Twenty years ago, less than 10 percent of humans were connected to the internet, and today over 60 percent of the world’s population is connected and highly dependant on the world wide web.
Engineering innovation and the use of machines have helped the workforce improve productivity and utilization, giving a boost to economic activities, increasing efficiency in output, and speed in meeting the end-user demand.
A decade before, the advent of robotic process automation (RPA) bots brought in a new dimension to ease the work and improve efficiency by automating rule-based tasks like grabbing data from multiple applications, filling in the same information in numerous places. But even after the advent of RPA, humans always existed in the loop, and the bots were only 60% efficient. The Digital worker is the outcome of such need, which is capable of automating and augmenting the human workforce intelligently.
Unlike the typical RPA, each Digital Worker can manage one or more processes or tasks. Additionally, it can be trained to prioritize selected tasks, handle exceptions, and learn by doing. Digital workers can be delivered to the customers from the cloud or on-premise for selected technologies.
Digital worker leverages the capabilities offered by natural language processing, computer vision, machine learning, chatBots, and other cognitive technologies. The unique feature of a Digital worker is the ability to continuously self-learn and automate complex processes. Its practical implementation can be imagined for various processes across sectors. Let’s discuss a few possible use cases below.
Use case 1
Imagine a Digital worker playing the role of a billing analyst. The Digital worker is equipped to seamlessly analyze/compare all pre-programmed billing procedures and uses NLP algorithms to follow up and obtain billing approval from superiors efficiently. It generates automated invoices for customers and reviews all records associated with bills to ensure accuracy. The Digital worker meets all billing deadlines by working 24×7, and its supervisor can control it through any handheld device. The Digital worker can quickly draw a report of all billing transactions, expenses, income, and fund transfers through a simple voice command. It can reconcile billing records and report income projections to administration. The Digital worker can operate in both front office and back office; in a front office, it can be configured to play a CRM role and help explain bills to customers.
Use case 2
The Financial Planning and Analysis (FP&A ) role is no longer limited to management reporting – it also requires lots of business insight so that the top management can formulate an effective strategy. Imagine a Digital worker platform assisting FP&A leader with extensive data reconciliation & consolidation as well as variance analysis. Additionally, the Digital worker helps in coupling the use of scenario and sensitivity analysis to forecast possible outcomes. It can analyze the income statement and predict/forecast the bottom line. With the use of financial modeling, the Digital worker uses data science algorithms to forecast operating and profitability performance and help set annual targets for KPIs. The Digital worker comes with rich knowledge and expertise of certified accountants and senior finance leaders. The plug and play Digital worker helps accelerate growth, optimize cost, manage risk and improve customer experience.
Use case 3
An inefficient accounts payable process leads to loss of potential volume rebates, increases the process cost, inflates team size, lacks visibility of data on vendor spend, can cause delayed payments, penalties to suppliers, or fraud in some instances.
Digital worker captures and extracts data using content and text extraction engine, learns to execute end-user designed business rules and processes by making the workflow seamless and unattended with near-zero human intervention. The Digital worker leverages computer vision to match the purchase order (PO) and invoices and self-learn to improve efficiency continuously. It can intelligently automate the end to end cycle with the seamless issue of payment using various payment methods. It records transactions and provides access to the archived information instantly. In case of a discrepancy, it triggers an alert through a chatbot to the relevant stakeholder.
Our innovative team at Netfotech Solutions offers a unique consulting model to address the strategic dimensions and answer questions like, “Have you considered a differentiator? What is your vertical expansion strategy, “How are you attracting traffic into your business propositions” etc.
Automation programs get preferential treatment because of their cognitive capabilities. Automation assures a substantial outcome on day one with a clear business case that no other technology can do upfront.
The world after COVID19 will be a different place to live in with new norms of social distancing and new developments in trade and commerce as mandated by the government. In such a world where work from home will be a new norm, it is about time that technology and business leaders should switch to leverage Digital workforce or Digital worker that is capable of operating 24 x 7 with near-zero human intervention.