Automation helps services industry reduce overheads

CIOs discuss RPA applications:

The CIO (Chief Innovation Officers) Forum at the Kingsbury hotel recently, saw the country's top Chief Innovation Officers gather to learn the latest advancements in the field of Robotic Process Automation (RPA) and its applications.

The new paradigm shifts in IT automation have widespread disruptive implications for the local market that can revolutionize certain aspects of business and the allocation of human resources.

The forum, titled 'Software Robots - friend or foe? The choice is yours', was organized by the Computer Society of Sri Lanka (CSSL) and the Federation of Information Technology Industry Sri Lanka (FITIS) with VirtusaPolaris as the main sponsor.

Delivering the keynote address, Chandika Mendis, the global head of Engineering at VirtusaPolaris, said that while manufacturing processes have undergone several stages of optimization through automation, the same has not happened in the services industry. It is this latest reality that has given rise to a new trend.

"A lot of repetitive work that needs to be done in banking, insurance, telco, and financial services in general currently need to be done by humans because their IT systems have not kept pace with the increasing complexity of their industry," he said.

"What software robots do is they undertake this work that is usually structured and rule-based. These capabilities are now getting complemented with cognitive capabilities due to the advances in Artificial Intelligence. Ultimately, the application for RPA is widespread and disruptive from simple data entry to customer relationship management," Mendis said.

RPA is fast finding itself as the driver of rapid industrial growth. According to Transparency Market Research IT, the RPA market is forecast to grow at a combined annual growth rate (CAGR) of 60.5% reaching $4.9 billion globally by 2020.

"Actually, RPA does not eliminate the need for the systems we have today. The challenges we face with those systems is the basis for change. RPA allows software robots to replace repetitive steps done by human operators using the same interfaces used by them without involving complex middleware and IT integrations. This makes RPA implementations very rapid and close to business, and deliver tangible ROI very quickly and at much lower cost," he said.

Head of strategic initiatives, Global Technology Office at VirtusaPolaris, Chamindra de Silva enlightened the audience on the process of technical business consultation when selecting a business process to be automated using RPA.

"Robotic Process Automation is ideal for those processes that are repetitive, time consuming, that need to be scaled up quickly and need to interact with the same sources or systems mimicking human operators," he said.

"Businesses can reap the benefits of dramatically improved cost savings, higher productivity and reduced cycle times, as well as less human errors and time to market," de Silva said.

This was followed by a panel discussion moderated by Fayaz Hudah. It explored the applications of RPA and its future. The members of the panel were Chief Operating Officer, VirtusaPolaris; Keith Modder, Chief Operating Officer, Nations Trust Bank, Thilak Piyadigama and Managing Director, Hayleys Industrial Solutions, Dr. Arul Sivagananathan

Continued investment in RPA and recent breakthroughs in cognitive RPA, which is overcoming the gaps of traditional RPA, are helping businesses reap cost benefits and rapidly improve processes to be better equipped in a highly competitive market.