Comprehensive global mobility management system

Abstract

The present invention relates to a system and method for providing a comprehensive solution in the global mobility processes management. The robust and scalable solution enables 385 enterprises, service providers and employees to manage the global mobility processes associated with a business opportunity right from devising the mobility solution till the completion of assignment of each of the people resources in a legally compliant manner. It also provides completely customized workflow solutions based on a combination of the source country of travel, destination country of travel, nationality and nature of assignment. 390 The frame work includes UI engine, rule engine, work engine, document management system, identify management system, communication system and content management system. The system is so highly flexible, robust and configurable that it can adapt to the dynamically changing laws and global mobility procedures of different countries without the need to recode the application every time.

Description

FIELD OF THE INVENTION:The present invention generally relates to immigration process management. Moreparticularly, it relates to a system and method for effectively managing various processes ofglobal mobility in a legally compliant manner.BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION:Globalisation of business and markets is one of the most fascinating developments of thiscentury. With the ongoing globalization, global mobility has become a key priority for manyemployers over recent years. Immigration processes have evolved over a period time in sucha way that they are playing an integral part of the business models of organizations. Businessopportunities involving cross border movement of employees necessitate definition ofmobility processes in compliance to the laws of the destination countries. In addition to this,immigration / global mobility processes involve lots of planning to manage immigrationrequirements which include arrangements and formalities pertaining not only to preassignmentand the period of assignment but also to the period of pre-return and post returnetc,. Most importantly, while planning, the employee as well as the employer needs toconsider local laws and, in particular, what rights the employees may acquire during theperiod of the assignment and on termination thereof. Immigration processes in the currentcontext are still mostly paper-based, requiring documents to change hands and locationsamong various federal actors. Managing the immigration processes is also a time-consumingand labour intensive operation. Moreover, this requires advance planning and knowledge ofthe relevant processes for which the employee or his / her employer needs to choose a vendor / service provider to provide responsive technical assistance on the immigration managementprocesses, which in most cases turns out to be hugely expensive. With the advent oftechnology, web-based solutions have been developed to manage immigration needs, albeitall of them still manage to deliver solutions from a limited perspective only. Immigrationcase management solutions currently in vogue focus on certain geographies and largelyaddress the documentary requirements of inbound immigration only with respect to thosegeographies. They are also not suitable from the perspective of an anywhere-to-anywherekind of global mobility requirement. Further they ignore the fundamental aspect that thebusiness opportunities of the organization and the subsequent mobility processes required forglobal movement of employees are strongly interlinked. Hence, none of them present aunified solution that tackle the problem in a comprehensive manner.Systems and methods are known in the existing art that puts an effort in addressing the abovestated drawbacks.United States Patent Application Number 20060149569 to Neha Lal et al. entitled "Methodfor transitioning foreign employees" relates to a method for transitioning a foreign nationalemployee from a foreign location to a domestic business location using a web-basedemployee service center which provides information including immigration, travel andhousing. It also helps to complete the process relating to immigration and travel on userrequest for transitioning an employee from foreign location to a domestic business location.United States Patent Application Number 20040039603 to Lawrence Hanrahan entitled"Method and system for acquiring healthcare professionals for domestic service" relates to asoftware program for placement service provider which integrates all placement process offoreign professionals in the United States. This integration of processes includes travelsupport and immigration.PCT Publication Number WO2014199117 to John Christian SCOTT entitled "Automatedtravel tracking system" relates to a software product for automated travel tracking system. Itis provided with modules for travel management and for providing immigration requirementinformation. It also analyzes for compliance with rules and regulations.PCT Publication Number WO2002015064 to Tariq Mohsin Malik entitled "On-lineinteractive travel booking" relates to an online interactive travel booking system whichsupports individual users with icon and windows to get information about visa or passportand make travel booking while travelling across the world.United States Patent and Application Numbers 8,903,870, 8,667,602 and 2013 / 0165153relate to web-based travel risk management system which includes icons providinginformation on visa requirements for entering and exiting the country, list of airports andcontact details for embassies of various countries. It supports users including individuals,organizations and service providers.Most of the existing systems only handle some aspects of the processes related to globalmobility in finite areas such as travel, immigration case management, travel insurance etc.For instance, travel applications typically provide for automation and virtualisation of traveloperations but not the legal compliance associated with the mobility process. Some systemsonly support users by providing immigration requirement information, travel booking,contact details for embassies of various countries.None of the existing prior art provides an end-to-end solution for global mobility problems ina unified manner right from devising the mobility solution for the pertinent businessopportunity till the completion of assignment for each of the employees in a legally compliantmanner.Thus, the present invention is aimed to provide a comprehensive solution to manage globalmobility processes in a legally compliant manner right from devising the mobility solutionfor the business opportunity till the completion of assignment for each of the employees.Further, it is also a highly flexible system that is customizable according to user requirementswithout the need for a recode.SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION:The objective of the present invention is to provide a comprehensive solution to manageglobal mobility problems faced by organizations, global mobility service providers andindividual employees. The key users of this solution are: (a) organizations with significantmovement of people from one country to other as part of their business model; (b) serviceproviders in the field of Global Mobility who provide services to the people or organizationsin managing such mobility; and (c) End users such as employees or even non-corporateindividual applicants.The system enables to manage the global mobility processes of a business opportunity rightfrom devising the mobility solution for the said opportunity till the completion of assignmentof each of the employees in a legally compliant manner. It also provides completelycustomized workflow solutions based on a combination of the source country of travel,destination country of travel, nationality and the nature of assignment. The frame work of thepresent invention includes an UI engine, a rule engine, a workflow engine, a documentmanagement system, an identity management system, a communication system and a contentmanagement system to manage the different aspects of managing the mobility processes.According to the present invention, whenever a business opportunity that involves movementof employees is identified based on a combination of source country of travel, destinationcountry of travel, nationality and nature of assignment, a mobility solution is devised in alegally compliant manner. Then, the right set of employees are identified to handle thespecific business opportunity based on which the processing of work permits or visas arehandled and associated travel processes such as ticketing, hospitality, travel insurance, etc aremanaged through the system. Further, it enables to manage legal compliance procedures posttravel and at the destination location as well as formalities to conclude the assignment in acompliant manner and return to the host country.The objectives and advantages of the present invention will become more evident from thefollowing detailed description when taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawings.BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS:The objective of the present invention will now be described in more detail with reference tothe accompanying drawings, in which:FIG.1 illustrates the framework of the global mobility processes management according tothe present