As an IT consulting and services firm, it is more than necessary for us to stay attuned to our client’s needs even before they arise. Companies come to us looking to fill out their game plan and make things happen.
We recently completed iOPEX's planning meeting for the year and this was my first in the organization. We all come from varying backgrounds but unified in serving Enterprises address their Transformational roadmaps be it for cost or technology. What has caught the industry by storm in recent times are 2 areas - RPA and Cognitive which we brainstormed into more detail.
In the meet, each of us took a deep dive into various industry categories where these are priorities. The common message was that Cognitive was the goal that organizations are trying to implement to serve a larger unknown purpose. This is where companies need to be in the next 3-4 years. With that being the case where does RPA fit in the whole exercise? A very innocent and simply put question from a member in the group - Is RPA necessary to achieve Cognitive?
Passion flowing through our veins each of us pointed out in the first 10 minutes what benefits RPA brings to the table, why it makes the life of an Enterprise easier, how legacy modernization can be fulfilled with RPA, etc.
The question was repeated - is RPA necessary to achieve Cognitive?
What we learned from brainstorming was that RPA only helps in executing a process faster but doesn’t truly create a new data point. In other words, RPA is not essential for Machine Learning since the data points are available through the manual processes as well. If data points are already there then RPA is not necessary for Cognitive and companies can start their Cognitive journey as of this moment. RPA only needs to be looked at from a process perspective - a better and efficient way to do the task.
Let’s take the example of an insurance organization. If RPA can help in faster claims processing or KYC processing by replacing the work done by a human, it is not actually creating a new data point. It is only making the process faster by a system replacing a human’s task.
Organizations confused between all the jargon floating around, need to have this discussion with their technical and innovation teams to see if they are mixing up the goals of RPA and Cognitive.
RPA enables process excellence and changes the status quo of how things are done. Organizations need to get this done to free up manpower.
Cognitive can be achieved by data and leveraged better when you have legacy transformed. This helps you create intelligent automation where you don’t need humans to make decisions on your process. For an insurance company, this could mean, claims adjusters can process claims approval faster with minimal to zero human intervention.
Talk to us for clarity and to get your priorities sorted between RPA and Cognitive.
