Automated Invoice Processing

With continued discussions around automation and after the success of INVU Document Management and the Hosted Cloud Telephony solutions, Automated Accounts Payable was of definite interest. Chief Finance & Operating Officer, Brian Gillingham, had been manually signing off invoices and it was very time consuming for the day-to-day operation of the Finance department. Once a demo of Verify was arranged, the connector was swiftly built and Agilico provided training and implemented the solution.

The ability to automate this process, set levels of approval, and approve invoices digitally and remotely, significantly improved efficiency within Accounts and accompanied with their existing Document Management solution has enabled greater visibility and accountability of their invoices and the overall process.

”The invoicing solution was a bit of a no-brainer after the success of INVU Document Management, it certainly saves me a great deal of time and enables our finance team to operate at a greater tempo which is key with how time-sensitive our industry can be. Not sure what we would do without it now.

Chief Finance & Operating OfficerCitizen Watch