AIQoD :Articles by: Anil Nair
CategoriesAutomation Robotics
byAnil Nair

Robotic Process Automation (RPA) Myths Busted

Intelligent information management (IIM) Platfrom is being widely used by organizations in order to offload routine and repetitive tasks from employee to software bots. Though IIM is seeing widespread adoption in business verticals like Banking, Human Resources, IT, Resource Procurement, etc.; there are certain myths about Intelligent information management that needs to be debunked. Many organizations are ready to accept automation & IIM but are unable to take the decision to deploy IIM due to these myths. In this article, we have a look at the top nine myths about Intelligent information management.  

1. Physical Robots are involved in the ‘automation’

As IIM means Intelligent information management, it gives an indication that hardware robots are involved in the automation process. However, that understanding is completely wrong as there are no humanoid robots involved in IIM. On the other hand, IIM involves ‘software robots’ that are deployed on computers within the organization where you want the automation to be performed. IIM Platform consists of algorithms written/coded by IIM developers that are intended to automate mundane tasks. These tasks are labor intensive and have to be executed in a linear fashion; hence they are ideal to be executed by IIM platform. Let’s consider an example about ‘Processing Loan application of a customer’ – The customer submits varieties of documents that outline his employment status, salary details, credit score, details about other loans, etc. In a nutshell, there is a significant amount of paperwork that is submitted by the customer to the loan officer. In order to verify these documents, the loan officer would take a significant amount of time and since the process is manual, there are chances of an error being performed on behalf of the loan officer. Due to some error, if the loan officer rejects the loan application, it would result in loss of business. The customer might share his experience on social media channels which might cause significant damage to the brand image of the bank. The ideal way to avoid such kind of mishaps is by deploying IIM in banking systems. AIQoD, an Enterprise Intelligent information Management Platform has the most advanced AI bots that can ‘process data’ by using Handwriting Recognition, Optical Character Recognition (OCR), and other advanced technologies and report any discrepancy in the data. Those bots can also ‘capture’ the data from forms e.g. personal details about the customer like Name, Age, Address, etc. and match with relevant data about the customer from the back-end that might be stored in spreadsheets/databases. This makes the entire process seamless since there is no/minimal manual intervention involved in the entire activity. Once the loan application is approved, the IIM Platform can also update the details at the backend; thereby freeing up the resources in the bank for other business-critical activities.

2. Intelligent information Management ( IIM ) would take away the jobs of humans (as it involves automation)

When someone mentions about ‘automation’, the first thought that comes to mind is cost-cutting and job-cuts. The same misconception also holds true when there is a discussion on IIM. There are a number of frontline jobs in any organization that deals with data entry, customer support, IT, etc. and most of these jobs are ‘repetitive’ in nature and involve a number of business processes. Over a period of time, there is a significant fall in the productivity of any employee working in these departments since they tend to get bored with the same kind of work and are always on the lookout for other challenging roles within the organization. Take the case of a business development executive, along with pitching clients for business prospects; an executive working in ‘Business Development’ & ‘Sales’ department would also be involved in updating sales software, sending status reports to the management team, etc. These jobs could hamper their productivity since that is not their core-skills and they might be spending a significant amount of effort in compiling & sending reports. Intelligent information management platform can automate these boring front-line jobs, thereby reducing the load from these executives so that they can utilize their ‘core skills’ for the bringing business to the organization. They can utilize that free-time in order to hone their skills which can help them to moveup the ladder at their workplace. As far as the discussion about losing jobs to IIM is concerned, IIM will only replace humans in frontline jobs that are of linear approach and require less/no intelligence to complete the jobs. To cite some examples, IIM can be instrumental in automating invoice generation, customer service, validating the authenticity of forms [loan processing, account opening, etc.]. Adoption of IIM would result in the creation of ‘new jobs’ in existing areas like customer development/customer support, IT support, etc. and these new jobs could be a game-changer in these respective areas. As mentioned earlier, a majority of the resources working in these departments are highly de-motivated in their jobs and IIM simply opens the ‘gates’ for them, so that they can work on jobs that are important in this era of knowledge economy.

