The traditional outsourcing model is officially out of value, but the future is bright for co-innovation partnerships

Remember all those juicy reasons why companies jumped into outsourcing? Like driving out cost, standardizing processes, perhaps even finding a few nuggets of innovation along the way with better access to talent and technology? Well our new 2017 State of Operations and Outsourcing Study of 454 major enterprise buyers gives a pretty gloomy picture of the current value impact of today’s outsourcing engagements:

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What made us happy in the past no longer passes muster

If there was ever one home-banker benefit from outsourcing, it was always the ability to take 30%+ off the bottom line cost of running a process or set of processes.

The VPs and below are those who are managing the engagements – and not even a third of them view their engagements as being very effective at driving out significant cost or making their operations more flexible and scalable. Their bosses are slightly less cynical, but still the vast majority is underwhelmed.

“But how can they be unhappy, we saved them so much money?” I hear frustrated providers cry…

Well, the answer is quite simply that those costs have been removed from the balance sheet – they no longer exist. Managing operations in a global environment is now the new normal – money that was saved was a onetime experience in the past. It’s like trading in your Hummer for a Prius… you don’t think to yourself, everytime you fill up with gas, “Wow, I’m saving $50 per tank”, but you might even think, “Hmmm… maybe I’ll get a fully electric car next and save even more on my running costs”.

We can go on to bemoan the disappointing lack of effectiveness from analytics, automation and cognitive from over four-fifths of outsourcing engagements, but we know clients are unlikely to have invested actual funds in these areas as part of most of these engagements today – they are getting what they have paid for in the past.

All is not lost as many operations leaders want their service providers to change with them

However, the next wave of engagements have to be set up in a very different way to bring back delights to these jaded customers, which is where the brighter news appears:

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What’s encouraging here is that buyers, by and large, do not view their service providers as mere efficient cost take-out vehicles, which was how well over half viewed them a couple of years ago. While 43% of SVPs and above see service providers as competent partners who can deliver the goods, another 35% actually view them as real innovation partners who can work with them to achieve co-defined business outcomes. This is a breakthrough for the services industry.

The Bottom-line: The door is wide open for ambitious providers willing to invest in developing their talent, but closing firmly shut for those perpetuating what worked in the past

There has never been a time in the history of services where we’ve arrived at such a pivotal turning point – what used to work for clients is now commodity, and those service providers wanting to avoid this drain-circling spiral into transactional insignificance must make serious investments in their internal capabilities to partner with their clients. This means more people who can work in close proximity to their clients with real capabilities rolling out automation roadmaps, designing digital business models, working with clients to develop predictive data models and smart cognitive strategies. Sadly, there isn’t much of an available pool of eager college graduates ready to leap into these roles at low wage rates, so providers need to reinvent themselves radically as true learning establishments and universities for their emerging talent… ambitious people will want to invest their careers with firms who are prepared to invest in their talent. The future isn’t about buying packaged consulting, it’s about partnering with services firms whose stakeholders want to co-invest in themselves and their clients with a long-term vision and definitive plan. The model has changed forever… and we can only watch, learn and work with it as it unravels piece by piece.

Source: horsesforsources.com- The traditional outsourcing model is officially out of value, but the future is bright for co-innovation partnerships

The impact of new digital business models on IT services

Suddenly, on-shoring is becoming more in vogue. Like many U.S. CIOs and their C-suite colleagues, you may be actively exploring how to duplicate or offset the loss of cost benefits from offshore/labor-arbitrage services. I have good news for you, along with a crucial tip.

Four primary factors are driving U.S. companies to make the move to onshore service delivery:

• Uncertainty associated with the potential of changing tax laws and border taxes, which could introduce a tax of 20 to 30 percent on services done offshore.
• Potential changing regulations and increasing regulatory pressures to relocate work from offshore resources to the U.S.
• Potential of reputation damage of companies called out publicly in the news media for use of offshore workforces.
• Uncertainty around rising costs due to changing immigration laws and use of H-1B visas, which could make offshoring more expensive for service providers and increase barriers.

Although these factors vary by industry and company, the net result is companies are looking even more closely at digital technologies and digital business models to offset the cost benefits of offshoring.

Let’s look at how these digital models apply to IT.

