Bringing savings to companies worldwide.
Lufthansa AirPlus remains competitive in a changing market using paperless workflows supported by Adobe Sign.
Established
1989
Lufthansa AirPlus Servicekarten GmbH
Employees: 1,300
Neu-Isenburg, Germany
www.airplus.com
150
Hours saved annually for greater productivity
Products:
Objectives
Remain competitive in a changing market consisting of both traditional and start-up companies
Meet customer expectations for online services and digital experiences
Maintain compliance with industry and legal regulations and requirements in worldwide markets
Results
150 hours saved annually for greater productivity
Fast turnaround in as little as 15 minutes
Demonstrates compliance with audit trails
Expanding digital transformation across teams.
“In today’s world, our customers want to process everything online and with Adobe Sign we are able to meet that demand.”
Marion Evers
Project Controller, Demand and Operations Management, Lufthansa AirPlus Servicekarten GmbH
Competing in a changing digital market
In the world of global business, travel is often a must to form deep connections with customers and partners. But business trips involve a lot of time and expense, from booking flights, hotels, and car rentals, to organising and monitoring the payments of each service. To bring more efficiency to the process, many Fortune 500 companies leave travel support to the experts.
Lufthansa AirPlus Servicekarten GmbH helps companies more efficiently pay for and manage their business travel costs and expenses. Started with just a dozen employees in 1989, Lufthansa AirPlus now has 1,300 employees serving 60 markets. The company’s 49,000 customers include Fortune 500 companies, DAX 30 companies, and EURO STOXX 50 companies.
“The industry is changing, with competition ranging from traditional banks to young startups delivering new types of digital payments,” says Michael Heilmann, Associate Director Process Excellence, Global Regulatory and Affairs at Lufthansa AirPlus. “We need to be a role model in the financial services industry and react quickly to customer needs, even as we grow more global.”
Shifting to digital processes allows Lufthansa AirPlus to reach international clients and employees in a faster and more secure manner. It also helps the company to increase agility—an essential part of the financial services industry where new regulations and providers can change the market at any moment.
“We set up an efficiency program to lay the foundation for a competitive and successful future within our rapidly changing industry. In particular, efficiency through digitalisation is key to our competitive advantage.” says Heilmann. “Digital signatures are the final piece of the puzzle that we needed to realise our digital transformation.”
Finding a reliable partner in Adobe
When looking for a digital signature solution, Lufthansa AirPlus carefully evaluated approximately 15 vendors. The company needed a solution that would not only meet compliance requirements of numerous international regulations, but also help improve internal processes.
“In today’s world, our customers want to process everything online and with Adobe Sign we are able to meet that demand,” says Marion Evers, Project Controller, Demand and Operations Management at Lufthansa AirPlus. “We looked at factors like usability, flexibility, and the workflow component, and we found that Adobe was the best fit for our requirements.”
Lufthansa, the parent company of Lufthansa AirPlus, already had a strong relationship with Adobe, which made the decision even easier. Lufthansa AirPlus knew that it could rely on Adobe to be a trusted brand and partner that would work with Lufthansa AirPlus to deploy Adobe Sign quickly.
“What we enjoy about working with Adobe is that we always have a reliable partner,” says Inga Schöbel, Manager Research and Development, Marketing at Lufthansa AirPlus. “If there are ever questions, we get an answer fast. With the help of Adobe APIs, we had Adobe Sign up and running in a week.”
“With the tracking feature in Adobe Sign, we always know where the document is. If there are any delays, we can quickly send a reminder and keep to our deadlines. It saves us a lot of stress and gives us more time to work with employees and improve processes.”
Benjamin Philipps
HR Administrator, Human Resources, Lufthansa AirPlus Servicekarten GmbH
Fast, more secure signatures anywhere in the world
Lufthansa AirPlus started its Adobe Sign implementation with a pilot around internal documents that require a signature, such as checklists and user applications. Through Adobe Sign, an Adobe Document Cloud solution, teams eliminated the need to print, sign, and scan documents. “We save about 15 minutes per internal document,” says Schöbel. “When you consider that we process more than 600 documents annually, that adds up to a lot of time saved with Adobe Sign. Colleagues responded very positively to the pilot, saying that it was fast, convenient, and helped improve productivity.”
After proving success in the pilot, Lufthansa AirPlus rolled out Adobe Sign to human resources to streamline HR processes. The HR team currently uses Adobe Sign for internal documents such as employer confirmations, parental leave, and changes to working conditions. Many of these documents require multiple signatures—the employee, the manager, and an HR administrator—creating complex workflows.
With Adobe Sign, people can sign documents from any device anywhere in the world. The signing process is very simple for employees; they simply click on a link in their email to view the document, and they can sign and return it with just a few clicks. Bypassing the internal mail system with an easy-to-use digital solution streamlines workflows and saves processing time for the HR team while reducing consumables such as paper, ink, and printer maintenance. Previously, it could take up to six weeks to get a document returned. The Adobe Sign solution is so straightforward and easy to use that documents are returned in as little as 15 minutes.
One of the biggest changes for the HR team is tracking. Before, documents could sit in a busy inbox or be left on a desk while an essential signatory was on vacation, resulting in long turnaround times. “With the tracking feature in Adobe Sign, we always know where the document is,” says Benjamin Philipps, HR Administrator, Human Resources at Lufthansa AirPlus. “If there are any delays, we can quickly send a reminder and keep to our deadlines. It saves us a lot of stress and gives us more time to work with employees and improve processes.”
The tracking feature also helps with another critical requirement of the financial services industry: compliance. Adobe Sign keeps a clear record of who received, viewed, and signed the document, and when these steps happened. By improving audit trails, Lufthansa AirPlus better demonstrates compliance with regulations without increasing effort.
“Digital transformation is a cornerstone to our business. Adobe Sign saves employees a lot of time in their day-to-day tasks, giving us more bandwidth to dig deeper into business topics and create a better experience for our customers.”
Michael Heilmann
Associate Director Process Excellence, Global Regulatory and Affairs, Lufthansa AirPlus Servicekarten GmbH
Expanding efficiencies.
The next step for Lufthansa AirPlus is to expand Adobe Sign to external HR use cases, such as onboarding. Leveraging the robust Adobe Sign APIs, the HR team plans to integrate Adobe Sign into their enterprise resource planning (ERP) system. This will allow HR to pull data directly from the ERP system into Adobe Sign documents rather than copying and pasting information, which will save more time and improve information accuracy.
“Digital transformation is a cornerstone to our business,” says Heilmann. “Adobe Sign saves employees a lot of time in their day-to-day tasks, giving us more bandwidth to dig deeper into business topics and create a better experience for our customers.
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