Automotive companies are becoming more Digital. Continue the Journey with Automation
Another lockdown…. but does it give us time to look at other things? Here we are again. Heading into another lockdown, hopefully only for 1 month (but potentially longer).The Digital Automotive Journey, A lot of organisations have had to put business on ice again which brings many challenges. During the last lockdown, after the initial impact, some companies were able to pivot and spend the “spare” time on improving the running of the business. This time around, the lockdown is still severe but there has been slightly more flexibility built in to allow some companies to keep trading and working. The Digital Automotive Journey is one of those. Centelli works with different customers in the sector who have either started or continued their journeys with UiPath’s Robotic Process Automation tool. In order to thrive in this new environment, automotive companies have to work smarter. They must focus their staff on engaging the customer and creating a truly differentiated experience. The best way to achieve that is by handing over repetitive, administrative tasks to a Digital Worker. Digital workers can work across different applications without needing RPA Solutions for the Automotive Sector Centelli works with Dealerships, Leasing companies & Vehicle Remarketing firms automating processes across the business. This ranges from pricing analysis to managing vehicle inventory to carrying out administrative tasks that must be done but the customer will not care the effort involved. The goals range from anything to saving time on administrative tasks, improving the job satisfaction of the staff, or sheerly growing the bottom line. We’ll leave those up to you.
Turbulence and Calm in the Hospitality Industry
It’s never been so turbulent in the hospitality industry; in fact the winds have got to storm force! Where sometimes it all feels more like hostility rather than hospitality… Cancellations, refunds, amendments, bookings re-made then cancelled, credit notes and vouchers are the current norm. We talk to people in the industry who have upwards of 10,000 guest/membership emails (and growing) unanswered waiting for a response…and then to have to process them. With delay more emails are received pursuing the course of action originally requested…and it begins, a vicious circle. With back office functions now operating remotely or temporarily back on-site it is difficult to get back to processing levels of the past, never mind take up the increased workload. Employers are seeing stress levels rising within members of their teams who are relentlessly pursuing the ability to get stuff done, in less than ideal working conditions, bulk processing transactions, out of sight of the business. But there are some cool heads out there… We are talking to enlightened leadership teams who have managed to take a step back and revaluate what needs to be done. Obviously looking at immediate solutions, as well as re-evaluating the future. One thing is for sure, as things have changed and moved forward, they are never going back to where they were…but where to look to start freeing up the time and capacity of the workforce? The hospitality Industry is increasingly looking at the use of software robots, or Robotic Process Automation (RPA) to augment and takeover a whole range of processing and transactional tasks. With this technology it’s possible to spin up a robot in a few weeks to create a “Digital Worker” who will automate a process. You can have this technology supporting you getting over an immediate hump, heartily eating away at a catastrophic email inbox, calming the storm! A Digital Worker will work 24/7 and not require any vacation, concentrating on the task in hand. The time saved and the efficiencies gained releases you and your teams to start to look at the longer term. We know that the industry is adopting RPA more widely for the long term. It is now a well-established technology, knitting together disparate systems and taking care of routine process tasks and transactions. Anything a human can do on a computer screen, your Digital Worker can do as well. With the rise of remote home working it is an advantage to have the bulk/ transactional process handled centrally and to use a distributed workforce to concentrate on higher value and revenue generating, or revenue protection types of activities. RPA is an ideal way to centralise these repetitive tasks and get the job done with a big injection of efficiency and effectiveness. This frees up people to calm the waters, to enable them to work on member/guest facing value adding activities. The aim is to bring the real face of the business back to guests and be responsive, rather than just trying to clear ever growing backlogs – bringing “hospitable” back to hospitality.
