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It is a common situation that most shoppers face while buying packaged goods online. Due to high demand many daily used products go out of stock in retail sites. But it is more annoying to experience longer time in any shopping website due to lack of clarity about how to select and pay for a product. Direct-to-customer (D2C) is the new trend shaping the consumer-packaged goods (CPG) industry across the globe. Primary reason being low entry barrier, which is enabling private label brands to appear in the market with frequency higher than ever. However, not all brands could sustain the race of attracting consumers to their brands. It is more due to the marketing strategy they follow than the quality or features in the products. Drawing consumers to the products is the primary major challenge in this business model. Second major challenge is ensuring continuous availability of products, which means ensuring an uninterrupted supply chain process. If we introspect more into the primary challenge, we find three reasons underlying. First one is all about understanding the need of each & every customer and designing product as per their requirements. Second is keeping a tab of competitors’ offerings in the marketplace. Third is using information related to earlier two cases to develop personalised buying experience for every customer. The only solution that could help us resolve all these problems is data. Data is the ammunition in this expanding war of customer acquisition and retention. Collection of data about customers’ preferences and competitors’ new offers, storing those data and using those effectively are of primary importance in building a successful D2C business model.

If we go deeper into this, we find that next level of challenge is identification of data. It is customary for every marketer to understand and find the type of data one needs to understand customers’ requirements. Parallelly, one needs to find the data required on competitors’ offerings to strengthen the grip on the marketplace. Once understood, firms should think about the resources through which all these data can be collected and stored. And finally, how these data can be used to generate insights about customer’s behaviour.

To help firms in this journey, digital technology services are on the rise. The advent of intelligent automation has equipped the software service providers develop digital tools to understand the ongoing trend and find which areas need more focus to make the business run profitably. Robotic process automation (RPA), cloud technology, Artificial Intelligence (AI) based algorithms and machine learning (ML) programs are examples of digital tools which have paved the way for technology focused CPG firms to monitor their businesses closely and engage consumers more effectively. Every consumer has a different and unique way of shopping. Therefore, engaging with each consumer through the right channel, right promotion and right offer is undoubtedly a critical task. In top of that increasing penetration of mobile technology has brought all category of consumers at the same place and at the same time resulting in an extra level of complexity in data collection. Therefore, developing a robust data storage facility is no more a choice but a necessity for managing such increasing diversified consumer base. 91���� through its rich experience of working with multiple CPG consumers can provide both on-premises and cloud-based database solutions to manage terabytes of data on a continuous basis.

Once the data storage facility is set up, suitable data collection resources should be developed to ensure uninterrupted data feeding to the repository. Whenever a consumer engages in any purchasing activity through online channel, millions of data are transferred to the marketing firm. Multiplying this with number of available channels, nearly trillions of data are needed to be handled every day. Hence, the solution is to have resources having the capability to find relevant data in any format from any channel and incessant feeding of these data to the storage facility. 91����’s intelligent automation team can develop any customised intelligent bots using robotic process automation (RPA) for collecting data from any channel at any time with 100% efficiency. Not only from websites, but these bots can also even identify the necessary data from any document in any format. This can help the firms analyse multiple purchasing invoices to figure out average purchase value for any customer.

After collection the data, next important steps are identification of relevant KPIs and development of analytical models for the purpose of understanding the status of ongoing business and generation of insights about customer’s buying pattern. 91���� has a dedicated analytics team who has developed analytical models as per business need and has helped firms understand consumer journey at every touchpoint starting from exploration to procurement of any product.

After data management the next critical area where D2C firms should put highest focus is managing the supply chain of entire processes. If designing products as per consumer’s need is the primary challenge that D2C firms face now-a-days, then the next big challenge is taking these products to the consumer’s doorstep. The solution that addresses this concern is smart supply chain. Although most of the firms engage third parties for delivery of products, making the products available to delivery partner’s warehouses or distribution centres need a thorough monitoring of supply chain. 91����’s Industry 4.0 and Digital team together provide efficient and effective supply chain solutions with the help of Internet of Things (IoT), RPA and AIML. Not only our solutions ensure automated monitoring of entire supply chain process but also can eliminate the redundant processes, reduce the energy consumption at intermediate stages wherever possible and build models for optimising selection of packaging materials.

The problem that Sanaya faced at the beginning of this article could have easily been avoided had the brand manufacturer focussed on these issues and collected data about Sanaya’s buying pattern. Also, they should have ensured availability of the product at retailer’s site by adopting smart supply chain practices. Emerging digital technologies like robotics, artificial intelligence, cloud technology and IoT are a blessing for firms. However, leveraging these technologies to maximise the profit and capture the market share needs a blend of expertise & experience over the years. 91����’s rich experience of working with global CPG manufacturers in multiple channels and multiple regions for diversified products have helped develop suitable digital technology-based offers for D2C firms. In an industry like CPG where competition has been a paramount concern from new product perspective, emergence of D2C practice has made the situation more complex. To compete successfully and lead in the marketplace, firms must embrace the digital tools for navigating through the wave of unlimited new products.

