Monthly Tangentia Byte
May 2020
Meeting the demands of your customers & supply chain
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Automation. It’s that one word that every industry is starting to become familiar with. The idea
of an autonomous system is quickly becoming the norm in many industries—the insurance industry included.
Insurance companies stand to gain a lot from implementing automation into their workflows.While this traditional industry is often cautious, procedural, and afraid of change. Having access to an innovative technology that can greatly optimize labor-intensive processes is essential for insurance companies looking to maintain market dominance.
The COVID-19 pandemic has demonstrated the need for digitization and the implementation of new technology. Companies have been forced to think and act differently. And in the insurance industry, this has meant embracing change.
There are several use cases on how RPA can transform the way an insurance business functions.
Here are just a few of the main benefits that an RPA solution can offer an insurance company.
1. Claims: Insurance companies are flooded with claims. Some companies say claims have tripled. This has led to increased pressure on the assessor, delayed processing, and decreased customer satisfaction. RPA can add value to this process. Bots can read documents, access different systems, update records, and provide claim decisions. Not ready to give that much control to a bot? You can implement a hybrid system that lets your bots do the heavy lifting and leaves the decision-making to humans.
2. Underwriting: With changing lifestyles, the approach to underwriting needs to change.Underwriting isn’t a one-size-fits-all scenario. RPA can move a majority of the underwriting to Straight-Through-Processing. This will enable underwriters to focus and underwrite critical cases, analyse trends, and more.
3. Customer On-boarding: Building a digital front with access to both the customer and the sales agent where the bot reviews the information and completes the back-end processing is vital to simplifying the on-boarding process.
4. Policy Administration and Servicing: A bot can calculate changes to premium and send reminders to customers to pay outstanding premiums. A chat-bot can also answer questions related to policy status, renewals, and provide other relevant information with 24/7 service.
5. Reconciliations: RPA can assist in quickly matching premium amounts to the policy, allowing your employees to focus on exceptions.
6. Finance: Finance automation is one of the first places most companies implement an RPA solution. There are countless use cases for automating invoices, payroll, expenses, and other finance tasks.
7. Policy Cancellations: Bots can calculate the payout amounts and update records across systems far quicker than a human can.
8. Fraud Identification: Cognitive RPA can quickly analyse transactions and provide alerts or handle suspicious claims.
1. Error free processing of transactions
2. Increase in efficiency, faster processing of transactions and accurate data entry
3. Change management is easy and quick
4. Easy implementation with storefront BOTs
5. Can integrate with legacy systems
The biggest benefit of RPA is that it allows employees to focus on their core tasks, leaving the
bot to take care of the administrative and transactional aspects of a transaction.
Almost every business has had to transition to a digital model overnight. Employees are now
working from home and sales teams cannot meet their customers. Companies need to transform how they deliver exceptional customer experiences and improve internal operations.
Digital processing through an RPA solution is one of the easiest ways to achieve this.Implementing an RPA solution will improve your operational efficiency, customer experience,and so much more.
Get in touch with us today to learn how RPA can transform the way you approach your core workflows.
Watch our on-demand webinar to learn how financial institutions can quickly and easily implement RPA today with Tangentia and Automation Anywhere.
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.
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The closure of non-essential businesses and physical distancing mandates across the globe from COVID-19 has revealed an important challenge for organizations needing to quickly adopt a remote worker strategy. Over the course of a month businesses have had to quickly mobilize their in-office workforce with the tools they needed to work from home, while maintaining security and compliance. As leaders and internal teams were busy focusing on the “how” we also needed to pay close attention to our most critical asset – the people.
When it comes to your company’s supply chain, one of the most common weak links is inventory management. There are very few businesses that handle their inventory management well. Typically, retail businesses face problems scaling up their inventory management systems as they grow.
As your business grows, efficient inventory practices become more and more worth investing in. Retail companies with poor inventory management can suffer from stock issues, slowed turnover times, and needing to order excess inventory to prevent running out of stock. Slow delivery and stock issues are a sure way to reduce customer satisfaction, so keeping these issues at a minimum is important.
How can retail companies improve their stock management and inventory processes? For most businesses, the answer is automation. Most inventory management issues stem from human error, inefficient practices, and incomplete item information. Automation resolves all these issues. It is intrinsically efficient and requires complete item information, and eliminates human error.