3. IIM is only about Automation & cost-cutting

How would you feel if you have to perform the same nature of the job in your office for your entire life? We are sure that you would be having a disgruntled feeling even when you imagine such a scenario. Cost-cutting is definitely attributed to automation, but that is definitely not one of the driving factors why organizations opt for Intelligent information management. Deployment of an IIM solution has a significant amount of impact on accelerating process-driven tasks, freeing up resources to take challenging roles, reduction of risks in business operations, achieving 100% error-free & business compliance across various departments (where IIM is deployed), etc. Unlike humans, robots are more productive & consistent when it comes to processing repetitive jobs. Irrespective of the size of the organization, there is always a push for achieving 100% compliance in business & process. One manner in which this task can be achieved is by looking at software logs which have detailed information about various activities being performed to execute the job. As IIM Platform are a piece of software that is installed in machines where you intend to automate tasks, they leave a good amount of footprint in the form of logs. These logs can be analyzed in cases where cases of non-compliance are reported within the organization. Apart from automation, these are some of the significant benefits that come along with an IIM deployment and these benefits have far-fetched benefits than ‘cost-cutting’.

4. IIM is not scalable and secure

IIM platform are ideal for automating repetitive tasks across sectors that involve technology and hence their usage is not limited to any particular domain. IIM is already gaining widespread adoption in the fields of banking, finance, retail, insurance, etc. hence; the virtual worker has access to huge amount of data about employees, vendors, clients, etc. To top it all, it also has access to confidential information like passwords, credit card numbers, inventory lists, etc. An organization cannot compromise on quality & security for the sake of improving the productivity of employees and reducing operating costs. Due to the nature of the information being accessed by IIM platform, the solution has multi-fold layers of security that address the concerns of ‘Data Security’ and ‘Access Security’. IIM platform have a role-based security mechanism to address the problem of ‘Data Security’. It segregates the access to data based on the role that is assigned to a member in the IIM  team (Member is a person with whose credentials theIIM platformwould be executed). This hierarchical approach ensures that members have ‘access to information’ according to the roles assigned to them. For example, a user having limited access rights would not be in a position to access critical information and if a fraudulent attempt is made, that activity is captured in the logs. So, how does one assign roles in an IIM system? The solution is Active Directory Integration where the centralizing team (similar to a Superuser in Linux) can assign roles to team members. This ‘role-based approach’ helps in tracking fraudulent activities in the system. Along with security, Active Directory Integration also enhances business efficiency. These two approaches are used to minimize security threats within the organization. For minimizing external security threats,IIM platform are equipped with high-level encryption. IIM Platform are highly scalable and one of the primary reasons for its increasing demand.IIM workforce comprises of Bots that can be deployed whenever there is high workload. Since IIM Platform, you can expect consistency in the performance. An organization can achieve all these benefits, at minimal cost as IIM Platform can be deployed very quickly. IIM Platform are highly scalable and can be used to its efficiency, irrespective of whether it is deployed by an SMB or a large-scale organization.  

5. Need to have programming knowledge or specialized skills to handle the IIM Platform

This can be considered as one of the biggest myths about IIM. Sure, IIM is a tech-based platform to automate ‘mundane tasks’, but it does require minimal user intervention to initiate the execution of those tasks. Once the team members are trained on using the IIM platform, they have to just follow the necessary steps to ensure that the IIM Platform performs their job. There could be a task where invoices are scanned by the IIM Platform, necessary details are extracted from the invoices, and the back-end vendor database is ‘updated’ with those entries. If the vendor invoices are stored at the specified location either on local-storage/file-server, the IIM would then do the needful. Your team members who are handling the IIM platform need not have any ‘programming skills’, though it is suggested to assign people with an inclination towards ‘scripting languages’ for critical IIM modules. These members can be instrumental in training other team members as they have flair for programming.