IT infrastructure

Many firms support their legacy infrastructure offshore and have significant teams in what is called Remote Infrastructure Management Outsourcing (RIMO) done offshore. A digital model applies to this in two ways:

1. Cloud. It will accelerate the move to private and public cloud models. When you move to the cloud, you move into a highly automated environment, thus dramatically lowering the number of people to support the infrastructure. You can use that savings, and potentially the necessary support people can be more easily afforded onshore.
2. Automation. By applying automation tools to the legacy IT infrastructure, you can dramatically reduce the number of people needed to support the legacy environment, once again making it more affordable to have the remaining people operate out of the U.S. instead of offshore. For example, you can eliminate 40 percent of the FTEs by using tools such as IPSoft’s Autonomics (featuring virtual engineers and toolset for all components of IT service management) or TCS’s Ignio (a cognitive system for enterprise IT operations). These digital models and technologies change the economics, making it much more affordable to do this work onshore rather than offshore.

DevOps Toolkit

Applying the DevOps set of tools (self-provisioning, automated testing, agile methodologies) in an IT shared services organization creates up to a 30 percent productivity benefit. A 30 percent increase in productivity goes a long way to offsetting some of the offshore/onshore cost issues.

In truth, these productivity gains can be captured using an offshore model. So the argument is a little more complicated because the opportunity to apply DevOps tools and techniques to shared services is independent of location. But if you adopt them, it will lessen the impact of moving work back onshore.

In a DevOps model, it’s necessary to move to cross-functional teams in pods aligned to the business that operate from app development through IT infrastructure. Designed to be highly productive teams, these IT employees naturally want to be close to the business users – therefore onshore. Using this model, we find companies enjoying substantial productivity gains well over 100 percent, which more than offset labor arbitrage/offshoring losses.

Source: cio.com – The impact of new digital business models on IT services

The State of Outsourcing and Operations 2017

Organizations may be struggling to cope with competing priorities, but directives from the C-suite are growing increasingly clear: Executives say it is becoming more important — and often essential — to implement a business model that digitally-integrates and aligns front and back-office operations, while putting customer needs first.

That is the result of a recent HfS Research/KPMG report, “State of Operations and Outsourcing 2017.” The study found that 31% of respondents call aligning front and back-office operations “mission-critical,” with another 48% saying it is “increasingly important.” Not surprisingly, an even larger majority of executives also home in on reducing operating costs as imperative.

The upshot for operations leaders is an eyes-open recognition that the world is shifting as they speak, so they need to pivot smartly to keep up with complex transformations and emerging business models. After all, the number of things a sourcing leader has to contend with has grown exponentially: It’s no longer just about managing a contract and a provider relationship. Instead, it’s about understanding shared services; the dynamics and risks around global labor; intelligent automation; software platforms and efficient SaaS products; how to get smarter about cognitive and self-learning; and the true power of digital to offer a holistic view of customers.

“Operations leaders have to look at the world, and the organization’s growth, and understand how to conceptualize the digital business that can take them to the next level,” says Phil Fersht, CEO of HfS Research, who also emphasizes a critical need to move away from innovation-killing, status-quo-ridden organizational charts.

Operations leaders: Under pressure to shift towards digital integration

The HfS Research/KPMG report clearly found that senior-level decision-makers are putting operations leaders under pressure to change. “There’s a determination to start wrapping the customer into more thinking about business models,” Fersht explains. “They want to flatten organizational structures, get rid of silos and have process leaders thinking more about customer ends. That is dominating a lot of mindsets now.”

According to Dave Brown, Global Lead, Shared Service & Outsourcing Advisory at KPMG, of particular interest in the 2017 study was a clear increase in conversations around the strategy of delivery models and how integrated they are becoming, as companies strive to get to market more quickly. One of the biggest challenges, of course, is how to boost the organization’s ability to do that. Today’s disruptive digital technology, including automation, is enabling companies today to accelerate and be more effective in their integration approach he says — and it is critical to be hearing this now from such a high level in the C-suite.

“This is starting to tell us that senior leadership is beginning to understand the enterprise approach to be able to solve for digital disruptors,” he says.

The “One Office”: Digital experiences combine with intelligent, integrated support

The endgame, say Fersht and Brown, is a “One Office” strategy that replaces the front, middle and back office to create digital customer experiences with an intelligent single office to support it, with automated processes as its underbelly. “In a few months, the lever of automation will become more and more embedded and there will be less talk about a front and back office,” says Fersht. “Instead, there will be more talk about an integrated support operation that has digital capabilities and prowess to enable the organization to meet customer demand.”