Never a better time than NOW to think of Digital Workforce Optimization
Future of Digital Workforce is NOW! It’s even more critical to be productive with newly created remote workforces and various work locations. This is the perfect opportunity to explore RPA and how to keep your company performing with maximum efficiency through the pandemic and beyond. Human workers often miss shifts due to illness, vacation, etc. while digital workers are always performing behind the scenes, 24×7, and without any breaks to get those repetitive tasks done. Numerous surveys reveal the need to increase process efficiency which includes factors like speed, quality, continuity and especially cost. In addition the optimization of Digital Workforce through automation allows for focus on more valuable tasks as employers look for more current and lasting operating models. Prior to the pandemic, the push for more knowledge-based, value-added services from humans set the foundation for many automation plans. Offshore options used to be cheaper, but Digital Workforce has changed the way companies can become more efficient in-house. Automation is able to take over for mundane repetitive tasks driving efficiency and productivity 15-20X that of human powered tasks. RPA (Robotic Process Automation) or as we call it “Digital Workers” is the latest mega trend in technology. Automating repetitive tasks allows valuable employees to focus on more meaningful projects. Digital workers are always on the task, working error free, 24/7 to maximize productivity for operations. No coffee breaks required. Digital Workers are simply intelligent software that works with your existing systems!
Ownership of RPA should be with the business
Technology, such as Digital Workers (RPA), is integrated in everything we do these days. For example, cars have embedded software. Is that software owned by IT, just because it is software, or should it be owned by the business, as it is part of the product that the customer derives value from? The line is blurred. We have seen approaches from – “it is software so it should be owned by IT” to “the business owns everything”. In an agile world, business is ultimately accountable to the customer so they should own everything. The business needs to determine priorities, requirements and the timelines by which results have to be delivered. IT can provide skills that facilitate the process, cover gaps in skills but ultimately deliver to the targets set by the business. So, where does the ownership of the technology asset lie in the end? Philosophically, the organisation as a collective owns it. However, if we need to pinpoint down to an individual/role within the organisation, it should be the person that is accountable for the service that the technology enables. RPA, i.e. Digital Workers, can be confusing. RPA is a piece of technology that is deployed to automate repetitive tasks. Whilst it is software, RPA is designed to aid a business user in carrying out their tasks. The ownership, i.e. what it needs to do, when it is needed by, etc., for the solution should lie with the business. This is tricky in financial services where the use of software/computing applications is quite strong. This makes IT a powerful force in the organisation and the procedures that they follow are quite “robust”. Since RPA is a piece of software, it is but natural to think of it as an IT project. Taking a lesson from manufacturing in the previous century, this behaviour is analogous to the traditional batch & queue manufacturing. In the late 1900s, when the airline industry was booming, large companies in the industry were struggling with internal batch & queue processes and siloed thinking. High costs, long lead times and defects were ingrained in almost every organisation. In an industry where lives literally depend on reliability, costs, lead times, and rooting out every defect was like gospel. However, this was not sustainable. They couldn’t keep pace with customers. In the second half to late 1900s, most companies started implementing Lean Manufacturing by focusing on value, the customer and eliminating waste. One of the critical steps in this journey was re-defining ownership of value to the customer and giving that role authority to make changes. For RPA, financial services organisations must adopt the principles of lean manufacturing by means of adopting Agile. By focusing on value generation and making the ownership of value clear, they can increase speed of deployment, eliminate defects, cut down on waste whilst increasing customer/employee experience. Two of the key benefits of this shift highlighted by CIO.com (https://www.cio.com/article/3393473/the-agile-approach-five-benefits-for-financial-services.html) in an opinion article are a shift from a project to a product mindset and innovate continuously and responsibly. We believe that taking an agile approach for RPA in financial services is a must if the automations are to deliver quick and reliable results. In a recent deployment at a customer a shift from agile to traditional waterfall approach (why this happened is worthy of a book rather than a blog) resulted in the project taking 3x longer than planned. The results were more reliable, but speed was lost and any change now is slower to roll out as it has to go through a long process of testing and validation, just like an IT project. The business has become a consumer/recipient of an IT service rather than the owner of the automation. Reach out to explore our RPA and Digital Workers solutions.