6. IT infrastructure cost is more to deploy Intelligent information Management(IIM)

Depending on the scale at which IIM Platform is deployed, there would be initial implementation & deployment costs to keep the IIM up & running. This can be setting up virtual machines where the jobs are executed or procuring a new IT infrastructure to get the best of IIM Though there are costs involved in setting up the IT infrastructure for the purpose of IIM, it is comparably low when compared to the costs for enterprise software implementation. It is a myth that setting up IT infrastructure for IIM solution is costly and this is proven when organizations have a look at the Return On Investment (ROI) involved in IIM deployment & implementation.  

7. IIM is only used to digitize your processes

As we have mentioned earlier,IIM Platform can be used with high efficiency when it is applied to automate jobs that are based on certain rules and require minimal/no human intervention. Though IIM  have features like Optical Character Recognition, Handwriting Recognition, etc.; they have the capability to interact with backend systems like Databases, ERP systems. Majority of these tasks are related to data entry, data extraction, and data updation. Hence, IIM solutions go well beyond the digitization of processes and there would be more promising use cases in case IIM is able to handle unstructured activities.  

8. Implementation of RPA will disturb existing IT systems

Though the IT department is involved in setting up the infrastructure required to execute the IIM solution, they do not perform the job in a silo. They interact with multiple departments, particularly the business units since IIM has a positive impact on the business operations of the organization. In order to adhere to the highest level of security, the IT team assigns specific members for different IIM roles based on their experience & expertise. IIM implementations follow a ‘light structure’ hence IIM Platform are also suited for organizations that have distributed or legacy IT systems. Many organizations still follow old rules for IT operations and they are hesitant to change those rules due to high cost and operational impact associated with the change. Most of the use cases where IIM is applicable, the IIM platform co-work with different software modules (for ERP, database, report generation, etc.) hence, IIM work efficiently even when they have to communicate with different IT systems. Whether your organization follows an age-old legacy IT principles or whether it has a robust IT infrastructure; Intelligent information management works perfectly fine in both the scenarios.
CategoriesMonotonous activities
byAnil Nair

Monotonous activities in Banking/Finance segment where RPA can be utilized

There has been a major push on how organizations and countries can thrive by focusing on building a ‘knowledge economy’ and this is where digital technologies are playing a vital role in making this dream a possibility. Each and every sector, be it manufacturing, banking, retail, etc. is going through a digital transformation, to reduce the overhead costs and engage their employees in jobs that can go beyond normal ‘mundane tasks’. Technologies like Machine Learning, Artificial Intelligence, Image & Speech recognition, etc. are being used across different business verticals to cater to changing customer’s demands, reduce manual intervention by automation of tasks; thereby improving the overall operational efficiency.

‘Banking’ is one industry which is undergoing a significant amount of transformation at a rapid pace due to cut-throat competition from other traditional banks and fintech companies that offer financial services using technology. So how can traditional banks stay ‘relevant’ and meet the rising customer demands? Intelligent Information management is one mechanism through which banks can reduce costs and improve human efficiency by getting the Intelligent information management to execute mundane & repetitive tasks. According to the Harvard Business Review (HBR), human error costs almost $3 trillion per year in the US alone. Banks have to deal with a humongous amount of data every day and by using Intelligent information Mnagement, they can minimize errors. By embracing Intelligent information management, banks can engage their employees with tasks which are more challenging & interesting, helping them stay ahead of the knowledge curve. Let’s take a look at across ‘processes’ where Intelligent information management can be used in a traditional financial institution without compromising the compliance and security norms of the institution.

KYC Process & Customer on-boarding

Know Your Customer (KYC) is an important compliance process for on-boarding a customer and any delay in that process can result in an average customer experience. As per a report by Thomson Reuters [Reference], some financial institutions spend close to $500 million on KYC and customer due-diligence. By using AI, Image Recognition, Cognitive Computing with intelligent information management, banks can speed up the on-boarding process by a huge margin, reduce the errors involved due to human intervention, screen & validate customer information.

Customer Service

In today’s highly connected world, one bad experience with the customer service can spread like wildfire and can result in creating significant damage to your brand. Imagine a scenario where you have called up the customer service department of a bank for reporting a serious issue with your account, but you have to wait for minutes to get your issue resolved? It is bound to make the customer frustrated and possibility is that the customer might look for other banks that offer better service.

