Shiseido

MSB Docs Empowers Shiseido To Achieve 86% Efficiency Gains in Business Processes

The integration with MSB Docs has completely transformed the way documentation and regulatory transactions took place at Shiseido. Use of electronic signatures has made our processes agile, secure and less cumbersome. The secure signature request email feature has also eliminated the need for any manual authentication. Finally, no more chasing paper, and our team is able to focus clearly on the core business. MSB Docs has helped us not only save our time and money, but has also made us fully compliant with FDA and HIPAA regulations. We are extremely grateful for this solution, and would recommend MSB Docs to any and every firm looking for efficient, secure digital signing processes.

Department Manager, Shiseido

Key takeaways

  • Gathering the essential information about cosmetic products and for the export-import business, a large amount of paperwork is required at Shiseido.
  • All the paperwork need storage infrastructure for regulatory reasons in order to stay compliant.
  • Shiseido identified that the time spent on the traditional signing routine was delaying the signing process in addition to lost productivity and high costs.
  • Shiseido integrated MSB Docs with their Citrix Secure Mail system to make the process real-time, secure and less cumbersome
Table Of Contents

The Company

Shiseido is a leading multinational cosmetics company headquartered in Tokyo, Japan. The company is actively engaged in the production and sale of cosmetic products for the categories of skincare, haircare, makeup, body care and fragrance.  With a widespread presence across the globe, Shiseido is considered as the largest cosmetic firm in Japan and the fifth largest cosmetic company in the world. Since its inception, the company has been continually growing, expanding and innovating – creating unique, high-quality products for an ever-evolving market.

Business Challenge:

The cosmetics industry worldwide is subject to numerous regulations, so as to ensure the quality and safety of products. Also, cosmetic items go through multiple stages including production, testing, quality checks, etc before finally getting approved and released in the market. Needless to say, this entails extensive documentation and signing work, where multiple stakeholders from different departments and industry bodies are involved.

At Shiseido too, myriad documents such as inspection reports, audit reports, SOPs, Cosmetic Regulatory Compliance Certificate, etc are generated on a regular basis. These documents mandatorily require signatures from Inspection Officers and other key signatories from time to time. A consequent amount of paperwork is also required for Quality Control (QC) and Quality Assurance (QA) supervision processes. Moreover, to keep running its export-import business seamlessly, the company is again required to sign a flurry of important documents.

Traditionally, all documentation and signature processes were being conducted manually at Shiseido. Employees of the company were constantly running from pillar to post to gather information about cosmetic products, take document print-outs, approach signatories to collect wet (ink) signatures, scan and fax documents, etc. Moreover, once the signatures were collected, the signed and dated documents were then stored offline. This tedious process took a toll on the company’s operational efficiency, and posed certain challenges, which are listed below –

  • Slow, time-consuming processes – The company was spending excessive time on the traditional paper-based signing processes. Employees at Shiseido were constantly on their toes, following the inefficient print-sign-scan-store routine. For a global beauty conglomerate, this loss of time costed a lot, and was proving to be detrimental for its growth.
  • Dip in Employee productivity – The company was unable to harness the true potential of its employees, since paperwork consumed a large chunk of their precious times. This plummeting employee productivity was recognized as a key hurdle in its advancement journey.
  • Staggering costs – Shiseido was incurring unnecessary, enormous expenditure on processes such as printing, scanning, shipping and maintaining of documents. Added to this, the cost of resources deployed for conducting these trivial tasks was staggering. As a result, the company was unable to operate in a cost-efficient manner.
  • Compliance/ Regulatory Issues – Since most of the documents are highly sensitive and confidential, the company needed appropriate storage infrastructure for regulatory reasons and in order to stay compliant. Any lapse in the company’s documentation processes could bring them under the scrutiny of regulators, and thus impact their brand reputation.

The cosmetics giant has always been at forefront of innovation, and was actively looking for a new-age, digital solution to streamline its workflows and up the efficiency levels.

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The Solution:

Shiseido integrated MSB Docs with their native system, ie, Citrix Secure Mail system, which automated all the company’s workflows by integrating eSignatures into the same. Below listed are the highlights of the MSB solution and the way it was implemented

  • All the documents requiring signature firstly go the company’s Citrix Mail Storage.
  • The user can then compose the document from the MSB drafts folder and send a secure signature request to the designated email address of the signatory.
  • Signatory can then immediately view and sign the document with the click of a button, from anywhere, through any device.
  • Once the document is signed, it automatically gets updated into Shiseido’s storage system. The automatic date-time stamps embedded within the signatures provide the accurate timing as to when the document was signed.
  • All document transactions are now conducted securely, as the user identity is duly verified.
  • Audit trails help maintain a complete track of all documents and various actions performed on them at different stages. Audit trails also support compliance set by the FDA and HIPAA.

Result:

Thanks to MSB Docs, Shiseido has successfully replaced all its traditional, time-consuming, paper-based processes into efficient, digital ones that are embedded with eSignatures. All the company’s documentation and signing processes have now become fast, real-time, secure and less cumbersome. Shiseido has reaped a plethora of benefits from the integration, and the key ones have been listed below

  • Recued Turnaround time – As all important documents can now be created and signed speedily using eSignatures, the document turnaround time at the company has significantly reduced from two days earlier to two hours now. These speedy processes in turn have given a boost to the company’s operational efficiency.
  • Significant (85%) Cost Savings – By integrating MSB into their business processes, Shiseido has been able to save 85% of its document handling expenses. As a result, the company is now able to operate in a cost-efficient manner.
  • Enhanced productivity – Employees at Shiseido are no longer chasing paper or running around to gather signatures. They are now able to utilize their time more productively and perform vital roles such as conducting experiments, etc.
  • Improved Compliance – The company is now able to meet all its compliance requirements in a timely and efficient manner.
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