SSON's 2nd Annual "Autumn" Event on the West Coast Covered Timely Topics

Intelligent Automation

We use artificial intelligence to forecast the best location for our next site – Don, Subway

We wiped out the Romaine Lettuce supply in Australia … could AI have prevented that? – Ron, Subway

85% of a robot project is spent outside of actually developing the robot – Josh, BluePrism

Identify a need, obtain buy-in, test on a small local group, and find your champions – Vivek, Pfizer

Find a vehicle to attach IA programs to (e.g. Pfizer product availability initiative) – Vivek, Pfizer

Promote RPA! - Re-post IA related articles onto your internal social media to – Vivek, Pfizer
a) establish yourself as a thought leader, and
b) educate your audience

Develop infrastructure with multiple parties – Vivek, Pfizer

• IT infrastructure
• IT security
• Internal controls
• Business unit owners
• Human resources

Consider “limited production runs” that rollout sample volumes – Vivek, Pfizer

You can expect robots to increase productivity, consistency, and accuracy – Raviv, Symantic

We saved 36,000 hours and are just getting started – Vivek, Pfizer

Build confidence with quick wins – Matt, Eli Lilly

Map your RPA initiatives to corporate strategic initiatives – Matt, Eli Lilly

Strawman governance model for Symantic – Raviv, Symantic

• BizOps = requirements
• Design = BizOps and IT
• Development = IT (but transition to IT as program matures)
• Testing = Business and IT
• Release = IT

You don’t need process “black belts” to find process opportunities (use common sense) – Raviv, Symantic

Understand data privacy laws – what information needs to be stored, and where – Ken, Silicon Valley Bank

Use standard templates (e.g. process design, RPA requirements, problem definition, etc.) – Vivek, Pfizer

We created a data team – a robot is only as good as the data that goes into it - Ken, Silicon Valley Bank

Know your process controls better than your internal controls department – Vivek, Pfizer

Don’t get bogged down for a Proof-of-Concept – Matt, Eli Lilly

Record and use a demo to “open eyes” in your organization – Vivek, Pfizer

Don’t go after complex processes first – Patrick, DA San Francisco

Don’t wait until your bots fail – proactively monitor performance – Vivek, Pfizer

Most valuable impact is impact to your customer – Patrick, Sutter

Measure hours that are offset (cost avoidance) – Vivek, Pfizer

We use AI to find anomalies in our security systems – Patrick, DA San Francisco

Be very clear on what you are asking the business unit to do – Matt, Eli Lilly

Fix your process before automating it – Aaron, Redwood

We saved 420 hours/month on the O2C close with 35 robots – Toni, LinkedIn

We are piloting customer facing chatbots to address simple customer questions – Toni, LinkedIn

Employee Motivation and Managing Change

• ‘Undercover Boss’ taught Subway that – Don, Subway
• No one is normal – use people’s unique styles
• We need to learn how to communicate, and
• Employees care more than you think

We get our AI talent from a nearby University – Ken, Silicon Valley Bank

Millennials like variety, flexibility, relationships, and a sense of pride – Don, Subway

It’s not technology, it’s the people – Connect the dots to show how they matter – Deborah, Northrop Grumman

Take what is important to your stakeholders, and turn into metrics – Brenda, Northern Trust

Millennials like listening to Millennials – Don, Subway

Eliminated 5 of 8 major process steps by talking to people and dispelling myth – Margaret & Jamie, Pankow

Shared Service for Legal

Brian, MasterCard

Identified lawyer work vs. non-lawyer work

Develop a value proposition – If your business is doing X, you should be doing Y

Identified what documents/scope was appropriate for GBSC

• I don’t like to introduce the term “value” into the conversation (it’s very subjective)
• Don’t let yourself be defined as providing low value, simple work
• Allow some cushion when estimating headcount for shared service launch
• Found good multi-country legal talent in India
• Started small with contract reviews, but expanded, and now have big plans
  • Policy management and review
  • Corporate governance legal entity filings
  • Litigation support
  • Template management

Top Ten Resistance Arguments We Hear

1) I think this is a great idea!… let’s start next year, after I “clear my plate”.
2) I know someone who built shared services, and it failed!
3) This doesn’t work in our industry.
4) This doesn’t work for our particular business unit.
5) We have “top quartile” performance… why are we doing this?
6) This is going to incur government fines in Brazil, Russia, China, etc.
7) We are going to lose a lot of good talent.
8) The unions won’t allow this in our company.
9) I get things done much faster using my own people.
10) This is going to disrupt our business operations.

 

Thank You for a Great Conference!
Brad DeMent
ScottMadden