Banks deal with multiple queries that range from bank accounts, financial services, loans, mortgage, etc. and the customer service department can function to its maximum potential only if they are aware of their priorities. intelligent information management can be instrumental in answering ‘customer queries’ that are linear in manner and do not require any human intervention. This not only speeds up the resolution process but also helps the customer service team to focus on high-priority issues

Back-Office Operations

In order to stay relevant & competitive, Banks are enhancing their customer-facing or front-end operations. However, there are too many processes that still require manual intervention and hence are prone to errors. There exists a huge scope for optimizing the back-office or back-end department, where intelligent information management can be used for transformation of the back-end department responsible for accounting, compliance, etc.

Bank reconciliation and report generation are some of the back-office tasks that can be automated by using AIQoD`s Enterprise intelligent information management platform. We have already deployed the AIQoD solution in a couple of banks in India and the output of the back-office team has significantly improved after the deployment.

Fraud Detection

Digital Banking is growing at a rapid pace and as per a report, close to 3 billion users would access financial services on either smartphone/tablet/wearable [Reference]. Along with the meteoric rise of digital banking, there has been a significant increase in the number of financial frauds. Banks have to be proactive and fast to alert the customer/concerned department in case they observe any suspicious activity in his/her account, that speed & scale can only be achieved by automation.

AI and Intelligent information management will check several databases in order to check suspicious activity in customer’s account and report the same to the ‘Fraud Detection/Prevention Department’. Intelligent information management Platform analyze customer’s transaction patterns and many other data points in order to predict the spurious/suspicious activity. Signature matching feature in AIQoD platform uses Artificial Intelligence (AI), Machine Learning (ML) and Image Processing for fraud-detection, as well as minimizing the error scenarios encountered in the signature verification process.

Loan Processing

  Customer looking out for any kind of loan, be it personal loan/vehicle loan/home loan has to submit tons of documents like loan Application form, Income proof, Property Documents, Credit Check report, etc. Any kind of manual error on the bank’s side can result in slowing the loan application which might give the customer an opportunity to apply for a loan with a competitor bank. Intelligent information management can be used to automate many tasks involved in loan processing, thereby reducing costs, speeding up the process and minimize the mistakes encountered in processing a loan application  

At AIQoDs, we constantly strive on how our intelligent information management can be used to accelerate the loan application process. Enterprise IIM platform from AIQoD can be used for auto-filling of the loan application forms. Back-office staff need not enter any customer details ‘manually’; instead the Bot would be doing that tedious activity. Our product also does the following

  • Workflow Automation of Document collection, Credit score & Background check validation, and approval
  • Notification about the result to the respective stakeholders.

By doing so, back-office resources can be better utilized for other business-critical activities and automated configuration of approval process results in faster loan processing. It is a win-win situation for the bank, the back-office staff, and its customers.

 

End-Of-Day Closing Process

  End-Of-Day closing in a bank refers to the process where the banking staff has to record the collection of cash, checks, as well as credit card payments. Banks could perform the end-of-day processing either once at the end of the day or at regular intervals (in a day) based on their requirements. Most of these tasks are repetitive but have to be performed with precision, as any human error in the calculation has huge financial implications.

AIQoD’s Enterprise IIM platform can be used for automation of the end-of-day jobs at scheduled intervals, sending out alerts to the concerned personnel and generating end-of-day reports by fetching information from multiple databases. Since there is no human intervention, there are minimal chances of an error being encountered in the process.  

There are many other areas like credit card processing, mortgage loans, ledger updation, etc. where Intelligent information management can play a role in maximizing efficiency by minimizing costs.

AIQoDs team has gained a significant amount of expertise in the banking domain and our Enterprise Intelligent information management platform has the most advanced AI-powered bots. These bots can be utilized by small scale and large scale banks in order to reduce the overhead costs, improve the efficiency of their staff and creating a ‘delightful or WoW’ experience for their customers!