Author:

Debal Chakraborty,
Principal Consultant

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While intent to implement RPA is growing, there are budget cuts to contend with. Organizations have therefore turned cautious, chiefly because they cannot identify the processes, they should automate to unlock the ROI, efficiencies and the bottom-line growth promised by RPA.��

The path to successful RPA implementation is not always evident—and there is justified anxiety that the wrong decisions could produce sub-optimal returns. Processes in the functions like Finance, IT, HR and Procurement usually contribute to maximum number of use cases. Precedents could be one way to resolve the indecision.

Keep efficiency, effectiveness, and experience the focus

Organizations have a variety of stimuli that propels them towards RPA adoption: to drive efficiency, enforce compliance, create a fungible workforce, stay ahead of technology, increase the life of legacy investments, and improve employee morale. However, in the most immediate future, organizations considering RPA would do well to apply the technology to solve their most immediate business problems (see figure 1).

Figure 1

91���� has worked with several customers across industries that illustrate the business problems that make ideal use cases for RPA:

• An airline customer wanted last minute emails received for cargo bookings to be turned into orders in their cargo system. They used RPA to solve the problem
• A US-based fashion house wanted to convert spread sheets coming in from designers into a Bill of Material and thereafter into purchase orders. RPA was the solution
• A banking customer wanted real time testing to be done for 300+ mainframe scenarios for new products. RPA-based testing enabled faster time to market

For organizations considering RPA, another way to resolve the problem would be to adopt RPA if it is a customer facing process. These processes always deliver value higher than others.

Get around the uncertainty��

It is natural to be anxious about making investments in RPA. The technology is transformative but unfamiliar. Our experience shows that organizations are most concerned about selecting the right platform, they are unclear if their processes are ready for automation, if their business cases can withstand the test of time, and how quickly they will see ROI.��

• Rule of Five: Our advice to organizations dipping their toes in RPA for the first time is relatively simple. Identify five processes that run across five application used by jobs that follow business rules and have little movement. We call it the Rule of Five. It provides a safe and quick test ground to understand what works for your organization and what doesn’t
• Process characteristics: The other approach to identifying the right use cases is to look at RPA to address tasks with a high volume, that are sensitive to speed, that are generally error prone and have irregular labor demands
• Part of digital transformation: Many organizations are gravitating towards the thought that RPA is not just a way to mitigate costs or improve operational efficiency but as a key component of their digital transformation agenda (added to the list of strategies that include data, analytics, social, and mobile)

Going wrong is not failure – it is learning

A CPG customer got 91���� to help identify process that could be automated. After process mining and value modelling, we identified 10 processes ripe for RPA. The customer wanted six automated. However, we soon realized that not one of the six could be automated because the process templates were not standardized. The program had to be put on hold, the processes standardized, and the program re-started. But failure is not always a reason to bring an RPA program to a halt. It is often an indicator of a need for course correction.��

Another CPG customer opted for a “fail fast approach” and started RPA implementation using a low scale product that did not touch their ERP. As adoption increased, SAP users in the organization also wanted to implement RPA. The customer realized the need for a product with larger capability and chose Automation Anywhere.

Anxiety around RPA vaporizes as adoption increases. Typically, organizations with less than 10 bots have challenges around process selection and business case creation. Organizations with 10 to 50 bots have challenges around governance, establishing operating models and modifying processes for automation. Organizations with over 50 bots cement an automation first cultural and nurture an RPA talent pool that ultimately sees the emergence of citizen developers.

Learning from experience

Our experience of working together provides insights that are worth sharing. When we decided to provide every one of our 9,000 employees with a bot – called Digital Buddy – we got Automation Anywhere as the expert services partner to assist in developing the bots and in managing change. We knew that our young and agile workforce wanted IT to help them move at speed. Our employees were eager to get their hands-on new technology and learn how to subsequently apply it to solve customer problems. Internally, we also realized there was more work than available skills. All the pieces necessary for RPA to find acceptance and deliver value fell in place.��

Today, we have the expertise to deliver RPA projects to customers using an extensive bot library, through our automation-as-a-service offering and a catalogue of automatable processes based on experience.��

Tomorrow’s economy will be led by digital workers that leverage RPA, with humans required for more cognitive work. Learning to tread the pathway to successful RPA implementation is therefore an urgent need today.

Author:

Sumeet Pathak,
Senior Director, Digital Innovation and Solutions,
Automation Anywhere

Mayank Jain
VP, Business Consulting Group,
91����

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Robotic Process Automation (RPA) has caught the attention of CXOs who are grappling with the�� business impact induced by the COVID pandemic. �� It is no longer a luxury but a business imperative to bring in automation in order to save time & costs, gain efficiency and provide more work-life balance to employees by allowing them to focus on higher value tasks while the bots take care of the mundane, repetitive tasks.