So, how can your business get started with inventory automation? The process isn’t as difficult as you might think. Just-in-Time Inventory (JIT), Electronic Data Interchange (EDI), and Robotic Process Automation (RPA) are a few strategies that you can utilize onto your supply chain to be well on the way to an optimized system.
JIT inventory is a way to decrease waste and increase the efficiency of your supply chain. With JIT, your supply chain only receives goods as they become needed.
JIT keeps your business at maximum efficiency. By having goods on hand only when they’re needed, you can keep your supply chain operating smoothly without needing to worry about long-term storage of stock.
Maintaining JIT inventory reduces the amount of waste your supply chain produces from leftover, unused goods. It also keeps the investment into your supply low, as you don’t need to stock more goods than you need.
While JIT keeps your business on top of its efficiency when supply is readily available, it can cause your business to suffer greatly from issues farther down the line of the supply chain.
Since you don’t keep a stockpile of the goods your supply chain uses, if they suddenly become scarce or expensive, your business might unexpectedly run out of stock. You might also end up needing to buy overpriced stock.
In general, Electronic Data Interchange is simply the technical term for two computers communicating with each other. In the context of the supply chain, EDI is a way to get a full digital picture of your electronic transaction exchanges with your customers, as well as your inventory.
Many supply chain issues, such as inventory shortages and surpluses, happen because of a lack of inventory visibility. EDI allows you to keep track of all your inventory in one centralized location, making it easy to track and prevent inventory errors.
With EDI, it’s also much easier to manage more complex inventory processes, such as multichannel sales. The more complicated the process, the more likely it is for human error to occur.
Having a guarantee that all of the information about your inventory is accurate allows you to make supply decisions with the big picture in mind. Overall, EDI improves almost all aspects of the inventory management process.
EDI can be hard to adjust for your supply chain to work around, especially if it is a legacy EDI system that is in place. This is especially the case for rapidly growing businesses, which don’t usually have particularly well-optimized supply chains.
If your inventory isn’t well-suited to EDI, it can take some work to get full value out of the EDI system. You may need to overhaul some of your inventory processes altogether.
RPA is a way to increase the efficiency of your inventory management by replacing human operators with various digital systems. With an RPA system, the computer essentially uses itself by means of a virtual operator, called an RPA robot.
RPA robots have a wide array of functionalities and are able to completely replace human users for many applications. They can perform tasks such as moving and collecting data from various sources, as well as process data by performing calculations.
RPA can allow for quite a lot of inventory management automation, sometimes up to 90%. In general, processes that can be automated should be, as humans are almost always slower than an RPA robot. RPA robots can drastically increase the efficiency of your inventory management processes.
Like EDI, RPA removes the human element from many processes. In particular, RPA robots can handle data entry, data processing, and other repetitive tasks easily, with a 0% rate of error. This gives them a sizable advantage over humans, who are unable to focus on these tasks for as long.
RPA systems can also keep running overnight, giving them yet another advantage over human operators. Overall, RPA is almost guaranteed to provide a large boost to your business’s supply chain efficiency.
Like EDI, a proper RPA system is not trivial to implement. Rolling out an RPA project into your business’s inventory management or production environments actually has a good chance of failing at first. After some troubleshooting, you will likely start getting full value out of the RPA system.
Automation is a great way to increase efficiency and eliminate errors within your inventory management process. It can’t do the job on its own, though: if you want to optimize your inventory management, you should use a combination of JIT, EDI, and RPA.
On their own, these three methods of optimizing your inventory are sure to increase your efficiency significantly. When put together, though, they are more than the sum of their parts.
The biggest weakness of JIT is that it’s prone to human error. Improper data entry can result in an unexpected stock outage of your product. EDI and RPA prevent this by removing the capacity for human error in the majority of the inventory management operation.
On the other hand, EDI and RPA can suffer from bottlenecks. It doesn’t matter how efficient your data processing is if your business is bogged down by extra costs relating to storage or other inefficiencies. JIT helps alleviate this bottleneck by increasing the efficiency of your business outside of data processing.
While JIT, EDI, and RPA are tools that are best used together, they can be used individually to great effect. You should make sure you’re on the lookout for the potential issues with using these tools.
So as long as you build your inventory management process around the tools you’re using—you should be able to work around JIT, EDI, and RPA’s various weaknesses. Overall though, we recommend trying to implement all three inventory management tools, as they work best in tandem.