invention;FIG.2 illustrates the various steps of the workflow provided in the present invention; andFIG.3 illustrates the global mobility solutions derived using the framework.DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION:Aspects of the present invention described herein, provides a system and method to manageglobal mobility processes in a legally compliant manner by organizations and global mobilityservice providers.The system enables an organization to create potential assignments (business opportunities)with opportunity to create open positions across the geographies. Against each of theposition, system has the capability to build rule sets which rationalises the process ofidentification of right resource from the organization based on various parameters such asskillset, proximity, timelines to on-board a resource, eligibility criteria, need of a visa / workauthorization and associated processes, taxation and social security implications, etc., Thedecision maker will get all the necessary inputs in selecting a candidate for the open position.System has the capability to configure the processes into the system for new geographies sothat visa and work authorization requirements are facilitated by the concerned departments.The system enables to manage the global mobility processes right from devising the mobilitysolution for a given business opportunity till the completion of assignment for each of theemployees in a legally compliant manner. The system is completely configurable based onworkflows and does not require code re-writes to accommodate the dynamically changinglegal and emigration requirements of different countries. The system also providescompletely customized workflow solutions based on a combination of the source country oftravel, destination country of travel, nationality and nature of assignment. The global mobilitymanagement system can be used as a software-as-a-service model on a secure cloud platformor as an on-premises deployment.The system is built on a re-usable platform with different modules that can be easilycustomised according to client requirements or to even integrate them to work with existinginternal systems. This dramatically changes the affordability factor for clients of any size whoneed to pay only per use, as against a product software license that can be really expensive.Referring to FIG. 1 in detail, the frame work of the present invention includes an UI engine, arule engine, a workflow engine, a document management system, an identity managementsystem, a communication system and a content management system to manage the mobilityprocesses. The UI Engine is extensively used to devise country specific and visa type specificquestionnaires. The questionnaires are built with validation checks and retain the ability to beeasily modified and incorporated into the workflow.The rule engine facilitates any kind of decision-making. The engine receives the parameterfrom the workflow and throws out the result of success or failure. It enables to implementeligibility criteria in the workflow.Document management module enables storage and organization of uploaded documents,retrieval etc.Identification management system is an independent tool of the system where it manages theaccess authorization to the system and the respective pages thus ensuring security of thesystem.The communication module enables the overall communication between the stakeholders inthe workflow.Content management system is provisioned to maintain transaction specific awarenessmaterial. With this, the end beneficiaries get necessary inputs or access to tool tips to ensurethat they follow the right process.The workflow engine, which is the core component of the entire product helps to manage thelife cycle of each of the services and provides the necessary support to easily modify theworkflow on need basis.FIG. 2 illustrates the various steps of the workflow provided in the present invention. At step1, a business opportunity that involves movement of people is identified. Typically, this isachieved through an integration with the marketing or sales CRM database of theorganization. Any deals that are part of the marketing database which hold any potential forglobal movement of employees is to be considered as an input criteria.At step 2, a mobility solution is devised in a legally compliant manner. With properintegration to the HR or people management database, the system generates a employeedeployment plan considering factors such as skill set match of the applicant, availability ofvisas, process timelines for getting new visas, nature of visas as a mode of employeedeployment, etc., This will go hand in hand with the business opportunity realizationworkflow. The system devises the solution in a legally compliant manner, such that, it notonly satisfies the immigration laws of the destination country, but also chooses the mostoptimal from the available options for immigration.At step 3, the right employees are identified to handle the specific business opportunity basedon which assignments and processing of work permits or visas is undertaken. The systemincludes a built-in intelligence in reference to the legal requirements of the respectivecountries to evaluate suitability of a candidate for a particular type of visa. The system isrobust enough to accommodate visa specific immigration requirements. Once the resource isidentified, the system will automatically help the resource and the organization to effectivelycollect specific inputs pertaining to processing of visas and work permits throughquestionnaires, documents, generation of filled forms, etc.At step 4, the system enables management of legal compliance and procedures for post traveland at the destination location. It provides an efficient travel operation management systemthat is compliant to the visa and travel requirements of the destination country and has thescalability of incorporating each of the complementary services that are associated with thetravel processes such as hospitality, travel insurance and forex etc.At step 5, the system enables to manage formalities to conclude the assignments in acompliant manner and return to the home country. The system also enables to manageformalities and services post return to the home country.FIG. 3 illustrates an embodiment of the system providing solution for global mobilityprocesses using the framework. The derived solution includes the following stages: (i)nomination / Assignment management; (ii) pre-authorization; (iii) authorization and visa; (iv)pre-travel; (v) travel; (vi) initial formalities; (vii) change management; (viii) pre-returnformalities; and (ix) post return formalities. At nomination stage, candidates are nominatedby the following ways including nomination by supervisor, self nomination, eligibilityevaluation and quota management.The pre-authorization stage enables an employee to manage legalization, documentpreparation and medical check-up documents. The authorization and visa stage allows tomanage different types of visas such as immigrant visas, non-immigrant visas, visa on arrival,visa waivers, trade agreements, and Schengen agreements. The pre-travel stage enables tomanage ticketing requests, medical check-up requests, insurance coverage requests, forexrequests, travel enablement requests, payroll, hospitality and accommodation. The travelstage provides assistance during travel. The initial formality stage enables to manageregistrations, residence permits, I-9, social security applications and accommodation. Thechange management stage enables to manage assignment extensions, assignmentamendments, assignment transfers, employer transfers and change of status. The pre-returnformalities stage enables to manage ticketing requests, social security closures, deregistrationsand accommodation closures. The post return formalities enable to manageinsurance closure requests, forex settlement requests and payroll end requests.In accordance with the present invention, the individual employees who are deployed by theirorganization or intend to move from one country to other are enabled to: (i) completelycustomize their workflow based on a combination of the source country of travel, destinationcountry of travel, nationality and nature of assignment; (ii) manage the immigrationcompliance process and receive alerts and awareness; (iii) manage a range of transactionsassociated with global mobility such as documentation for visas, work permits and visaprocess enablement, travel enablement, travel insurance, hospitality, post travel enablementin terms of legal processes; and (iv) get access to virtual support throughout the assignmentlife cycle.The organizations are enabled to: (i) have a complete virtualization of global mobilityprocesses; (ii) facilitate options to implement process controls and legal controls to ensureadherence of organizational policies and legal compliance; (iii) enhance their operationalefficiencies and accuracy in outputs; (iv) achieve scalability in their global mobilityoperations; and (v) access an online repository of complete information.The global mobility service providers are also enabled to: (i) optimize their internal processesto suit the customer need and also adhere to compliance needs of the destination country; (ii)enhance their operational efficiencies and accuracy in outputs; (iii) achieve scalability in theirglobal mobility operations; and (iv) access an online repository of complete information.

