The Covid 19 pandemic has created a huge impact on the global economy and has forced many organizations to halt their operations to minimize the impact on their workforce. This begets the question whether lesser dependency on the human workforce and higher level of intelligent process automation of mundane repeatable tasks could have mitigated this risk thus enabling businesses to stay afloat during these challenging times. With ever increasing adoption of automation and the widespread availability of requisite technical skills, the cost of deploying digital workers continues to become more affordable which is in turn raises the levels of automation.. Thus automation has become more relevant than ever and digital workers are going to make the workplace more productive and safer for their human counterparts. Consider how intelligent process automation in the areas of logistics, high volume transactions such as payments processing and claims processing can help human workers maintain social distancing and establish an effective but safe work environment.
What can we take away from this experience
This pandemic has its tight grip on the health and economics worldwide but here are few of the many positives that we can take away from this experience.
- Process Optimization and Digital transformation: – The drop in business activity has given us the time to critically review business processes and chalk a plan for digital transformation, including intelligent process automation and reducing the dependency on human workers for mundane tasks
- Location is no longer a constraint: – Home is the new office and businesses who have traditionally not accepted such a setup have started to realize the benefits and taken the Work from Home (WFM) route for their employees. Reduced Operational costs:- Implementing WFM brings in additional cost savings in the form of lesser office space rentals, reduced infrastructure support and operational costs
- Hit the ground running: – The new paradigm of delivering operational support from home offices means business continuity and new engagements can begin at very short notice.Hexaware has been able to transition most of its operations to home office within a week time ensuring no downtime to our customers
- Elevate the human worker : – Automation helps creating a culture of continuous learning, empowerment and elevates the human worker from a doer to a decision maker
Automation for Crisis Management
In times of such crisis created by the pandemic there are many use cases that need additional resources to handle the spike in demand and intelligent process automation provides the much needed bandwidth to organizations esp. from the Government, Insurance, Healthcare and Life Sciences industries.
- AI and Analytics :- Automated tracking and publishing of pandemic related metrics, analytics and reporting
- Supply Chain :- Increase in demand for medical supplies, test kits and medicines need smart and efficient supply chain
- Claims Processing:- Additional bandwidth required to handle increase in number of insurance claims requests
- Disbursement of Funds :- Governments are disbursing funds to affected parties to mitigate the challenges posed by the pandemic, a very high volume but short term demand
Why Intelligent Automation
Intelligent Automation is for anyone aiming to achieve any of the following:
Points to Ponder when you automate
- Who is responsible for delivering and supporting automation solutions – Business or IT? – Business users own the BOTs (automated solutions) while IT will enable the solution and support from the technology standpoint.
- How to achieve quick wins and show ROI? – Selecting the right processes which are manually intensive, highly repeatable and rule based yield good ROI
- What businesses are good candidates for intelligent automation solutions? – All business functions that does not need subjective decision making by a human are candidates for automation, typically Corporate shared service functions such as F&A, Quality, HR, Sales and Marketing etc. are great places to begin process automation
HiPAS™ – Intelligent Process Automation
Hexaware’s Intelligent Process Automation Services (HiPAS) is a strategic offering that drives digital transformation for our clients. We offer solutions across the entire lifecycle of automation deployment from advisory to development and maintenance.
An Academy for Digital workers is pivotal for a seamless automation journey. Digital workers have similar IT security policies and guidelines like that of their human counterparts. Thus, the aspect of maintaining and re-schooling your digital workforce is as crucial as automation advisory and deployment. Robust efficient BOTs with minimal human in the loop drives faster adoption and creating a culture of automation across the enterprise
Home is the new office
We have gone on the offensive with regard to handling the Covid-19 pandemic by being one of the first service providers to transition to providing Intelligent automation and comprehensive operations support from home office setups. Our teams are well prepared in these uncertain times and can go live within 15 business days.
Alternate development and operations centers in Mexico and Philippines provide surge capacity, improved operating model resiliency and about 15% cost take out.
- Mexico – A location not disrupted by COVID-19 and in the USA time zone with a technical qualified team to develop and deploy digital workers who can handle English / Spanish interactions
- Philippines – Alternate capacity with fully established work from home setup. In the post Covid-19 we can deliver from Hexaware offices in Philippines
Remote assessments and transition of work is enabled through our risk mitigated approach to transition using the TransX approach.
Final Thoughts
We will continue to keep track of the global impact of Covid-19 on the business of our customers worldwide and continue to deliver over and beyond our commitment. Hexaware is committed and poised to ‘weather this storm’, take care of our customers, our employees and together learn from the challenges that can permanently change the way we engage and work.
We are prepared to embrace the new normal with digital workers and the ability to leverage synergies from the newest technologies. Intelligent Process Automation, Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning and Analytics will work closely in tandem with human capital who will be responsible for more evolved tasks that need intelligent decision making in the post Covid-19 era.
