Monthly Tangentia Byte
March 2020
|
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Monthly Tangentia Byte – March
Month: March 2020
Monthly Tangentia Byte – March
Is Finance the Low Hanging Fruit for RPA?
Is Finance the Low Hanging Fruit for RPA?
By Vijay Thomas
Companies all over the globe are looking for new strategies to improve the everyday processes that they rely on to stay competitive. And while robotic process automation (RPA) is growing in popularity, finance departments may be the best fit for this innovative technology.
But why is that the case? What makes RPA such a good fit for finance departments?
The answer is simple.
Every company receives bills, pays bills, has to pay employees, track orders, and more. And in every case, these processes are essential if a company wants to maintain healthy cash flows and ensure stable operations.
RPA has the potential to improve all of these processes because it enhances the productivity and efficiency of your finance teams.
The Right Way to View RPA
Here’s the truth. RPA is often viewed as a tool for eliminating manual tasks. And while true, RPA offers so much more than that.
Did you know that the average RPA solution provides 10 to 20 times the efficiency over a human?
Bots can multitask far more efficiently than a human ever could. This makes them well suited to handle time-consuming tasks that are best left to automation.
But there’s another hidden advantage that isn’t as well known. Bots are capable of doing a bit of everything. Once trained and adapted, they can serve in a variety of roles with maximum efficiency. The same cannot be said for humans, who often specialize in a certain area. Bots are continuously learning and improving with every iteration of a task. This makes them well suited to handle both accounting and HR tasks.
Now, you may be thinking that an RPA solution is expensive.
RPA solutions are cheaper than paying a full-time employee. The average RPA solution costs around $10,000 per year to run, making it a cheaper solution than paying an employee minimum wage. RPA bots can also work 24 hours a day, which equates to three full days from a traditional employee.
There’s no arguing about the cost savings when it comes to implementing RPA.
How Can RPA Solve Key Challenges Finance Departments Are Facing?
Any solution will sound good when it’s being sold to you. But RPA really does have the potential to improve the functionality of finance departments. And no matter how efficient you think your departments are—let’s face it—every department has its weaknesses.
Here are just a few of the tasks RPA can help with:
- Free up your key personnel. Your best workers are often wasting time on tedious tasks that could be automated. By implementing an RPA solution, you can free them up to focus on more important tasks.
- Make objective decisions. It’s not uncommon for companies to distrust RPA and the benefits it offers. Companies are often unwilling to believe that a bot can do the job better. However, finance teams rarely experience this because they are objective and numbers-driven.
- Improve the functionality of your ERP systems. Manually entering orders and tasks is time-consuming. Companies have spent large amounts of money developing and supporting their ERP systems. RPA is well suited to handle these tedious tasks and can provide cost savings in the process.
These are only a few of the key problems that RPA can solve. The truth is—RPA is the ideal choice for finance departments because it’s output is easily measured in a segment that is defined by its KPIs.
How Has Tangentia Deployed RPA?
Tangentia has been working with the overall BFSI(Banking, Financial Services and Insurance) sector but of late we have started working with more companies outside of BFSI. The finance department however is the low hanging fruit at most organizations, with Accounts Payable(AP) and Accounts Receivable(AR) the processes that are easiest to find the best business case for Automation.
We helped India’s largest car retailer automate a series of manual tasks that were taxing the company’s finance department. These tasks included order entry, car registration, and other government-mandated tasks. Now, their finance teams are able to focus on more important tasks.
Another client of ours, a large potash company in Saskatoon, received hundreds of invoices from multiple transportation companies for each leg of a shipment. All of these invoices greatly increased the workload of their accounts payable department. When they reached out to us, the average order took the company 30 minutes to process.
Can you guess how long it took after implementing our bots?
1 minute.
RPA is more than just an automation tool. The value it creates can impact multiple departments with the cost-savings and efficiency increases it offers.
What’s the Right Approach to Implementing RPA?
Some providers will suggest that you take part in a six-month process study to evaluate whether RPA is a good fit for your company.
But in our opinion? This approach is too slow. Business is competitive, and what works today may not work tomorrow. You need an agile solution if you want to remain competitive.
Tangentia’s approach to RPA uses an agile, iterative approach. We believe it’s more important to get started and make small changes on the fly. This will expedite the process of implementing automation and highlight what processes can be further optimized going forward.
Innovative technologies require a degree of willingness if you want to realize significant improvements in the processes your finance departments rely on. The agile, iterative approach is a more robust form of RPA that evolves based on your needs.
And for companies that are battling for every inch, the value it provides can help you maintain your competitive edge in the digital age.
Get Started Today
Tangentia is a Platinum Partner of IBM and well as partners with Automation Anywhere, UI Path, Blue Prism, Adobe, Microsoft, Salesforce, Amazon and leading enterprise software vendors. We work with customers globally with offices in Canada and India to implement their RPA strategies using an agile methodology.
