Genpact Announces RPA Solutions – "Business as Usual"

Given the headlines that have been flying around about robotic process automation, you might be forgiven, says Sanjay Srivastava, for assuming "the whole industry has been asleep for years, and that we are suddenly waking up to this amazing new opportunity." Not so, says this technology innovator who already has four high-tech solution start ups (and sales) under his belt, and who now runs Genpact’s Enterprise Technology Services, responsible for coming up with innovative technology solutions to deliver more value. Automation has been part of Genpact’s service delivery package for many years, Srivastava says, and it's going to carry on playing a role in the future. Process automation is a big step up, but it has gotten way more hype than it deserves, he cautions. The idea that robots will replace all employees off the floor is certainly not part of his reality. Rather, it’s about carrying out multiple processes at speed and automatically, with fewer errors and more easily accessible diagnostics, thus freeing up talent for more value added work. "Ten years ago, the BPO industry was entering dinner receipts for T&E, today we do regulatory compliance and deep analytics on spend profiling (for the pharmaceutical industry for instance) and spend analysis and optimization for large global organizations" he says "work just moves upstream." Process Automation: an Obvious Solution In an ideal world, Srivastava argues, it might be preferable to make any necessary fixes or changes at the data center end, and to embed automation right at the source. For a variety of reasons, however – including resource prioritization, availability of system access, etc. – a more practical option is to address automation as a "fix" at the user interface end; in other words, by integrating directly into the application not as a software program – but as a human user. This is what has become widely known as robotic process automation, though Srivastava winces at the term "robot," which, he says, is causing some of his clients to question whether they need to add painted lines to their hallways for easy tracking! "We sometimes spend more time explaining what RPA is not, than what it is," he laughs. One misconception Genpact’s team wants to blow out of the water is that process automation will automatically replace everything we do. "Most data-entry kinds of jobs are easy targets" he suggests "But if you think of complex processes we typically take on, an average day consists of many sub-processes – simple and complex, and simple, mundane and routine tasks can be 100% automated. But depending on the work we do, we are talking about specific and relatively short time spans," Srivastava explains. "Considering the low-hanging fruit is off the table in terms of 100% data entry work in the industry, the opportunity" he says, is in that processes will become more efficient and errors non-existent. And where exceptions or rejections occur, these will be more easily traced to root causes, and defects more easily identified via Pareto charts. And all of these electronic touches can be fed into an analytics platform and analyzed for improvements and advances for our customer’s benefit. "There's a lot of value that can be driven out of exceptions monitoring and electronic reporting, all of which is readily available within an automated environment. The business insights that accrue will be highly relevant." But the biggest kicker for clients may be the fact that BPO providers like Genpact are able to combine deep process expertise and an understanding of end-to-end relationships, with these new software solutions. Robotics, in other words, may mark a fork in the road. Diversified Partnerships While much of the focus has, so far, been on those first out of the gate in the RPA game, Genpact has, over the past year, been quietly developing its own repository of process automation solutions, and is now in the process of launching them publicly (the announcement regarding its partnership with Automation Anywhere hit the wires last week). "We are working with different software providers on the ITO side, and separately on the BPO side," Srivastava explains. Genpact has reportedly also developed a homegrown IVR [Integrated Voice Response] process automation solution internally, that augments some of the voice-related work they do. On the ITO side, Genpact is collaborating with Automic and Ayehu [a third partner is not yet publicized, pending accreditation]; on the BPO side its partners are Automation Anywhere in the US, and Exilant, in Asia-Pacific [and the firm is reportedly evaluating Blue Prism in the UK]. "Our established partnerships work," Srivastava explains, "because the companies’ work cultures mesh well and they are keen for Genpact to build its own IP on top of their solutions." "Clients want to utilize robotic process automation in the context of end-to-end solutions that are owned managed and optimized holistically," he explains. While each provider brings a certain expertise to bear, the RPA industry is still at a very early stage and, as with most industries that have gone through this stage, certain strategic shifts and consolidations will undoubtedly happen. The need to evaluate the providers with the best chances of success is critical, and it is one of the reasons Genpact cites for working with very different selected providers for its different businesses. "Right now there are roughly 25 players in the RPA software development market," explains Srivastava. "Most of these are still small companies – most sub-$5 to 10 million in revenue. For most of our corporate customers it would be inconceivable to risk placing sensitive data and processes, at scale, with early-stage companies. We can take the risk, and open up completely new markets for these RPA software providers previously locked-up." "I expect to see a lot of shifts in this market over the next few years," Srivastava says. "A lot of these startups are driven by venture capital money and as these firms look to capitalize on their investment, and the market consolidates, we should see some trimming down in numbers." Criteria: A Good Fit The best application for process automation is in routine and repetitive work – the kind of criteria that used to be applied to identify processes suitable to outsourcing in the first place. Some of the areas in which Genpact is developing its RPA capability include: automating lost password validation as part of a helpdesk service automatically populate incoming invoice data into client mainframe or ERP systems managing network routers infrastructure to predict and prevent failures, or automate fixes where failures do occur automating order entry into client systems that come in from a variety of mediums – paper to fax to EDI While the benefits of process automation apply to all companies, Srivastava points out that RPA is particularly suited to Banking, Financial Services, and Insurance industries, or to large scale horizontal processes, like transactional finance, where large-scale claims or loans processing or invoice data validation and entry into what are often still legacy mainframe systems can be massively simplified and errors minimized. "What’s exciting is that 30% of our RPA work is coming from new, not existing, clients," he says. "That tells you that the market is ready." However, Srivastava emphasizes that although significant, RPA simply marks another step in Genpact’s journey towards improved performance. As he pushes Genpact into increasing levels of automation and digitalization within its offerings, RPA is a pearl in his "string of pearls" strategy, one that starts with RPA, but also includes large-scale technology transformation on the back of Cloud, SaaS, mobility, workflow, big data and advanced visualization, "These are advanced technologies that collectively are changing the very nature of the work we do," he explains. "Clients are looking for transformative solutions that allow them to make disruptive changes in their business models and we are clearly committed to driving this journey for them. Robotic Process Automation adds a key capability in our broader ability of delivering against this commitment." [eventpdf]

Genpact Announces RPA Solutions – "Business as Usual"

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