This frenzy has led many organizations to take the plunge into automation with most of them being at some stage of either piloting RPA or having deployed a few bots in production. It all seems very lucrative and thus very high expectations are set from the onset about the success the bots will bring for the company. But then, reality strikes, and most companies see that the outcomes aren’t really what they had expected. There are issues in scaling the bots beyond the initial few, issues with maintenance and frequent modifications required for handling different scenarios and paths for the same process, and updates required when the IT systems undergo a change. This results in a long and steep learning path for the companies that brings with it the frustration and a misdirected agony towards the usefulness of RPA.

But is it really the bots that are to be blamed for the problems being faced by such companies? Why is it that RPA is working like a charm for some companies while others are struggling to crack the code?��

It has to do with the way the successful companies look at (read as: treat) bots.

By humanizing bots and incorporating the following practices, companies can�� derive maximum value from the investments made in RPA.

Treat them as�� digital employees and name them

The premise of ‘Virtual Workforce’ is based on treating bots as digital employees. It is only natural to think so about bots. After all, the bots work 24×7, doing tasks that are �� repetitive and mundane for humans. But treating them as employees and naming them gives them more mind space and top of the mind recall during change management. When employees name their digital assistants, they think of bots more like junior team members who report to them and help them with their daily tasks.

Give time and team to maintain the bots and look after them��

Just like humans, bots can also fall sick and have breakdowns. What’s important to note is that just like humans, there is a reason behind their falling sick. In most cases, the reason tends to be associated with change management aspects. When there is a process change in the traditional world (where people are managing the processes), documentation upgrades and training are part of the change management plan. This helps the operations teams to manage the changed processes effectively. But this is often not the case with automated processes. By thinking of bots like people, the team thinks about them during change management and caters to their needs just like the needs of people being impacted by the change. This makes sure that they are looked after, and the team keeps getting the benefits they originally got by keeping the bots working.

Build resilience into the bots

Processes can break for several reasons, whether being done by humans or bots. It could be due to bad data, unavailable source/target application, network connectivity, or any number of other reasons. Just like humans take alternate routes or steps to resolve the issue and move forward, so should the bots be able to. But bots won’t do this until they are trained�� on it. Many a times, bot designers and developers consider only the ‘happy path’ while building the bots. When creating or training the bots, the ‘unhappy paths’ or ‘exception scenarios’ should also be considered, and the bot should be trained on what to do if such a scenario occurs. This not only keeps the bots running more efficiently, but also reduces maintenance and support efforts when they hit the ‘unhappy path’ because there are proactive actions built into the bots to handle such situations.

Manage the performance of bots like it’s done for people

People performance management is one of the most important aspect that is taken up in every organization. We pay a lot of attention and effort to make sure our people have the right toolset and mindset to perform at their best possible levels. Seldom does it ever happen for the bots deployed in the organization. By making sure that there are people assigned to monitor and manage the performance of the bots, we can make sure that the bots are performing at their best possible levels. With the new age automation platform, this is quite easy as they come with built-in performance dashboards and bots that monitor the performance of process bots and run diagnostics to make sure the overall performance is at expected levels. In addition, staff in the different business units with live bots can also access real-time dashboards that display the performance of the bots deployed in their unit.

Measure the success by number of automated process

Another common practice in organizations implementing automation is to measure the success of the program by the number of bots deployed. We often come across news flash about how an organization successfully deployed 100 RPA bots in 6 months’ time. Ideally, this should not be the measure of success. The true measure of success should be the number of processes automated by the bots. Don’t think about how many bots are deployed. Think instead, about how many processes can be run with a bot. When humanizing it, think of how many tasks or jobs a person can do in a day, then expand that across the bots running 24×7 and think of how many tasks can the bot do.

Conclusion

Initially it might seem a bit far fetched to think of a bot as a human and to take into consideration of the bot when thinking of process optimization. The business units need to work in collaboration with IT to make sure the bots are set up in a way that maximizes return on their investment.��

While looking at optimizing a process, planning for it with the bot in mind is different from planning for it with a human in mind. When optimizing a process with a human in mind, we would look to reduce the number of steps. When optimizing a process with a bot in mind, the more important factor should be the efficiency the bot brings, even if it means having a greater number of steps.��

Remember, the bot doesn’t mind doing more steps in a process since it’s executing them at a much faster pace than human. If the overall efficiency of the process improves, then that is a�� trade-off that we should be in favor of.��

In short, giving bots names gives them a profile that has top of the mind recall and makes sure they are considered during the change management process. Also, when designing the bots, building fail safe mechanism by considering exception scenarios goes a long way to keep them running. Performance management for bots, just like for humans makes sure the company is getting its targeted�� ROI and like humans, focus on how many processes the bot can handle rather than how many bots the company has.

Making the above mentioned psychological / behavioral changes to our outlook towards RPA bots can go a long way in improving the efficiency the bots bring while making sure the company is getting back the�� ROI on the RPA initiative.

At 91����, we take this psychological approach and have embedded it into the DNA of the company’s approach to RPA. That is the reason why we have embarked on a journey to provide every employee (~9500) with a personalized digital buddy�� that will make their life easier. And we have been able to successfully deploy close to 20 digital personas for various functional roles to help people in their daily work. Talk to us if you’d like to know how 91���� can help make digital workforce a reality for your company.