Claims

1. A system for managing the global mobility processes comprising: (i) a processor for executing computer programs; (ii) a memory for storing data; (iii) a global mobility processes management unit comprising (a) a rule engine configured to facilitate decision making process; (b) an UI engine configured to devise visa specific questionnaires and templates; (c) a document management module configured to store, organize and archive uploaded documents; (d) an independent identify management module configured to manage access authorization to the system and the respective pages; (e) a communication module for enabling communication between the stakeholders in a workflow; (f) a content management module configured to manage transaction specific awareness and information dessemination material; and (g) a workflow engine configured to manage the workflow through the life cycle of each of the services.

2. The system according to claim 01, is further configured to integrate with existing systems of the organization.

3. The system according to claim 01, is further configured to enable customization of said global mobility management modules according to user requirements.

4. The system according to claim 01, is further configurable based on workflows for dynamically changing legal, immigration and emigration requirements of different countries.

5. The system according to claim 03, wherein said user is an organization or a global mobility service provider.

6. A method for managing global mobility processes comprising: (a) identifying a business opportunity involving global movement of employees; (b) devising a mobility solution to said business opportunity in a manner compliant with immigration standards of destination country; (c) identifying employees to handle said business opportunity in accordance with said mobility solution; (d) collecting specific inputs of said identified employees for processing of visas and work permits through questionnaires, documents and generation of filled forms; (e) enabling travel processes of said employees in a manner compliant to the visa and travel requirements of destination country, wherein said travel processes include but are not limited to ticketing, hospitality and travel insurance; (f) managing post-travel and destination location procedures of said employees in a manner complaint with immigration standards of destination country; and (g) managing formalities of said employees to conclude the assignments in a manner complaint with immigration standards of destination country to return to home country.

7. The method according to claim 06, further comprising the step of managing formalities and services of said employees post return to said home country.

8. The method according to claim 06, wherein said identifying is based on parameters including but not limited to skillset, eligibility criteria, need of a work or visa authorization and associated processes, taxation and social security implications.