The idea of “One Office” homes in on the needs and experiences of the customer as front and center for the entire business operation. The old barriers between corporate operations and functions are eroded and the constraints of legacy IT are limited. Digital organizations can work in real-time to cater to clients, where intelligence, processes and infrastructure come together as one integrated unit, with one set of unified business outcomes — on a unified business infrastructure tied to exceeding customer expectations.

The bottom line is that digital has become the language of business. But while consumers are increasingly digitally sophisticated, many organizations are still beholden to legacy technologies and processes. Operations may need to be dragged kicking and screaming out of the dark ages to support the customer by breaking down the barriers between departments; investing in bringing digital customer experience into all practices; and creating an entwined digital culture across the organization to deliver to the consumer.

A digital underbelly, with automated, predictive and cognitive processes including robotic process automation, digitization of documents and standardization is necessary to support these changes. On the service provider side, says Fersht, there will be “One Office” enablers — or providers who can help orchestrate data and drive human collaboration — as well as a great deal of tech-dominated outsourcing, with startups and consulting firms coming through to support a $7 trillion economy.

Bigger RPA investments requires more training and workforce development

Study results also made it clear that these shifts will increasingly focus on relying less on both lower and higher skilled labor and investing more in robotics process automation (RPA). In fact, close to 90% of businesses now have emerging or increasingly important strategies to make this shift, with companies looking at both automation and cognitive as strategies for the future. And a significant 43% of senior-level respondents said they are looking at RPA as the number one initiative for investment. It is important to note, however, that in many cases only portions of a job function will be automated, leaving the human employee freed up to do more strategic activities. This is good for the employee but will often require different and higher level skills. Identifying employees that can step up and providing training to do so will prove critical.

Further to this point, according to Dave Brown, what is most interesting to note is the increase in emphasis on training and workforce development that is accompanying these shifts toward automation and cognitive solutions. “Clients are realizing that RPA and cognitive-type solutions aren’t the only answer to their problems, that they need to look at things holistically,” he says. “You can’t just deploy an RPA software solution without looking at what it means to the organization and what it means for required skills in the new organization. In addition, what happens to your workforce if you’ve now have automated even entry-level positions?”

It is encouraging, he continues, to see more focus around training and workforce development, given the high degree of excitement and investment in RPA in efforts to digitally-integrate operations.

“I think people are getting that it’s not just about coming in and doing a proof of concept for RPA solution,” he explains. “Instead, what does this mean to our entire ecosystem, including third-party outsourcing? This is a different story than you would have seen twelve months ago.”

There is a huge opportunity for organizations that can keep up with these drastic shifts. But, with so many changes — jobs being created, jobs being eliminated, skill requirements changing, business models emerging — operations leaders need to be ready for the challenge. “We know pivots happening, but companies need to start being prepared for those pivots,” he says.

In Part Two of this two-part series, we will continue to look at the results of the HfS Research/KPMG “State of Outsourcing and Operations 2017” study. We will examine how operating models are continuing to drive toward fully global business services, as well as how organizations are dealing with outsourcing and service provider selection as a result.

Source: CIO.com-The State of Outsourcing and Operations 2017

The Ins and Outs for Sourcing and Procurement in 2017 and Beyond

With a couple of months of 2017 under our belts, now is the time to focus our thoughts on ways sourcing and procurement can leverage a number of likely changes expected in 2017, regardless of the industry. Supply & Demand Chain Executive (SDCE) spoke to Adam Cummins, a director for business transformation at outsourcing advisory firm Pace Harmon, about some of his observations for sourcing and procurement in the year ahead.

SDCE: What sourcing and procurement developments will advance robotic process automation (RPA) in 2017?

Cummins: While RPA gained a foothold automating simple processes throughout 2016, we expect to see enterprises taking steps to leverage RPA for numerous tactical sourcing and procurement transactions in 2017 (making manual processing out for the new year in the process). Purchase order (PO) creation and validation are likely high (if not first) on the list for RPA to begin to be used in the sourcing and procurement space, in particular for organizations that have high-volume, low-dollar value PO requirements.

SDCE: Are there new areas that are ripe for RPA enhancement?

Cummins: We think enterprises will begin to explore RPA for other tactical sourcing and procurement transactions, such as goods receipt (for certain types of goods) or PO-to-invoice matching tasks. In addition, punch-out catalogs (which have been performing RPA-like tasks for many years) are a prime candidate for enhancement via more intelligent automation (e.g., automating inventory checking, and accelerating order transaction filling and release for certain types of goods).