References:

1. Everest Group – RPA Annual Report 2018 –��
2. The Future Digital Work Force: Robotic Process Automation (RPA) –
3. Gartner’s 2019 Predictions for RPA Offerings –
4. Optus brings bot needs into IT change planning –

Author:

Tanmay Prakash
Senior Principal Consultant,��
Business Consulting Group, 91����

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The importance of change management and pointers to facilitate efficient change adoption.

“XYZ Bank to cut 3000 jobs”
What do you think is the impact of such a headline if you are a part of this organization? Fear, Doubt & Uncertainty?
More so if the story adds in that the job loss is due to a transformation program driven by automation… The stimulus is Resistance …

There is no denial about the fact that technology driven transformation has taken center stage in corporate strategies. Organizations across industries have either begun their journeys or are at the cusp. Many clients embark on their automation journey and realize mid-way that while the solutions worked a way around IT and business processes, the issue of change management around people is not adequately addressed.

A study by����suggests that by 2030, intelligent agents and robots could replace as much as 30 percent of the world’s current human labor. Any organization embracing the technological transformation must necessarily create a roadmap for managing the change its employees need to embrace. Afterall, an organization is made of people and success/failure of any change is dependent on an effective change management plan.

A look into the Kubler-Ross change curve gives us the stages an individual goes through. Organization must keep these stages in mind while preparing the roadmap for the change and provide time for the employees to navigate from pessimism to optimism.

Awareness

Desire

Knowledge

Ability

Reinforcement

The ADKAR framework by����translates how organizations can reduce the negative impact and accelerate the change.

Some key pointers to deal with the different stages along the curve:

Bite the bullet:��Organizations should steer clear when it comes to stating the underlying intention behind an automation drive. Be it cost cutting, reduction in FTE’s or manpower reduction the message should come out clear to avoid creating a false image and draw inaccurate conclusions.

Top Down Approach:��Executive sponsorship is the key to giving strength to the idea of adoption of the change in question. An inspirational leadership can garner the support for the initiative with the right messaging about the goals and its impact while overcoming resistance. Most importantly the human resource team should drive the message and be a part of the change management journey of the employees.

Re-skill to Re-purpose:��The objective of automation is to relieve the employees of the digital drudgery and repurpose them for higher order tasks. Each impacted employee must be identified before automation process begins. The job role must be redefined and the necessary support in terms of training given for the employee to align with the expectation before the change process begins.

Prove the concept:��Company should create target groups and evangelists who have experienced the impact automation can bring in their work. The stories created by these groups should be giving confidence to the other departments or stakeholders undergoing the change.

The touch Feel:��Each department/lead should be equipped with right information to address his team about the change. While the idea should trickle top down, the acceptance must be maximum at the bottom of the pyramid. Engaging the employees in process re-engineering creates ownership and the stickiness towards change.

The human aspect of change needs to be investigated at the very onset of any transformation journey. There has been a journey from bullock carts to cars, there has been a journey from hand operated machines to robots , there has been a journey from a few books to the world of internet – They all have been transformational , they all have faced resistance, they were all accused of “replacing” human jobs – But here we are , there is no replacement but rather “redefinition”.

Organizations must help their employees to Endure the challenge, Embrace the change and Excel with the impact automation brings with it.

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Reference Links:

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Author:

Archana Bhaskara
Senior Associate Consultant, Business Consulting Group,
91����

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Digital transformation initiatives have been a major part of boardroom conversations for several years and enterprises have initiated their digital journeys through investments in automation, analytics, cloud, etc. The current crisis has expediated organization to focus firmly in adopting Digital technologies to aptly demonstrate the urgency of digital adoption and readiness to embark on the Automation journey to define effective measures as a response to the COVID-19 situations. Digital transformation plans are being accelerated across organizations as they prepare for post-Covid recovery and growth. Automation is poised to be at the center of these digital transformation programs as an important catalyst for immediate response and recovery measure as well as a key component of redrawn business strategies, new business models and growth plans.

Automation investment plans across industries are being re-evaluated and automation spend is expected to increase by ~55% CAGR between 2020-2025 to $40 billion¹. In addition to unlocking efficiencies at a process level, enterprises have started recognizing and realizing other automation benefits such as employee experience, customer experience, improve process KPIs etc.

Enterprises in industries such as BFSI, Healthcare, and CPG & Retail, which have been the early adopters of automation have realized tangible benefits such as – average cost reduction by 35-45%²; increase in productivity by 40-50%². Following the path are industries such as travel and hospitality and manufacturing which are expected to drive the next wave of adoption. As more and more success stories of automation emerge, it is clear that automation has definitely moved from being just hype to a real technology measure delivering tangible benefits. However, there are certain challenges that impede scaling up of automation efforts.

Enterprises need to avoid certain pitfalls while planning their automation efforts

Automation efforts usually originate in silos in enterprises and typically struggle to scale across different business segments and geographies. There are some commonly observed pitfalls associated with automation scaling that enterprises need to avoid:

Unrealistic and Inconsistent ROI expectations among stakeholders – Difference in expectation setting, especially in the first few weeks which usually involves consulting bills and process discovery hours rather than the immediate FTE time saving promised, might lead to loss of confidence and dissatisfaction in the technology among the decision makers.