Read Now
Tangentia Offers Support for SWIFT 2020 Updates
Tangentia Offers Support for SWIFT 2020 Updates
SWIFT is a messaging network designed to facilitate the global transfer of funds. It works by sending electronic messages from one financial institution to another to notify them when a transfer of funds is made.
Each year, SWIFT updates its service based on changes requested by their customers. This update is the MT Standards release and it ensures the message types (MTs) exchanged by SWIFT users continue to meet their needs, both for existing businesses and new businesses.
The release for 2020 is called the Standards MT November 2020 and includes the following
changes:
- Payments MTs to facilitate migration to the ISO 20022 Program and to ensure compliance with regulatory and FAFT requirements
- Manual and automated solutions for mandatory payment confirmations
- Support for additional security information to be transported in messages as per regulation
- Support for local regulatory requirements
- Support for local regulatory requirements
- Increased structure to messages for both party fields and trade party fields
- New features that offer support for changing business processes and new financial instruments
- Clarification of definitions to ensure improved consistency in messages and improved automation
- Changes agreed to during a fast-track maintenance process
Applying the changes in the SWIFT Standards Release Guide is mandatory for all financial institutions. However, making the required changes can be costly and it is important to balance that cost against the resulting benefits.
Tangentia can help with the update process, ensuring it is as efficient as possible and minimizes costs, while ensuring full compliance. We have extensive experience implementing SWIFT EDI gateways using solutions from IBM WebSphere Transformation Extender (WTX), IBM Sterling B2B Integrator, GXS, TIBCO and others.
Contact Tangentia for more information on SWIFT 2020 updates.
Get Started Today
Tangentia is a Platinum Partner of IBM and well as partners with Automation Anywhere, UI Path, Blue Prism, Adobe, Microsoft, Salesforce, Amazon and leading enterprise software vendors. We work with customers globally with offices in Canada and India to implement their RPA strategies using an agile methodology.
Read Now
COVID-19: here’s what’s happening at Tangentia
COVID-19: here's what's happening at Tangentia
Coronavirus (COVID-19)—it’s everywhere in the media and some of us might have already experienced it at close quarters. Similar to other companies, it’s impacting Tangentia, too.
We’re embracing this change of pace for the unique opportunities it’s providing. Our employees are adapting to the remote work lifestyle, with our Toronto employees saving an average of two hours on their daily commutes. We’re also encouraging our team to spend more time with their families, take up new hobbies, or join online courses. Overall, we are coming to a full week of ‘working from home’ (WFH – is our internal term for this), and there had been nothing but good reviews from our employees. We are beginning to wonder, why did we all not think of this earlier?
Business Continuity is the buzzword today. But for us to ensure that it is successful, a lot has to happen in the background. With our 150+ employees in Canada, USA and India who are working from home during the pandemic, we had to ensure that our phone systems remain accessible to all our clients securely from their homes, their laptops are securely connected to our network, and their accesses to our systems are well-governed and highly secured. White listing IP addresses of employees in our firewalls and our client firewalls was proactively initiated a little while ago, but we also had to make sure that the employees had global static IP’s on their internet as otherwise, the firewalls would not let them in. Suffice to say, a lot had to happen for us to successfully roll out our Business Continuity Plans around the COVID-19 pandemic. I am proud of our global teams’ seamless execution of our Business Continuity Plans that seem to be proven by this anecdote: We had a client who made an unplanned visit to our office, assuming that the people he was speaking to over the phone were in, when there was actually no one in the office as everybody had been instructed to work from home for health and safety concerns around COVID-19.
We at Tangentia had already embraced video conferencing, web conferencing and remote troubleshooting for a while now, and believe it or not, we even have some customers whom we have never met in person due to geographical distance. We have customers that have been using Tangentia B2B services such as Tangentia Gateway EDI platform for nearly 17 years, and have only interacted with them on the phone or seen them via Google Hangouts screen. We have hundreds of such customers globally, and we thank them for their trust. Our clients can continue to expect the same high-quality and rapid delivery cycle that our company is so well known for.
With the evolution of Tangentia over the last 17 years to an Agile Digital Transformation company and with establishing of the Tangentia Automation, Tangentia B2B and Tangentia Digital business units, we see the sudden pivot to remote work as a tremendous opportunity available to companies throughout the world.
As you know, Automation is in our blood even before the onset of Artificial Intelligence(AI) and Robotic Process Automation(RPA). We are undoubtedly leaders in implementation of RPA solutions in Canada and India, and we are working with strategic partners like Automation Anywhere, IBM, Blueprism, UI Path, and others to ensure that the solution and platforms that we offer, allow our customers to not just surmount the challenges of COVID-19, but to strengthen their businesses to become more resilient to such challenges in the future, and provide them with a sustainable global competitive advantage.