SDCE: What team changes are taking place among sourcing and procurement groups?

Cummins: Where sourcing and procurement teams may have previously aligned traditionally to go deep in specific categories (IT, professional services, resins, steel, etc.) or sub-functions (sourcing, contract management, purchasing, etc.), look for enterprises to begin to shift away from that model and move to align more closely with their business unit customers. This shift will enable more direct connectivity between the expertise, knowledge and capabilities of the sourcing and procurement functions with the specific and ongoing needs of the respective business unit customers those sourcing and procurement groups support. Direct alignment and partnership can foster a highly collaborative approach to strategic purchasing needs, while also simultaneously driving a deeper and more robust level of knowledge and expertise for both the sourcing and procurement, and business unit staffs.

SDCE: How can sourcing and procurement drive more value?

Cummins: While securing better negotiated commercial and contractual terms will always be an important area of focus, we expect that more organizations will turn to robust supplier relationship management as a means to drive additional value in 2017. This means moving away from negotiating upfront cost savings via purchase cost reductions toward delivering greater, longer term value by implementing and delivering robust supplier relationship management practices.

SDCE: Is goal No. 1 still cost reductions?

Cummins: Strictly focusing on cost reductions sends a signal to vendors that they will be constantly squeezed on price and you are OK trading performance for lower quality. More effective supplier relationship management can ensure that specific commercial and contractual obligations committed to by supplier partners are, in fact, delivered and measured on a regular, ongoing basis. Such initial governance is critical to making sure that all supplier partners are actively and positively encouraged to follow through on the promises they made during the initial sourcing and contracting processes that led to their selection.

SDCE: What benefits are possible from a more robust supplier relationship management approach?

Cummins: Robust supplier relationship management can help enterprises identify and capitalize on additional value that simple governance of supplier partners typically does not deliver. This may include not only additional cost optimization levers that can be pulled, but also potential new revenue generation opportunities that supplier partners may be able to identify via such partnership approaches (such as joint development or joint partnership opportunities between the buying organization and the supplier partner).

According to Cummins, adopting these ideas will better position sourcing and procurement organizations to provide cutting-edge market knowledge and increase their value to the organizations they support. As sourcing and procurement leaders review and revisit the plans for their organizations in 2017 and beyond, considering one or more of these insights can help ensure that the sourcing and procurement group can maximize the value that makes up much of its mission.

Source: sdcexec.com – Q&A: The Ins and Outs for Sourcing and Procurement in 2017 and Beyond

What 20 Years as a Remote Organization Has Taught Us About Managing Remote Teams

In his 1974 interview with ABC News, science fiction author Arthur C. Clarke painted a picture of how computers would change our way of life by the year 2001. One of his many extraordinarily accurate predictions: “Any businessman, any executive, could live almost anywhere on Earth and still do his business through a device like this.”

Now, this prediction about remote working has not only come to life; it’s proved to be more beneficial than the traditional office model for some companies. The advisory firm we work for is one such company. Since its inception, in 1995, ghSMART has been a firm with a completely remote team. More than 80% of our work is done by teams of consultants and staff who operate out of their home offices. It’s working for us: ghSMART has seen more than 97% client satisfaction in the past decade, 93% team retention, and greater than 20% annual growth. Our journey of more than 20 years has led to a lot of success and has taught us some valuable lessons for how to make remote arrangements work:

Hire the right people. Having remote team members requires that we hire people who can deliver technically while working independently. At the same time, the fact that we do not have to maintain physical offices leaves us room to pay higher wages than others and attract top talent. By spending up to 42 hours researching and interviewing a given candidate, we take great care to ensure that we find and hire the right people. We don’t stop at interviewing and choosing good candidates; we give them detailed insight into the company’s finances, strategy, individual consultant performance, and implications on compensation so they can make a fully informed decision about whether to join us. We have learned that both we and our talented candidates make the best decisions when we provide each other with a large amount of good information.

Focus on outcomes. After spending as much effort as we do in bringing the right people into the firm, it only makes sense to set them free. The first and most important step in doing this is to set expectations. We tell our new teammates exactly what outcomes matter to us, and reward them for achieving and exceeding those outcomes. We do this through a scorecard that we give to consultants and staff members for their individual roles. As a leadership team, we strive to maintain consistency in the outcomes for each role so everyone knows exactly where the bar is and that it is not going to change unexpectedly. Once clear, consistent outcomes are set, management conversations shift from exercises in delegation to problem-solving sessions. Less micromanagement leads to more choice, decision making, freedom, and accountability at the individual level.