Inability to automate end-to-end use-cases – which are fragmented across geographies and functions – Use-cases spanning different locations and BUs may involve several stakeholders and different approaches for running the use-case. End-to-end standardization and automation may not be possible is such cases.

Undefined ownership and accountability between IT, BUs, and Ops teams – Lack of a strong governance structure heading the automation drive may lead to conflicts surrounding the objectives and timelines of the automation initiative.

Presence of organizational siloes – Organizational silos can lead to inadequate sharing of use-case knowledge among BUs. This can create a culture of disconnected automation sprawls, that are unable to scale across services and geographies.

Long deployment cycles of automation – Onboarding of bots, training, conformance – integrating RPA with the existing technology and customization needed as per the organization, RPA tool/vendor platform selection, employee training and reskilling are aspects that can usually extend the planned automation deployment cycles.

Inability to automate use-cases with unstructured data (requiring ML, NLP, AI, IDP, Computer Vision) – Several automation implementations involve web portals and workflow systems, AI/NL algorithms, IDP and process mining tools, especially for use-cases with unstructured data. Difficulty in managing the complexity of these technologies in conjunction can lead to scaling up of automation in use-cases with unstructured data.

How 91���� can help

91���� is a leading global technology services and solutions provider, led by Business and Technology Consulting. 91���� provides Business-friendly Solutions to help clients succeed and be future-ready, by seamlessly bringing together digital expertise, strong industry specific alliances and the unique ability to leverage deep domain expertise from ITC Group businesses.

Automation is a focus capability and our vision is to ‘Amplify Human Potential’. Our market offerings pivoted around –
a) Enabling organization in their enterprise Automation journey
b) Digital personas delivering people centric automation and elevating the end-user experience, and
c) Digital workplace where we bring integrated solutions with ISVs

91���� has deep expertise and hands-on experience in delivering end-to-end consulting led RPA services leveraging the Automation CoE capabilities.

Process Discovery: Powered by Industry Playbooks, Process catalogs and E³ framework (Efficiency, Effectiveness and Experience) for value modeling, prioritization to create the automation business case and roadmap.

Implementation and Support: Our tool evaluation framework helps in identifying the best fit RPA platform based on business requirement and technology landscape. Certified BPM, Process mining and RPA resources enable to lay foundation for client engagements.

CoE As A Service: A well-established RPA CoE supported by Domain Consulting, Engineering, Data & Analytics, and Customer Experience experts for scale and depth in delivering end-to-end Automation services.

Value Measurement: Our value measurement framework measures the set of KPIs which were identified to be achieved from automation.

Co- Authored By:

Soumya Nandy
Senior Principal Consultant, 91����

Nikhil Kulkarni
Principal, Zinnov Management Consulting

A V Ruchir
Project Lead, Zinnov Management Consulting

Reference:

1. Zinnov Hyper Intelligent Automation Landscape Report, 2020 –
2. Based on Zinnov Research & Analysis

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For payers, RoboticProcess Automation (RPA) provides a way to address all three challenges.

The healthcare industry is not a newcomer to RPA adoption. Payers have used the technology for a handful of tasks such as extracting structured and unstructured data, pre-authorization of services claims processing, and to exchange data with providers.

Now, in the shadow of COVID-19, there has been a rising demand for applying RPA to a wider range of processes. These include speeding up claims processing, enhancing customer care through chatbots, improving new enrollments through data enrichment and validation, renewing contracts, meeting regulatory requirements through data interoperability, and enabling a remote workforce by automating day to day IT tasks (for example, incident response) and administrative processes (related to finance, human resource,etc.). The range of use cases is wide.

The urgency for payers to deploy RPA implies that they need to be cautious as well. RPA can be applied in several areas — all with varying benefits—and evaluating and prioritizing the functions where the technology could deliver the highest and fastest ROI can be tricky. With the right decisions, RPA will deliver on its promise.

According to a report called “Intelligent Automation in Healthcare: Addressing COVID-19 Scenarios” published by global management and strategy consulting firm, Zinnov, the areas where RPA has proven ability include:

• Claims Adjudication
• Customer Support
• Regulatory Reporting
• Claims Data Management
• Interoperability

Once a payer has identified a business function wherein RPA can be applied, the next step is to implement the technology where it will result in cost reductions, productivity increase, risk reduction, and improved patient and employee experience, in the shortest possible time. ROI and time-to-value are important considerations. Both determine the amount and pace of investments the payer can commit to, on RPA. This is where 91���� makes a substantial difference. Our team of healthcare technology experts has studied the impact of COVID-19 on payers and has created a Special Task Force with a single mandate: to identify critical pain points that payers need to address and provide cost-optimal, easy-to-implement, and high ROI yield solutions.