Our goal is to empower our clients through a business continuity-first approach. Whether that’s through AI, RPA or EDI solutions, or in other ways — we understand the importance of ensuring that your everyday operations are running smoothly. With the Tangentia teams and solutions, you can rely upon enterprise-grade, fully resilient solutions and support. Once we ensure that business continuity is maintained, we will enable your business with RPA, B2B and Digital technologies. These will not just increase the resilience and agility of your business, but will ensure that when the dark cloud of COVID-19 and the recessionary trends lift, your business will be able to sprint forward with a lower cost structure and responsive systems and processes to leverage the new growth opportunities.
While the world we work in may be uncertain right now, I am confident that this will also pass and we will all be looking at growing our businesses in a short while from now.
In closing, to all our existing clients and potential new customers globally, the entire Tangentia team is here to support you with any questions or concerns that you may have. Don’t hesitate to contact me personally.
Stay safe & healthy everyone, and let’s take care of ourselves and each other.
Best wishes,
Vijay Thomas
CEO, Tangentia
P.S. – I drove by the office yesterday and I must confess that we did miss assigning a task in our WFH strategy and that was watering the office plants. I took care of it and have put it on our list of things to do going forward 🙂
#StayHome #FlattenTheCurve
How RPA Can Help Companies Weather Uncertain Times
How RPA Can Help Companies Weather Uncertain Times
Vijay Thomas
One fact we can’t ignore is that we never know what is waiting for us in the future. If the current COVID-19 pandemic has taught us anything, it has taught us that. Whether it is a pandemic, natural disaster, war or another potential unknown, there is always the possible repercussion of economic uncertainty and a disruption in work routines and productivity within a company.
Fortunately, Robotic Process Automation (RPA) is a technology that can help companies in any industry maintain operational efficiency during difficult times, at the same time improving employee health and safety in the workplace. And with 2020 well under way and turning out far different than anyone expected, it is time for a serious shift in how we use automated technology.
What RPA Can Do
RPA has the capacity to automate many of the repetitive tasks humans typically do using a computer, keyboard and mouse. The driver behind RPA is not to replace humans, but to augment human capabilities to improve efficiency and accuracy. Examples of the types of tasks that can be automated include:
- Filling in forms and updating databases
- Automate the billing process
- Customer account management
- Automate the verification and auditing process
- Detect fraudulent invoices and transactions
The key here is that companies identify end-to-end business processes that can be automated in part or in full and determine how RPA can be implemented to improve these processes. This includes determining how RPA can help pick up the slack in situations where employees are unable to work.
This is critical even when a company has taken measures to allow people to work from home, because no matter where they do their work, employees can still get sick. In contrast, RPA bots never get sick and are on the job 24/7.
Proper RPA Implementation
It is important to understand that while RPA is highly effective in helping a business automate processes and tasks that would otherwise be tedious for humans, it is not the answer to everything. Not every task can or should be automated, and companies must take a close look at their processes to determine what can be fully automated and what requires a mixture of automation and human interaction.
In addition, it can be easy to view only the short-term results of RPA implementation, without taking the time to understand how it can impact the company over the long-term. For this reason, it is important for a company to launch RPA implementation with the use of a comprehensive strategy that includes the following:
- A full assessment of processes within the company that are good candidates for automation. This includes both back office and front office processes that relate to core competencies and that are relevant to customers, as well as employees.
- The creation of a specialized team to manage the complex nature of RPA implementation. This means monitoring RPA performance and gaining new information that will help them continuously improve RPA initiatives.
Timing Is Everything
The bottom line is simple. The world of business is increasingly full of uncertainty, yet companies are required to maintain high profits while keeping costs down. This will require the innovative use of technology to automate as many processes as possible, thus cutting costs. RPA is one of the best resources we have to maintain productivity and lower costs during both normal and challenging times.
However, it is critical that companies be proactive. It takes time to adopt and implement an RPA solution, to integrate it with existing systems and processes. Instead of waiting for tough times to rear their ugly head, it is important to capture the true value of RPA now. That way you can go about the implementation the right way, without the pressure of staff shortages and economic instability hanging over you.
Get Started Today
Tangentia is a Platinum Partner of IBM and well as partners with Automation Anywhere, UI Path, Blue Prism, Adobe, Microsoft, Salesforce, Amazon and leading enterprise software vendors. We work with customers globally with offices in Canada and India to implement their RPA strategies using an agile methodology.
Read Now
RPA and Bots Helping Organizations Maintain Operations and Protect Employees
RPA & Bots Helping Organizations Maintain Operations & Protect Employees
With the COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic that is spreading rapidly throughout an increasing number of countries, the impact to the economy is already being felt. The stock markets are in turmoil and the OECD reports that the global economy is at risk of dropping 2.4% in 2020. Yet, we are also seeing an unprecedented response from governments, companies and other organizations around the world.