Help employees choose, and be responsible for, their own adventure. By determining the right floor and not restricting the ceiling, and by paying for value (once they exceed their outcome, consultants are paid a commission proportional to the additional work they deliver), we put the choice of how hard to work in a consultant’s hands. Our team members have the freedom to, say, take their child to a doctor’s appointment in the middle of the week while doing leadership coaching work with a CEO. Each consultant is free to choose the type of work they want to do, whom to do it with, and when to do it. We provide all our teammates with the information on what work their colleagues have done, and plan to do in the near future, so they can pick and choose where they want to serve.

Outside of client work, we allow teammates to invest in other areas, and even provide them resources when required. For instance, we often announce an innovation budget and invite applications to pilot ideas. As a result, our teammates voluntarily design new practice areas, conduct cutting-edge leadership research, and write books. We’ve noticed that our team members adopt a strong sense of commitment to the responsibilities they take on and do not abandon them when the going gets tough. They feel true ownership. Our leadership team ensures that this balance between choice and commitment, and the value of owning the outcome, is a respected, celebrated cultural attribute.

Centralize thoughtfully. We focus on letting our team members be the “CEOs” of their professional lives, but we have learned over time that not every aspect of choice adds value. For example, we previously enabled consultants to choose their own health care plan providers, and even set up their home office the way they wanted, but have since moved to a company plan and standard IT package to launch our team. This makes their lives easier without taking away the choices that truly matter. While there are more instances of such centralization, our leadership team maintains a very high bar for such decisions because too much control can erode mutual trust.

Arthur C. Clarke’s vision of a new world of remote work has largely come to pass. In a 2014 survey of business leaders at the Global Leadership Summit, almost 60% of leaders said that more than half of their workforce would be remote by 2020. Every year we learn more about the benefits of remote work, including increased productivity and the ability to attract Millennial workers. We have lived the benefits of a remote model: Our two-decade commitment to individual freedom and accountability has helped us turn our “remoteness,” which some might imagine would be a disadvantage, into a critical lever of our success. We encourage you to experiment with outcome-based, decentralized models as you seek to get the most out of your remote teams. We may have landed on a model that works only in our case, but we suspect that it can work for you, too.

Source: Harvard Business Review- What 20 Years as a Remote Organization Has Taught Us About Managing Remote Teams

Digital Models Change The Location Of Call Center And Finance/Accounting Work

 I’ve been blogging about companies desiring to re-examine their assumptions around what work should be done offshore and their desire to do more work onshore and explaining some cost-effective techniques for achieving these objectives. It’s clear that emerging digital models allow companies using digital technologies to re-examine their assumptions of where business process work should be done.

Call Centers Undergoing Dramatic Change

Leading companies are re-imagining their call centers and customer experience to integrate digital models into their voice models. Work volumes are shifting from voice call centers into new channels such as chat apps, email, tweets and other social channels. Companies are adopting these new ways of communicating with customers and integrating them into their customer service models. The digital model is disrupting the call center.

A recent Everest Group study showed that across a number of call center situations, companies eliminated 40 percent of the FTEs in their call centers – while improving customer service. They achieved this by applying Robotic Process Automation (RPA) technology.

Effectively, companies can use RPA to do automated look-ups for information, thus shortening call time. When an agent is equipped with the right information and robots pull information and present it to an agent in an easy-to-understand way, the conversation with the customer takes less time.

In addition, by using analytics and RPA, companies can do call suppression by understanding customers’ needs before they call and act to resolve them. This eliminates the need for the customer to call.

 But that’s not all.

An emerging set of technologies and chatbots allows a robot or cognitive agent to carry on automated conversations across channels including voice. This potentially can eliminate another 20% of live agents, reducing the number of FTEs in the call center by a total of 60%.

Source: forbes.com – Digital Models Change The Location Of Call Center And Finance/Accounting Work

Image credit: Shutterstock

Process Automation Technology for BPOs: 3 Things to Consider

Business process outsourcing (BPO) companies need to take advantage of digital technology to boost efficiency. Business rules automation can make a dramatic difference.

Perhaps more than others, organisations in the outsourcing space need to take advantage of digital technologies as they look to boost operational efficiencies, increase business agility and improve customer engagement.