We execute leveraging our catalog of process frameworks that can be applied to IT and business along with a library of ready-to-use bots. These need minimal refinements and customizations (to align them with the goals and the needs of individual payers) to achieve a faster time to value. Our industry and processes mining expertise allow us to quickly identify the automation opportunities in a payer’s environment. We stitch the solution in line with enterprise mandated business outcomes ensuring that the business is ready for automation at scale. The automation can be for practically any process ranging from member enrollment to premium collection and from claims settlement to reporting.

RPA can be deployed by our experts quickly and precisely, to reduce the cost of claims processing that COVID-19 is bound to lead to, provide augmented support to producers/agents to improve and onboard new enrollments, and alleviate the pressure of claims management caused by the imminent spike in elective procedures. For a detailed examination of use cases where RPA can deliver an immediate impact, please download the Zinnov – 91���� joint whitepaper.

Authors:

Manish Jaiswal
Vice President, 91����

Sanjana Bhattacharya
Principal Consultant, 91����

Nikhil Kulkarni
Principal, Zinnov

AV Ruchir
Project Lead, Zinnov

References:

The post Automation: What The Doctor Ordered To Manage The Implications Of COVID-19 For Healthcare Payers appeared first on 91����.

We all know that Banking constitutes an essential service and was one of the first sectors to embrace Digital Transformation, which is considered the panacea for COVID-19.����When COVID-19 struck, there was an initial view that banking will not be significantly impacted by COVID-19 as compared to other sectors such as Travel and Hospitality. However, we know that the digital enablement of banks is at various stages and maturity levels. According to Forrester*, banks are just going through the motions of transformation;��only 14%��of global financial services firms believe that they have the right technology infrastructure and applications in place to deliver great and differentiating CX. This tells us that all banks were not ready to face the challenges brought to the surface by the pandemic-induced lockdowns.

Given the dire situation, many areas will emerge where less prepared banks will be impacted – particularly those with limited digital or self-servicing capability. The dimensions of this impact will be felt across both customers as well as employees. There have been several reports of Tier 1 banks – including Lloyds in the UK, Bank of America, Mashreq, and Westpac to name a few – who have reported significant fall in profits, primarily on account of bad loan provisioning.��

While for the normal end customer, there may be no impact on availing banking services, across all standard transactions like payments, direct debits, and funds transfer, etc., underlying issues faced by banks, building societies and financial institutions will continue to remain. I was a panelist in an 91���� Global Webinar where the banking fraternity from almost all parts of the world participated, and we discussed this topic in detail and generated revealing insights.

Not surprisingly, according to our audience the most impacted Banking areas were back-office operations, followed by call centers, and finally, customer self-service channels. It appears that almost all focus of Digital Transformation done by banks focused on the customers and less on internal-facing touchpoints. Given the remote working of staff and the huge call volumes, back office-operations and call centers may be unable to function as they should.

So, while Banks were arguably better prepared for COVID-19 than other sectors, they are still impacted due to the unprecedented nature of this situation. There are staggering reports of huge impact on customers and employees – customers unable to avail critical services due to closed branches and call centers having horrendous wait times. Moreover, due to staff working remotely or off sick or in isolation, they are unable to perform all functions effectively. This has and will continue to cause challenges for banks and financial institutions across all lines of their business. They not only need to continue business as usual but also work with the respective branches of the governments to make sure that the neediest are not left out – especially across small businesses and the retail spectrum. Among other things, they need to ensure that the monetary benefits, loans, and grants reach those who require them in a timely fashion.

Now, let’s take a look at the areas majorly impacted due to COVID-19.

Customer Impact

• Branch operations��– Due to closures, functions typically done in branches will have to be enabled on self-service channels. Small-medium banks/regional banks/building societies will be most impacted. Lack of self-service capability will mean that the vulnerable and needy segments of the population, who are either sick or not digital savvy, will not be able to avail banking services. Even if there is self-service capability, it will now have to take a larger load of the transactions, and it will have to be reliant.
• Customer Key Transactions��– Lack of automation for all functions means that even some of the critical customer transactions, e.g., high-value/international funds transfer, mortgage transactions, loan applications, etc. might get stuck due to unavailability of self-service capability in these areas as well as unavailability of bank staff. Banks need to look at creating additional self-service capability rapidly without impacting their core systems. These capabilities may need to be launched in days or weeks.
• Impact on the most vulnerable��– Vulnerable and old customers, who are in self-isolation or customers who are not digitally savvy or from the poorest sectors of the society are most impacted. While the majority of customers, at least in advanced markets, can continue to avail all the critical services they might need digitally, the vulnerable segments need more focus. Banks need to look at Digital workers/BOTs who can engage with the segment and enable BOT-assisted self-servicing, which can be delivered through an app, portal, push notifications, or even text messages.

Colleague Impact

• • Contact Centre/Customer Help Desks��– Bank’s help desks are likely to be inundated with an unprecedented number of customer calls on account of Branch closures and/or limited self-service capabilities, which will result in more requests/queries directed to the contact center. Staff going on sick leave or lack of remote working options for contact center staff means that tickets will pile up. Lack of remote access to the bank and automation options on top of core systems will result in even simple cases not being closed. Banks need to look at investing in Digital/BOT workers who can not only stand in and augment bandwidth to the bank’s helpdesk teams but can also provide 24×7 real-time solutions to its customers.