If your business has been growing and you’re having trouble handling demand for your products, the solution may not be to expand and spend more. Oftentimes, it’s much more budget-friendly and effective to invest in ways to improve your efficiency than expand your flawed, existing system.
When it comes to improving the efficiency of your supply chain, the best way is with automation. JIT, EDI, and RPA are all easy-to-implement forms of automation that are designed to provide you with a quick return on investment. Once you have these systems in place, you’ll find that your inventory management model is much more scalable.
If you’re interested in learning more about JIT, EDI, or RPA, feel free to contact us today to find out how these tools can help your business be the best it can be.
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.
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Robotic Process Automation (RPA) is becoming increasingly popular in many industries. PwC conducted a survey of the financial industry in which 98% of the respondents said they believe RPA implementation is “important, very important, or extremely important.”
The reason for this overwhelming support for RPA is simple. The use of RPA to automate many of the repetitive tasks that use up too much in terms of human and financial resources is helping companies lower their overhead costs, increase productivity, and streamline their operations.
However, with the increasing use of RPA, it can be overwhelming when trying to choose the right RPA partner for you. Yet, choosing the right partner is critical to the success of your business. With this in mind, here are the five things to consider when choosing an RPA partner for your organization:
The very first thing you need to do is take a close look at the RPA partner candidate’s automation portfolio that shows what they have to offer. This portfolio of offerings, including their methodology, the support they provide and the commercial model they use, is critical to your RPA success. You also want to know things such as:
You want to be sure that the RPA partner you choose will be able to provide you with the very best tools to ensure robust automation delivery capabilities. This means that RPA partner will, in turn, rely on partnerships with RPA product companies, such as Jiffy.ai, ABBY FlexiCapture, BluePrism, Automation Anywhere, UI Path, and winautomation. These products should provide things like:
This should all be offered for a competitive price and come with full technical support. In addition, your RPA partner should be fully certified to deliver RPA solutions and experienced in implementing those solutions in your industry.
In 2020 scalability will be a big focus area for organizations, when it comes time to choosing an RPA partner. Ensuring the RPA platform you select is fully scalable and will meet the needs of your business as they change will help maximize the benefits and long-term ROI. This means that you will be able to use the bots across multiple processes, regardless of variations in process volumes, and have a solution that works as your business grows.
Be sure your RPA partner has a level of process oversight that will meet regulatory compliance and ensure the protection of all data. This includes saving data and information related to automated workflows in an activity log that provides a clear record of all data flow and transactions, ensuring you are prepared for any internal or external audits that may be conducted.
Look at the RPA partner’s track record and clientele. It is important that you can see they have a proven automation blueprint that has successfully worked for other organizations, particularly those in your industry or sector. Take a look at who their customers are and pay attention to ratings and reviews of their products, so you can get a good feel for the success of their automation solution.
Ultimately, when you are looking for an RPA partner, you need to be sure that their expertise and capabilities meet your specific needs. Tangentia has the proven track record, the tools, and the innovative spirit to help you get your RPA off the ground.
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.
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If this pandemic has taught us all one thing, it is that the future is uncertain. And though there may be business disruptions, life and business must continue. This pandemic has also laid bare the unpreparedness of large industries and companies who have invested heavily in Information Technology, but the processes are still
largely manual.
And this has definitely affected customer experience and satisfaction . If we were to conduct a survey today, we would realize that customer experience is negatively affected. The reasons for customer dissatisfaction are mainly delay in response time, inadequate information and non-transparency. If RPA was deeply entrenched in the system, it would have enabled Banks and other financial service institutions to respond quickly and more efficiently to this new normal.
There are a few use cases for RPA in Banks. But these have so far been restricted to fraud detection and customer service to name a few. Some of the areas where RPA can provide immediate benefit can be as follows:
These are only a few areas where RPA can be integrated into the Bank’s processes.
a) The biggest benefit is that the employees can focus on their core competencies and leave mundane, repetitive tasks to the BOTs
b) RPA with a mix of Machine Learning can increase efficiency and accuracy in transactions and data entry
c) Implementation is quick due to availability of storefront like BOTs
d) RPA integrates with existing frameworks and systems and does not require a change in infrastructure
e) Change Management is easy and there are use cases where changes have been done in a matter of days
Banks are often looked at by governments as vehicles to add stability to the economy. This is also reflected in the large workforce most Banks carry. One of the biggest fears people have is that building a digital workforce will eliminate the need for a physical workforce.