Automating decision-making in complex mid to back-office processes and functions is a good place for business process outsourcing (BPO) companies to start. Decisions regarding eligibility for a particular service, product or loan; up-sell or cross-sell opportunities; risk assessments and the like are all candidates for such automation—and lead to cost savings and consistency that can be passed down to the client. The principle savings come from automating decisions around processes and functions that change frequently.

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Applying human logic to a frequently changing set of circumstances, or relying on IT to use traditional coding approaches to implementing new rules, can be slow, inconsistent and expensive—and certainly not agile or efficient. That’s where a business rules management system (BRMS) can prove extremely valuable to BPOs, enabling changing rules to be managed and implemented on the fly by business folks, without intervention from IT.

Here are three important considerations for BPOs adopting automated rules management:

1. The more complex the process, the greater the need for automation: The truth is you probably won’t need a BRMS to automate simple processes for which where the underpinning rules rarely change. But you’ll see significant benefits if you have complex rules governing complex processes, both of which change frequently under tight control. Processes such as risk and rating, loan eligibility and origination or underwriting and claims processing are good examples. Yet other industries benefit, as well. Take healthcare, for instance—the Affordable Care Act simply couldn’t be delivered effectively without this type of technology helping to determine the eligibility of an individual for specific levels of social welfare and healthcare.
2. BRMS is a differentiator: Nobody outsources a function that’s operating optimally without any scope for improvement—in fact it’s probably the polar opposite. The client’s expectation is that the BPO will improve a sub-optimal business process, do it for less than it costs right now and, probably, improve customer engagement at the same time. In a worldwide survey of business leaders, 57 percent cited improving efficiencies as a key driver in outsourcing processes.Other top factors included reducing cost and gaining better access to expertise. Achieving these goals requires deploying technology across a range of clients’ processes and functions such that, through economies of scale, cost is reduced while processes improves. That’s what automation solutions help to deliver—setting you apart from other BPOs.
3. Optimizing internal backend systems is equally important: When people think about digital business, they naturally start thinking about their own customers and how they can better engage with them and more effectively manage the customer journey. But be careful not to limit your digital focus to the front end of your business or just your client’s processes. Internal mid- and back-office functions can benefit from BRMS, too. Automating processes isn’t just about not about veneering some digital stuff onto existing, legacy systems; it’s about modernising all systems and processes, and in some cases, reinventing existing ones from end to end.

No matter what industries a BPO serves—financial, healthcare, government or the public sector—process efficiency is always a priority. Finding a BRMS that maximizes operational efficiencies, cuts costs and increases agility will lead you down the path to the ultimate goal: service improvement.

Source: business2community.com -Process Automation Technology for BPOs: 3 Things to Consider

Robotic Process Automation Opens New Doors For Finance And Risk

I have written previously about Robotic Process Automation (RPA) and its potential impact on the financial services industry and more specifically on the finance and risk functions within the institutions.  Most financial services firms have started exploring how to benefit from RPA – using software to mimic the actions a human would perform on a PC, then scaling up these actions as needed – and many have already automated a number of the repetitive, rules-based processes that are the typical starting points for RPA. Some firms that have implemented these tools have already seen dramatic reductions in average handling and/or cycle times.

Across the industry, companies have been looking for ways to help address high variable costs and stagnant productivity growth against market challenges. The proliferation of new regulations – as well as firms’ own initiatives to improve compliance and reduce risk – have driven up the demand for and market cost of finance and risk talent. And in parallel, the need to demonstrate strong controls to the regulator requires that solutions need to be proven and robust.

And companies have not been standing still.  In their efforts to transform finance and risk operations, companies have also explored other paths to greater productivity. These include centralization (creating Centers of Excellence to concentrate and improve common processes); relocation (moving operations to lower-cost regions); standardization (identifying common process elements and making them uniform throughout global operations); optimization (simplifying processes and removing wasted effort); and digitization (computerizing document management, adding self-service options and establishing data warehouses).

But while all of these approaches have their merits, RPA offers significant potential for both short- and long-term efficiency gains.

The Value Proposition

Companies implementing RPA-based solutions often see returns on their investments in as little as one quarter.  And importantly, the solutions are typically extendable – not requiring all processes and systems to be converted at the same time.

While freeing up workers for more complex tasks – particularly those requiring human analysis and judgment – is a major benefit, so is the elimination of rework and errors as the bots execute the transactions.  Unlike their human counterparts, bots work 24 hours a day, seven days a week, and leave a clear record of the completed transaction, making compliance-related activities easier to track and monitor.