• • Back-office functions –��Banks running legacy may not have enabled home working for all functions, particularly back-office workflows. This means that if key workers are off sick, the cases and transactions will get piled up and cause bottlenecks in the overall operations. Banks need to look at automating bank-office functionals to enable straight-through processing and rule-based cognitive workflows.
  • IT Support Functions��– Due to the unavailability of bandwidth and with people becoming sick or unable to work, planned changes as well as the bank functions, get impacted. This will be compounded by the fact that more employees are working remotely and from different locations. The new working model is bound to lead to more support requests and incidents, which will have to be handled in innovative ways. Again, similar to the Customer Helpdesk, banks should seriously look to create a state of the art BOT enabled Service Desk, which will be more resilient and efficient.

Revenue & Profitability

• Provisioning against Bad loans��– Given the pandemic situation, there is a strong possibility for SME and small corporates becoming delinquent, leading to interest income write-offs. Banks will need to make significant provisions for bad loans, which will impact profits. Lloyds (in the UK) have announced that their pre-tax profits have fallen by 95% due to bad loan provisioning, and a number of Global banks have followed suit with significant profit fall reports.
• Reduction in Fee-based income��– Interest/fee-based incomes will reduce due to interest rate cuts and lower transaction volumes. Banks will potentially decide not to pass the benefits of interest rate cuts to its customers as the economic stimuli like mortgage holidays will need to be funded, and just the Govt. grants will not be enough. Banks will need AI/ML-led cross-sell and up-sell capability for new ‘paid’ products, which will offer additional value to customers.
• Identify & Help Vulnerable to avoid Bad loans –��Banks��will also need to proactively monitor and help/assist these customers, which will ensure there are limited bad books. Some of these customers may not have understood or availed the Govt. grants and loans due to a variety of reasons, and a proactive reach-out is essential. Instead of using traditional mechanisms, banks should launch special COVID apps and solutions to handle this situation.

Regulatory and Compliance Related

• Adhere to Regulatory/Central Bank directives��–��There will be a need to launch new products and modify existing products. As central banks inject stimulus to the economy in the forms of benefits, interest holidays, and new loan products, banks will need to stand up new functionality quickly to adhere to the central bank timelines. Banks will need to launch solutions quickly to help their customers and/or use this opportunity to widen their customer base.
• Increased Risk of Fraud and Money Laundering��– In this time of crisis, there is an increased risk of customer fraud and cross-border money laundering, as well as illegal funds transfer. Lack of heightened enterprise fraud management will lead to regulatory fines and reputational risks as well. Again, analytics and AI/ML-based cognitive solutions will be the key to helping banks identify potential cases and prevent loss and customer impact.

Technology Impact

• • Scalability & Resilience of IT Systems��– One aspect that the COVID-19 pandemic has brought to the fore is the resilience and scalability of the banks’ technology platforms. Some of the platforms, even at Tier 1 banks, are decades old and are tuned only to operate under normal circumstances. Banks are now seeing unprecedented transaction levels related to COVID-19 stimulus packages announced by central banks. Banks who used to process around hundreds of new loan applications a day are now getting more than a hundred thousand each day! Their systems are unable to cope, and banks need to look at quickly fixing the solutions while making new ones for the COVID-19 context without impacting their core systems. One mechanism is to divert the COVID transactions away from the core systems into a new application that is resilient and can scale and take the brunt, passing it on the core in a much more controlled manner.

• • Strengthen Remote Working –��Traditionally, remote working enablement was done for a limited set of functions and applications.��Banks have to re-look at this setup and extend this to all critical business applications so that the operational risks and customer impact are minimized. When we asked our Global audience for their views, the majority of them responded that the remote working of staff is going to be the new normal. In connection to this, Barclays CEO Jes Stanley recently said, “The notion of putting 7000 people in a building may be a thing of the past.”

Conclusion

This pandemic has brought several issues to the forefront.��While no new non-discretionary spend related initiatives or interventions are likely to start, banks will at-least spend the time planning and conceptualizing their transformation initiatives. Bringing out some more results from our Global Webinar, we asked our audience what areas they are likely to focus on and invest in the medium term, and not surprisingly, Customer Experience continues to be the main focus areas with Colleague Experience also featuring as a key area as the focus on back-office Digitization keeps gaining more and more momentum.

The top 5 initiatives that I think Banks and Financial Institutions should focus on are:

1. Rapid enablement of their digital customer and colleague experience solutions��– Self-service capability across all their business functions, not just limited to customer-facing functions.
2. Digital worker/BOT based helpdesks��– Both for Customer help desks and Internal IT help desks, which augment the capability of the human workforce/agents.
3. Focus on scalability and resilience of their IT Platforms (Core IT) –��Review the platform and start making plans and business cases for their transformation.
4. Strengthen cyber-security and enterprise fraud management solutions��– When more functions are brought, online there is a big risk of��Cyber/Ransomware crimes. Lack of strong fraud safeguards makes any online/self-service capability they offer at risk of being exploited by criminal elements.
5. Revenue Risk Mitigation��– In the event of an economic downturn, there is a possibility of customers becoming delinquent as well as��fee income reducing. Banks need to��find ways to remain competitive and profitable. Banks will have to invest in solutions which will enable cross-sell/up-sell and also identify potential customer risks.