Expedite Decision-making on Loans and Car Finance
RPA within Leasing & Automotive Robotic Process Automation has been used for the typical back offices processes for some time. The kind of processes where they are partially automated through computer applications (ERP/PMS/Payroll), but where there has still been an element of human control. Back in 2019, Audi started using software robots/Digital Assistants to aide their employees and help them complete tasks quicker. Slow route to decisions for car finance One area where Digital Workers are being used to help within the sector is within financing decisions. Think of a typical process for when a customer is applying for car finance: Customer chooses vehicle they want Determines the term/loan details they would like Input personal information and financial documentation The customer has to wait, but there are a multitude of tasks that happen behind the scenes for the customer to get their decision and finalise the sale of the vehicle. These tasks are usually repetitive, routine, and carried out manually which is why the customer is left waiting. Introduce RPA to speed up the route to sale This is where RPA can help. RPA is an automation system that automates these repetitive tedious tasks and expedites them quicker than we are able to as humans. It also carried them out more accurately as unfortunately we are prone to mistakes, but a Digital Worker will do exactly as you tell it to. The benefit to this is for the bulk of the applications, a decision is reached quicker. For those that have been accepted, the sale is processed sooner and generating revenue for the company. For rejections, even though it is not that answer the customer wanted to hear they are not left waiting. And for the applications that need intervention or a human eye to help make the decision……fortunately we now have our employees who now are not constrained by churning the bulk, and can apply their brains to the more cognitive cases and focus their energies there. WIN WIN. Customer wins, Company wins. To find out more, please contact sales@centelli.com
Some FAQs – Robotic Process Automation
What is Robotic Process Automation and what are Digital Workers? Robotic process automation is software based intelligent automation, governed by business logic and structured inputs, aimed at automating business processes. It works with existing software systems, eliminating the need for expensive implementations of new enterprise solutions. Here are FAQs on Robotic Process Automation: The best way to think about RPA is as a Digital Worker, who can work alone or alongside the existing workforce to get these jobs done. Digital Workers work best doing tedious, repetitive tasks, eliminating human errors, and freeing corporate workers to focus on higher value work. What are Digital Workers capable of doing? Digital Workers are capable of following any logic, rule, or structured business process that you can train a human employee to do. In essence you train the Digital Worker to do the particular task in the same way that you would an existing employee or a new employee. It is one of the very few technologies you can actually see working when you watch the automation flying across computer screens and between systems… it can be quite mesmerizing at times! Is the process of deploying a digital worker like an IT project? How long does it take? No – that is one of the biggest benefits of Digital Workers. They are quick to deploy and work with any existing IT application, just like a human worker would. Digital Workers are just like your employees, only they are software. Our value based implementation approach works with your staff to understand the process in detail and “train” the digital worker. Given that most IT organizations are constrained by resources and piles of pending tasks, Digital Worker deployment limits IT involvement to provisioning a virtual “laptop”, and appropriate access, for the digital worker as opposed to a physical laptop. Digital Workers are really a business solution that are enabled by technology.
RPA & Digital Workers in Retail Banking
We use the UiPath software to support us in all of our automation projects. RPA & Digital Workers in Retail Banking From ATM data processing to fraud detection and direct-debits management, here are 5 ways the UiPath Platform has helped commercial banks around the world become more efficient. By Improving the Exchange of ATM Data 90% of their process became automated. 0% manual effort was required. a 70% reduction in processing time. By Streamlining Account Creation for Mortgage Customers 70% of the costs were reduced. Their error rate dropped to 0%. 75% faster processing times. By Detecting Financial Crime Time spent processing requests dropped to 20 minutes (down from 45 minutes). 95% of the process was automated. 1 hour of manual work was replaced with 5 minutes of automated work. By Avoiding Revenue Loss and Improving Dispute Resolution Perform 95% of all daily transactions. Save two full-time equivalents (FTEs). Slash turnaround time to 6 hours daily (down from 16 hours). By Verifying Loan Application Documents After automating their loan-application verification process, the bank saved 20 hours per week and get clients a response faster than the manual process. Contact Centelli for a no obligation consultation to review your processes and challenges to see if Digital Workers can help you execute your strategy more efficiently and effectively.
Optimizing Supply Chains – Vendor Selection
RPA is being increasingly adopted within the supply chain to mimic the actions of human employees: capturing, replicating, and processing data, communicating with customers, as well as making judgements and learning from past actions. Intelligent Process Automation in areas such as Vendor Selection, Shipment Status Communications, and Demand Planning are just some of the examples that streamline current processes providing increased customer experience and higher staff satisfaction. A recent study suggests that 72% of global supply chain companies plan to implement RPA solutions leading to process efficiencies by as much as 43%! Benefits of RPA in Vendor Selection & Procurement Selecting and procuring vendors is a highly manual process that normally involves employees preparing an RFQ (request for quotation), communicating to vendors, performing a preliminary analysis of vendor documents, evaluating the vendor, running a credit check, and finalizing the vendor selection. Deploying RPA solutions systemically can automate almost the entire process. Human intervention is only needed when developing initial specifications, generating a list of potential vendors, and engaging in face-to-face conversations or onsite visits and negotiations. This could lead to cycle time improvements by as much as 50% and processing time by as much as 45%. Digital Workers from Centelli are like having low cost workhorses that operate 24×7 without coffee breaks or ever calling in sick. Get started today and put your manual and repetitive tasks on autopilot!