Growing Interest In RPA

RPA is generating considerable excitement in the world of finance and risk, and many firms are moving at pace with their RPA implementations. They typically begin exploring high-volume, low-complexity processes such as travel and expense management, review and payment of incoming vendor invoices, and monitoring of customer credit.  RPA bots, for example, can scan invoices and automatically prepare payments, using logic and rules to validate invoices and routing exceptions to appropriate teams for review and approval.  Leading firms are pushing into new areas with potential for further automation.

One of the most promising areas for RPA deployment is in compliance functions charged with fulfilling requirements for regulatory initiatives such as KYC (Know Your Customer), anti-money laundering (AML), and counterparty risk reporting.  RPA bots can handle many of the activities associated with account openings, evaluating credit limits, and identification and explanation of changes in risk exposure.  The use cases continue to expand.

Although RPA is a well-established approach to cost reduction, quality improvement and productivity enhancement, we are still in the early days in terms of recognizing its full potential.  We foresee even more opportunity and transformation as analytics, machine learning and artificial intelligence follow behind this RPA wave.

Source: forbes.com-Robotic Process Automation Opens New Doors For Finance And Risk

Image credit: Shutterstock

Wall Street Will Be Assimilated

The financial services industry’s broad adoption of artificial intelligence and robotic process automation is a matter when rather than if, according to experts.

The technologies have reached a tipping point just in the past few years as the business world generated the necessary amount of data needed to train AIs and automated robotic systems, said Roger Park, partner/principal, strategy and innovation leader, financial services at EY and who spoke during the DTCC’s Fintech Symposium.

“There’s a pervasiveness of data that we haven’t seen before,” noted Park. “Nearly 90% of data that has ever been produced has been produced in the past two years.”

Wall Street’s continuing elimination of manual interactions and reliance of physical artifacts also has lowered the threshold for adopting AI and robotic process automation, which Park defined as a continuum with rote-based transformations like a Microsoft Excel macro on one end and the discipline of cognitive computing on the other.

Unlike legacy process automation projects, which required firms to open their existing systems and might have taken nine months to implement, robotic systems run on top of the existing systems and might take 45 days to deploy.

Many of the robotic systems also can be configured or taught by watching workers performing their tasks.

This flexibility also has altered the return-on-investment calculations on whether a process is worth automating.

“In the past, if you had a function with fewer than 100 people, it might not have been worth doing the system integration,” said Park. “You might have outsourced that. Today, functions that are equivalent to eight to ten FTE are worth automating because of the cost is low.”

In terms of overall headcount reduction, the World Economic Forum estimated in February that AI and automation will eliminate 40% of current jobs in the next five years.

The loss of these positions will bring new risks to organizations as business knowledge starts concentrating among fewer and fewer employees, according to Park.

“The nightmare scenario that none of us want to run into is that you have implemented automation, received great productivity gains but then something unexpected changes,” he said. “In many cases, it is an underlying system that changed, and now you have to explain to someone that the entire operation shut down because you had issues and did not have the proper governance in place.”

The consequent reduction in force will also reverse the 25-year trend of offshoring productivity, added Christopher Surdak, program director, Institute for Robotic Process Automation and fellow speaker.

“Business processor out-sourcers are absolutely out of their minds terrified of the implications of this technology,” he said. “Using this automation, I can bring that back those seats. It might be only 10% of them, but domesticating those positions might not be a bad thing in this political environment.”

Source: marketsmedia.com – Wall Street Will Be Assimilated

7 Things Startups Should Know About Outsourcing Development

For a startup to get through the teething stage and gain recognization, it must have its own unique system. It must consider as all-important such activities as hiring, training and the outsourcing of development, plus such elements as brand, structure and values.

Along the way, outsourcing is a common practice many startups use to complete these tasks. In fact, I know startup entrepreneurs who outsource virtually every task.

There’s good reason for that: Outsourcing can lead to high levels of productivity at relatively reduced costs. A study by Intetics revealed that outsourcing can save companies 60 percent on overhead costs.

What you outsource depends on the nature of your business and your goals, of course. But you’ve got to approach outsourcing the right way or risk losing money and even putting your business at risk.

For example, you may want to outsource the development of your mobile app, because you don’t have the technical expertise required. Better yet, you may want professionals to handle things at a lower cost so you can focus on a a higher revenue-generating task, such as marketing.

The truth is, you can outsource every aspect of your business if you choose, but considering how vital one aspect — development — is to every startup, you should look particularly closely at the following seven things to know about outsourcing it.