That is not entirely true. The employees will instead be used for their core competencies. Employees will provide oversight, handle exceptions and take judgement calls based on experience. The goal of RPA is to improve operational
efficiency and not eliminate workforce.
So while a few Bank may have deployed chat-bots, the uptake has so far been slow. But now is the time when the banking industry must invest and build a digital workforce. It will not only improve efficiency and accuracy but also strengthen our defenses and readiness for the next disruption.
Watch our on-demand webinar to learn how financial institutions can quickly and easily implement RPA today with Tangentia and Automation Anywhere.
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.
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Everyone’s heard about Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) systems by now. But seamlessly integrating EDI data into an Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) system is one area where many companies struggle. It’s important that these two systems communicate flawlessly to minimize processing times, eliminate errors, and avoid compliance issues.
Many companies rely on EDI systems that they struggle to maintain as they start to transition into the era of cloud technology. Most of them are legacy EDI systems that have been patched along over the decades, and trying to make them compatible with modern ERP systems is often a challenge.
So, how can you ensure that your EDI data is compatible with your ERP system? Let’s start by assessing the types of problems that most companies face when trying to integrate their EDI data with their ERP.
Let’s face it—incorporating your EDI data into your ERP system isn’t an easy task. Here are a few of the most common problems you’ll encounter:
Every organization is unique, and the challenges you face may be different. Still, your main focus should always be on maintaining the integrity and accessibility of the data that is essential to your business and your customers.
Several options exist when it comes to integrating your EDI data into an ERP system. The most popular options include:
Some companies use a Third-Party EDI Integration Plugin that acts as a bridge between their EDI and ERP systems. While this may prove successful for your organization, the cost associated with this option is typically high.
Third party EDI service providers not only ensure your EDI compliance with your trading partners’ EDI requirements, but they also typically offer ready-to-use integration modules for most ERPs. Many companies rely on Third Party EDI Service Providers to fully manage their overall EDI infrastructure, freeing them from costly in-house management and maintenance of these systems.
The more modern ERP, WMS and eCommerce platforms have started to embrace web services/API integration to allow their applications to seamlessly communicate with other applications. EDI data can be incorporated into your ERP by utilizing APIs.
Flat files are known as text database files. They are the most basic form of EDI data available. This method uses simple text files called flat-files (or CSV) to ensure data is compatible with the majority of ERP systems. Other EDI systems may use the XML format. These two file formats are the global standard in EDI and are highly-integratable with other ERP solutions.
Integrating your EDI data into an ERP system is a major process that every organization that handles huge amounts of data should consider. Tangentia specializes in fully integrated EDI solutions, and can help your company successfully build the bridge between your EDI, ERP, WMS, eCommerce and other business applications.
Tangentia has decades of experience working with EDI systems, and we understand exactly what it takes to build an automated system that is flexible, compliant, and functional while being cost-effective.
Get in touch with a member of the Tangentia team today to see how we can automate your EDI data flow between your existing business applications.
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
The closure of non-essential businesses and physical distancing mandates across the globe from COVID-19 has revealed an important challenge for organizations needing to quickly adopt a remote worker strategy. Over the course of a month businesses have had to quickly mobilize their in-office workforce with the tools they needed to work from home, while maintaining security and compliance. As leaders and internal teams were busy focusing on the “how” we also needed to pay close attention to our most critical asset – the people.
Organizations needed to ensure the mental well-being of its employees as they experience a major shift in their daily routines. Helping them stay engaged and motivated to ensure productivity and operational efficiencies, as best as possible. The unfortunate truth after a few weeks many remote employees started to feel the burden of isolation and missing the lack of in-person collaboration with their colleagues.
At Tangentia our team was already experienced in collaborating and working remotely with offices in both Canada and India and employees working onsite in Saudi Arabia and different parts of Canada but we realized we needed to do more. So we introduced a Remote Employee Engagement Program to tackle low morale and ensure everyone felt connected.
One initiative we launched is called –“Tangentia Talkies”
Tangentia Talkies is a daily session conducted on Google Hangout, which is presented by an employee for a short duration (10-15 minutes) with a Q&A period at the end. The format resembles a “talk show host” experience, which can be derived from the name itself (Tangentia Talkies). It begins with a theme song and continues with a presentation from the speaker. Once the presentation is over, the final credits are rolled, and everyone applauds the speaker and the listeners for their active participation in contributing to our collaborative culture.