91���� has launched several Banking-focused solutions to manage the COVID-19 situation and provide better preparation for the post-COVID world. Our solutions cover every single aspect and dimension mentioned above and offer point capability in all these areas. Please contact us to know about our industry-leading offerings.

The Global Webinar I have referred to in this paper is now available as an On-Demand Webinar. Please do take time out to participate and provide your feedback, which will help us to further calibrate and finetune our COVID-19 response. You can access the Webinar��.

The post Banking in the time of a Pandemic – What should the banks do during and after COVID-19? appeared first on 91����.

The technology services industry is being challenged like never because business continuity today rides on the tools that technology provides and on proven models of Global Delivery and Agile Distributed Delivery. These models are being strained now and the industry is being pushed into a 100% remote delivery model. Today, the urgency across technology service providers (and other businesses) is to devise enterprise collaboration models and back them with the right set of tools, infrastructure and training.

In a survey conducted by 91���� & Feedback Consulting, we found businesses were worried about the business continuity in the COVID world. The concerns were around quality of delivery while working remote, arresting team productivity decay and effectiveness of team collaboration and communication. If your business is showing signs of similar anxieties, you are not alone. (More details on the survey to follow in an 91���� blog. Stay Tuned!)

Winning in the turns

Let’s examine the major shifts that are underway (summed up in Figure 1):

Figure 1

• The digital workplace is set to become a reality! Pre-Covid-19, Work from Home (WFH) was largely viewed as a tool for employee engagement. Post-COVID-19, the WFH trend is set to accelerate with a slew of collaboration tools and virtual team rooms. The trend will leave behind a 10 to 20X increase in digitally enabled meetings, conferences and stand ups long after the threat from COVID-19 has retreated!
• The problem of productivity decay! Productivity linked to collocation and proximity models are under pressure. Newer distributed and remote working models are emerging. They are imperfect at the moment, but soon innovations and experimentation will ensure there is little or no impact on productivity. COVID-19 will fire the emergence of digital delivery models (such as the delivery of a new PLM upgrade executed in a 100% remote model) supplemented by digital assistants and bots that augment the physical workforce, providing a productivity boost for every job role and persona. The number of automated/ RPA-based bots per employee will become the new metric to assess the recovery, resilience and effectiveness curve of a business.
• Business turbulence is here to stay! Technology services firms have traditionally competed on efficiency and cost optimization through proven quality assurance and innovative models such as Global Delivery and Strategic Global Sourcing. Over the last few years, the mantra has been around new delivery models characterized by agility and responsiveness. Given the turbulence we are witnessing, the need for agility and responsiveness will get amplified further. Rigid and hardened processes will be considered anathema.
• Fast tracking of demand side changes! A natural corollary to living with turbulence will be the shift from large contracts and multi-year transformation programs to smaller engagements that deliver value within a short span (typically around 12 months). Pragmatic, quick-win engagements led by a clear business focus will dominate the post COVID-19 era, forcing a major re-alignment in sales behavior.
• Accelerated shift to newer value props! Digital has been driving a re-examination of the traditional value propositions around cost arbitrage, reliability and assurance of service quality and efficiency. Newer value propositions around quick turnaround time (TAT), agile iterative solution approaches, flexibility in contracting and focus on business value delivery are emerging. These trends will be further amplified by the imperatives of COVID-19.
• Older delivery approaches will die out! In the past two decades, technology service companies have built delivery assurance through templatized processes and cookie cutter solutions. These drove high process standardization, repetitiveness and predictability of outcomes. Today’s reality demands a move towards bespoke solutions that are client specific, contracting models that are differentiated and digital delivery models based on non-touch non-proximity of service delivery. This also ties up with the increasing shifts towards a digital workforce and a digital workplace.

A blue ocean is emerging

Every now and then, the technology services industry has been reshaped by global events and new disruptions. It has always responded with innovation. COVID-19 promises to be a black swan event that likewise throws up new service models and service innovations.

Given the demand for WFH tools, infrastructure and training that service providers are witnessing, a new reality is emerging. The constraints of today are driving the innovations of tomorrow for technology providers with the onerous responsibility of ensuring business continuity.

Keep an eye out for newer digital delivery models, think about how your technology providers can help build a digital workforce to supplement employee productivity (especially in times of crisis) and how you can create a digital “workplace” that keeps employees safe without compromising productivity.

(We examine many of these shifts, present our practitioner experience and insights, and our offerings designed for the new COVID world, in a series of upcoming blogs from our thought leaders. Do stay tuned!)

The post “Technology Services Rewired” – The Practitioner Perspectives appeared first on 91����.