Will RPA take away human jobs?
Over the last few days, I have been asked quite a few times – will RPA take away jobs? Adoption of technology or any automation (whether it be through RPA or through the implementation of enterprise applications or robots in a factory) will always get asked that question. Impact of Automation can be categorised in to two types: Labour augmentation: Automation that complements a human, making them more effective. E.g. a forklift enables a worker carry weight many times greater than they would be able to carry with their bare arms Labour replacing: Automation that takes the place of a human worker. E.g. machines in factories that can do the job of multiple workers For us at Centelli, we focus on enabling outcomes and delivering business benefits. Once those outcomes are achieved, benefits are unlocked, it is up to the customer to determine the appropriate way of capitalising on it. We start all exploration of possible areas for automation with a simple question – “If you were given a magic wand to make any task go away, what would you want to stop doing?”. The response becomes the target for automation. These answer to this question are inherently oriented towards labour augmentation. The work that has been taken over by the Digital Workers has been work that the human workforce was doing but was never thrilled by it. Once the Digital Workers have been deployed, there is a significant positive impact on the staff. Human workforce is freed up from repetitive tasks and is able to focus on more value adding tasks, tasks that require greater thinking, provide a greater challenge. Mckinsey in an article published as early as 2017 on Intelligent Process Automation, has identified freeing up of skilled resources as one of the 4 major benefits of RPA. In one particular implementation at a hotel contact centre, there was an improvement in motivation levels, better output and overall greater job satisfaction. Automation is about people and how we can best use the experienced and cognitive capabilities of the human workforce the best. We say that RPA is not Robotic Process Automation but is Routine Processes Annihilated! If you are doing tasks that are repetitive and should ideally not be done by humans, get in touch. Find out how our Digital Worker solution can help.
Automation and Automobiles
Everyone can imagine how Automation have been used in the automotive sector. One quick look at a vehicle production line, and you will see swathes of industrial robots pulling together the various components that make up the cars we drive today. It has been this way since the 60s & 70s. Robots can build the vehicles quicker, for longer periods of time without fatigue, and with less errors than the staff who were previously on the production line. The staff who would have building the cars manually have transitioned their skills into supporting, maintaining, and repairing the robots so they can do their job. RPA is no different in the 21st century Robotic Process Automation in Automotive sector is the modern-day equivalent of steam engines and industrial robots. UiPath software robots pick up the repetitive, computer based processes that human staff used to do. But these robots are not constrained by the same limitations that we are. We are only able to execute a certain number of tasks in our 8/9 hour day, but we need to also be doing the rest of our day jobs (because the repetitive tasks are generally the distractions). The automotive sector has already undergone this secondary revolution using robots, just this time around its been with software robots. We have clients within leasing, dealerships, vehicle remarketing and even automotive data organisations who already use RPA. There are countless back office processes that can be picked up by robots (AP within Finance, onboarding & offboarding within HR, and even tasks like returns processing within Supply Chain functions). Automotive specific use case However, the biggest benefit gainers and savings have been linked to front office and have a direct impact on the success of the business. Within one automotive group we have developed an automation where the robots calculate the prices of available leases from across 5 different applications, and then posts the best price. Because a robot does not take holidays, coffee breaks, works midnight-midnight and not 9-5, and does not make human error and need to go back for rework, the benefits have been massive. The amount of prices they have been able to post each month has increased by a factor of 10x. This directly results in increased revenue for the company. Chances are, there will be repetitive, routine processes that consume the time of your staff and a lot of the time, keep them away from dealing directly with customers or stakeholders. If you want to look under the hood at your operations and see where you can use software robots to help your operation, get in touch at sales@Centelli.com.