The topic presented could be anything under the sun! The presenter could choose to educate the team on a topic they are passionate about, spread awareness for a cause or share a hidden talent with the team!
Some of the topics that have already been shared by the Tangentia team are Trust in the Digital Era which was presented by Rajhans Gupta(Sales Manager) wherein he spoke about the importance of trust and the effect it has on brands, ratings and protocols. The five main elements of trust and how companies can work on building trust among their consumers. Malav Kansara, Manager- Staffing presented on the “importance of Mental Health”. He presented a topic which is still considered a taboo with sensitivity and flair. He encouraged everyone to normalize this topic and seek help, if needed. You go to a doctor when you feel ill physically, the mind is no different- it also needs a specialist to heal.Priyanka Phadte, a trainee from the RPA vertical presented on “Parable” and encouraged everyone to think outside the box wherein the possibilities are infinite.She used animation in her presentation and showcased the different skills that she possessed. An otherwise shy and soft spoken- Shweta Kandri presented on the “Mystery called Dreams”. She explained a few famous theories on dreams like the Freudian Theory and the Modern theory and gave us a few interesting facts on dreams too.
The goal of the activity is to encourage open communication, maintain daily interaction with the team and eliminate the feeling of isolation – even if it’s for a short time.
The format resembles a “talk show host” experience, which can be derived from the name itself (Tangentia Talkies). It begins with a theme song and continues with a presentation from the speaker. Once the presentation is over, the final credits are rolled, after the HR department applauds the speaker and the listeners for their active participation in building our collaborative culture.
For businesses navigating these times of uncertainty the highest priority is often maintaining relationships and project success, but at Tangentia we work hard to find the balance between partners, projects and our people. We utilize collaboration tools such as Google Hangouts, Chat, WhatsApp and our phones to maintain open communication with our team.
We hope by sharing what we are doing at Tangentia during COVID-19, that it inspires other companies to implement similar programs, afterall we are all in this together.
#StayHome #FlattentheCurve
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.
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Compliance is a big issue for many companies, especially with the coming of the GDPR, SOX compliance, HIPAA, and more. Whether a company handles sensitive data or needs to meet strict regulations, maintaining compliance is a company-wide effort.
People often ask me whether robotic process automation (RPA) is a compliance-friendly solution. Perhaps they watched too many movies where robots become sentient and overthrow their human masters.
The simple answer is that RPA is one of the most compliance-friendly automation solutions on the market.
What makes RPA a compliance dream? Robots are programmed to perform specific tasks and nothing else.
Yes, we may one day see the rise of self-taught AI that can teach other AI, but that technology is many years away.
RPA solutions simply don’t go rogue. Their programming doesn’t support these kinds of actions. Instead, they focus on specific tasks. Bots will not share passwords—they won’t send emails in error or download potentially dangerous files. With the majority of bots the data is encrypted at rest as well as in flight so the bot never actually has access to the data they are interacting with.
The reality is that a company’s employees are far more likely to make compliance mistakes. This is why bots are far better to have in your IT infrastructure. Companies looking to build compliance systems should see bots as both a form of efficiency and security.
A company’s ability to maintain compliance is important for a variety of reasons. While legal fines are unfavorable, a complete erosion of customer trust is even more dangerous for a company.
According to Deloitte, “several aspects of compliance oversight operations can be enhanced through RPA implementation.”
But what advantages does RPA provide beyond eliminating simple human error? Based on my experience, here are a few of the main ones:
Competitive companies are already embracing RPA for the many advantages it has to offer. It’s clear automation will play a major role in the coming decades as companies look to improve their efficiency and build scalable systems that are aligned for growth.
While compliance is an important topic that companies should think about, RPA shouldn’t be seen as a problem. If anything, it’s the ideal solution to a problem that’s plagued companies for decades.
Where else can you find a repeatable solution that generates the same quality of results every time? From a compliance standpoint, bots are the way to go. As AI and machine learning continue to evolve, their capabilities will only grow.
Companies looking to improve their ability to maintain compliance, as well as their business operations, should see RPA as a logical solution.
Are you interested in learning more about RPA and how it can help your company stay compliant in the digital age? Get in touch with Tangentia, the leader in RPA solutions with local offices in Canada, America and India.
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.
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