As companies strive to protect employees, technology is playing an increasingly important role in the workplace. In particular, we are seeing the benefits of Robotic Process Automation (RPA) and bots in helping to protect employees and the general public in innovative ways.
The Role of RPA in Protecting Company Employees
Employee health is a major concern for companies during the COVID-19 pandemic. With weeks, possibly even months, of disruptions to normal work routines and many employees now working from home, many governments are requiring companies to track the health of their employees.
This requires taking each employee’s temperature, checking their travel history and having them fill out a short health survey each morning when they arrive at work.
This is a lot of data to go through on a daily basis, particularly for medium- and large-sized companies. To take current employees away from their regular work or hire new employees to go through this data is a massive drain on resources.
Fortunately, RPA is invaluable when it comes to the collection, organization and analysis of this data. The way RPA works is simple and can benefit localized companies and companies that have offices and teams spread around the globe.
RPA can automate the delivery and collection of the daily health questionnaire for each employee, track which employees have filled out the survey, send reminders to those who haven’t and analyze this information along with the daily temperature readings for each employee.
RPA can quickly and easily collect and analyze the data and organize it into daily reports that are delivered to all levels of management. This saves companies a lot of human hours that would be wasted on the tedious nature of sifting through employee health data and eliminate potential human error during data analysis.
The Role of RPA and Bots in Healthcare
With COVID-19 putting an increasing amount of stress on an already stressed healthcare system, human resources are going to be stretched thinner than ever. Fortunately, there is plenty of room for the automation of routine tasks in healthcare, which can help take the burden off staff during the COVID-19 outbreak and beyond.
Here are some important tasks that can be fully automated to ensure healthcare staff can focus on what really matters – the patients:
- Electronic bots will make it possible to streamline online scheduling by taking all the relevant information, compiling it into a report and forwarding it to the person responsible for making the appointment.
- RPA will improve the care cycle of all patients by organizing and analyzing all the relevant patient data to increase the chances of an accurate diagnosis. In all situations, including a COVID-19 scenario, this gives doctors more time to provide human care to their patients.
- RPA can streamline healthcare workflows, which means better management and coordination of individual cases and the overall care provided to patients. It also means an improved ability to provide remote monitoring of a patient, something that is of critical importance with so many COVID-19 patients in self-quarantine.
- RPA makes claims management easier for the healthcare provider by making is easier to input, process and evaluate the data and deal with any appeals that are made.
All of this automation reduces the occurrence of human error, while providing a personalized user experience for patients and increasing employee satisfaction in the workplace.
The Reality
The COVID-19 situation is changing daily and the long-term effects on how we live and work are uncertain in these early days. However, technology has been developed to the point at which it can provide tools to front line workers that will vastly improve our response to this novel infectious disease. This will ultimately help keep employees, as well as customers and the general public, safe in a variety of workplace settings.
Get Started Today
Tangentia is a Platinum Partner of IBM and well as partners with Automation Anywhere, UI Path, Blue Prism, Adobe, Microsoft, Salesforce, Amazon and leading enterprise software vendors. We work with customers globally with offices in Canada and India to implement their RPA strategies using an agile methodology.
Read Now
Tangentia Receives Prestigious 2019 Top 20 RPA Service Providers Award
Tangentia Receives Prestigious 2019 Top 20 RPA Service Providers Award
Tangentia is extremely proud to announce that their India team is the recipient of the 2019 Top 20 Robotic Process Automation (RPA) Service Providers award. This award is presented to companies that have a proven track record when it comes to the deployment and maintenance of RPA systems, making them a trusted service provider for companies that want to implement RPA in their business.
The CIO Review India editorial team, along with a panel of leading industry analysts, CEO’s and CIO’s took great care in researching all qualified candidates to determine which of them had enough industry experience and technical skill to warrant a spot in the top 20. The award comes at a critical time, as Ernst & Young reports that just 30% to 50% of RPA implementations succeed at improving the efficiency of a business’s overall processes.
“The entire global #TangentiaTeam is proud of what our colleagues in India have done and slowly but surely customers worldwide will know of Tangentia’s agile digital transformation solutions around Automation, B2B and Digital” says Vijay Thomas, Founder and CEO of Tangentia.
Tangentia would like to thank all our customers, partners and associates in India for helping us achieve this honor.
Get Started Today
RPA has been embraced by many sectors, such as medicine, hospitality, retail, & manufacturing. Now, the financial sector is gearing up for a shift in financial management that will see companies digitize and streamline financial processes. Read our latest blog on how financial companies and internal finance teams are looking to RPA to become more efficient in day to day operations.
Read Now
