Problem

Complex global expenses deserved a trusted, data-driven expense management process 

Before implementing AppZen, Takeda grappled with a number of challenges in its expense auditing process. The company’s global presence, particularly in European and Asian countries, led to complex travel and expense management issues, often complicated by language dependencies. Its existing process was time-consuming and resource-intensive, which put a strain on its finance team. The team’s manual auditing process was particularly inefficient. At times, as much as 70-100% of expenses required audits because they triggered certain rules. Even when expenses didn’t trigger these rules, managers were still obligated to perform compliance checks, introducing potential risks due to inconsistently applied rules and human error.

Despite random sampling and checks based on value thresholds, Takeda was still unable to achieve 100% coverage of their spend. This left the company vulnerable to issues such as duplicates and employee spend leakage. The existing system also focused more on potential risks than actual risks–an inefficient use of auditing resources. To combat these inefficiencies, the company wanted to invest in a solution that could provide comprehensive coverage, focus on legitimate risks, and operationalize its entire expense auditing process at scale. Across the globe, Takeda employees wanted to spend more time on the core mission of creating better health for people and a brighter future for the world.

Solution

Finance AI innovation and flexibility met Takeda’s innovation in health and medicine

Takeda set up AppZen’s AI-enabled Expense Audit solution to analyze historical trends and behaviors and provide deeper insights into their spending patterns. Expense Audit is an off-the-shelf solution that can be customized to meet any organization’s specific needs, which aligned perfectly with Takeda’s digital strategy. Its flexibility allowed the finance team to quickly set up and adjust new rules based on regional requirements, ensuring compliance across their diverse global operations.

Expense Audit automatically reviewed 100% of employees’ expense reports–a significant improvement from their previous process. The solution’s AI models, equipped with translation capabilities, also helped overcome the language barriers that had previously complicated global expense management. Auditors were finally able to focus more attention on high-risk expenses.

AppZen has been a great partner with us as we've gone through this journey. They really understood the requirements that we have and the need to innovate and customize the platform to meet our needs. 

Global Process Expert for Procure to Pay at Takeda

 

Result

Faster reimbursement and more thorough expense report reviews

AppZen’s Expense Audit solution helped Takeda significantly improve multiple aspects of its expense management process. Auditors reported increased satisfaction due to substantial time savings because they could review more expenses within the same timeframe. This allowed the team to focus on higher-risk expenses, enhancing overall audit effectiveness. Employees benefited from faster reimbursement times, leading to higher satisfaction. Approving managers were more comfortable with the process because they knew Expense Audit was meticulously reviewing each line of employees’ expense reports. The thorough review process ultimately resulted in fewer report escalations and a more streamlined workflow. Across the company, teams could focus more attention on the core business.

AppZen’s ability to roll out to multiple countries in a relatively short time also demonstrated the scalability and efficiency of its solutions. This rapid deployment was met with positive feedback from global stakeholders. Overall, Expense Audit brought about a transformative change in Takeda’s expense management landscape, improving efficiency, accuracy, and satisfaction at multiple levels of the organization. In line with Takeda’s strategic roadmap, Expense Audit strengthened the company’s financial discipline and competitive, profitable growth, allowing it to do more to address patients’ unmet medical needs.