Fresh from a successful call-centre automation project at one of the largest insurers in South Africa, we leading the pack in helping clients realise how a blended digital and human workforce can help them boost efficiency and productivity in their enterprises.
With low growth and rising debt, the SA economy is flat, albeit improving. This challenging market will be even more competitive with the arrival of new ventures that are fully digitised from the get-go. Big banks and insurers are all implementing Robotics Process Automation (RPA), mostly at scale. Software robotics will soon be ubiquitous. AI and robotics will catapult organisations into the 4th Industrial Revolution. The World Economic Forum has stated that in South Africa, over 41% of work activities are susceptible to automation.
RPA is the use of software that mimics human interaction with core systems, as well as web and desktop applications to execute processes. RPA is an effective cost and time enabler, complementing any digital transformation journey to streamline business processes, achieve profitability and maintain a competitive advantage. It is a non-invasive technology that can be laid over existing systems and integrated with existing data, minimizing disruption to existing IT strategy and architecture. RPA technology can begin with simple rules-based tasks, and scale to more sophisticated algorithms and machine-learning functions as the organisation matures.
Automation can be transformational in highly regulated industries, by answering the significant demand for security, data quality, and operational resilience. As technology gets more and more complicated and sophisticated, Intelligent Automation (IA) becomes the key for delivering new and innovative business solutions.
Some of the strategic benefits of RPA include:
- An increase in operational agility
- Enables speed of innovation
- Improves the customer experience
- Improves compliance and eases the regulatory burden
- Transforms the operating model
Organisations should think beyond the tactical benefits of ‘Cheaper, Faster & Better’, to deliver strategic advantage. The main aim with RPA is ‘to take the robot out of the human’ in order for the human workforce to focus on more high-value tasks. iOCO enables a true step change in productivity by assisting companies to fully consider how they resource their businesses and make a move to a more virtual workforce.
The bots are here – it’s time to embrace them!