1. Choose the right third party to work with.

Creating a brand that you’ll be proud of requires deliberate efforts. One of the daring steps involved here is deciding who handles your development (e.g., app development). Should you hire an agency or freelancers? Most of the startup entrepreneurs I’ve interacted and worked with prefer working with agencies.

However, if you’re tight on budget (most startups are), seriously consider going to a place like Meetup.com to find a technical co-founder.

Remember that whether you’re going to hire an agency or individual freelancers, there are both pros and cons to each. Conduct your research first.

2. Consider technology standards.

Technology has redefined web and app development, or any type of development for that matter. For this reason, when outsourcing, consider the technology standards you’re using.

As an example, mobile usage has almost drowned desktop usage, with a 58 percent growth rate year over year. If you’re developing a website for your startup, you can’t possibly hire professionals who don’t understand responsive design.

More so, if you plan to generate traffic, leads and customers from search engines, Google expects you to make your web and mobile applications mobile-friendly.

Chaim Sajnovsky, founder at B7Dev.com, suggests that, “Being able to feature up-to-date technologies in your development is critical. Otherwise, your project will be outdated.”

3. Include personalized communication.

Don’t outsource development if there’s no guarantee of a personalized communication. Why? Because sooner or later you’ll encounter technical issues after the project has been completed.

To ensure a seamless communication, be aware of the time-zone difference to help you make smart decisions about when to outsource your services, and whom to put in charge.

If you’re based in California, for example, and you’re in the process of hiring an agency/freelancer in Johannesburg, South Africa, do well to understand when to send emails, put a call across or submit a support ticket.

4. Don’t neglect intellectual property considerations.

What rights do you have on your mobile app properties? I’m not an attorney, but from my personal experience, I’ve found that some legal jurisdictions have little or no regard for intellectual property like software.

It may interest you to know of estimates that say approximately 61 percent of software used in most Asian countries and 58 percent in India are pirated. How many of these crimes have resulted in lawsuits? How many of those lawsuits have been litigated?

That said, when outsourcing developments (web, app, software, etc.), it’s your responsibility to secure your intellectual property against misuse and theft. So, create those limitations by drafting contracts and nondisclosure agreements which the freelancer/agency will be required to sign and adhere to.

As always seek professional legal advice if you have any questions.

5. Consider the unique quality of your software or other product.

There are some delicate developments you should never outsource to a third-party. Why? Because if you’re talking about a key competency — a key product or service that makes the company unique — you don’t want other people to hijack your edge.

This is your company’s “secret sauce,” so trade it with extra care. If you truly want to get the project done, consider hiring an in-house developer to handle it.

You may want to outsource operational products such as reservation systems or process automation, but when it comes to creative products like architectural rendering, chip-design programs or consumer games, don’t reveal the secret. Work on these in-house.

6. Get regular updates on your company’s progress.

You’re in control of your business. So don’t be like all those other CEOs and founders out there who relinquish to a third party 100 percent control of their company’s development. That’s not ideal.

Inasmuch as outsourcing development is important, you need to get regular updates to keep abreast of the behind-the-scene processes.

Don’t be interested in just the end result, such as the functional software, either. Rather, get involved in the ongoing development. Provide ideas, answer questions, give suggestions. You’ll learn a lot more from the processes than from the end result.

If you’re ignorant of software malfunction, or even some minute fact about app development, you may make irrelevant decisions.

7. Get what you pay for.

At any phase of your startup, be careful not to think that getting cheaper services is the best way to go. I know that you want to save money, and that’s important: 46 percent of startups that fail do so because they run out of money. Specifically, not seeing projected ROI is the reason why fully 80 percent fail.

However, you need to keep in mind that you always get what you pay for. That’s a fact of life. And I’m not necessarily suggesting that you should make expensive hires.

The bottom line is, choose freelancers/companies that have the experience, modern tools and right skills required to handle your project. At the worst, pay the industry standard fee when outsourcing developments of your software applications.

Conclusion

In a world where you’re required to be creative, productive and tenacious in order to cut through the noise, consider outsourcing as your master key. If you’ve tried it in the past but didn’t get the results that you wanted, don’t give up.

Use the above seven-item checklist. Of course, you don’t have to implement everything at once, but be disciplined enough to resort to these tips every so often. That way, you’ll be assured that your startup is in good hands when you outsource development.

Source: Entrepreneur-7 Things Startups Should Know About Outsourcing Development

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