Tangentia Newsletter
February 2020
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Tangentia Newsletter – February 2020
Author: Daryl Vaz
Tangentia Newsletter – February 2020
Tangentia Jigyasa Quiz 2020 grows bigger with 8 cities, 200 teams
Tangentia Jigyasa Quiz 2020 grows bigger with 8 cities, 200 teams
16/February/2020 Porvorim, Goa: The Tangentia Jigyasa Quiz (TJQ) started in 2017 as a modest business and technology quiz in Goa for corporate and college teams. In the initial year, there were mostly local teams and a handful of national teams attending. In 2019, the quiz became national with prelims in 6 cities in India and 100+ teams participating. This year is the 4th Edition of the Tangentia Jigyasa Quiz and the organizing team has pulled all stops to make it a bigger and better affair. The prelims will be held simultaneously in 8 cities in India via video conference and the participants can even have team members in different cities. In 2019, Tangentia Jigyasa Quiz was the first Quiz to have video conferencing and virtual team members participate in India and in 2020, no other quiz offers anything even remotely close. The video conferencing and virtual team participation is possible thanks to the technological prowess of the title sponsor- Tangentia, a leading global technology consulting company. This year there will be an international element to the Quiz with the Quiz Master, Tangentia CEO, Vijay Thomas virtually asking questions for the prelims from the Tangentia headquarters in Toronto, Canada.
This year's participants include Sai Mitra Constructions from Hyderabad who are the reigning champions from 2017 as well as 2019. Sai Mitra Constructions are also past national winners of the Tata Crucible Quiz and their participation in the Tangentia Jigyasa Quiz is testament to the high standards and caliber of the quiz as well as of the competition. Speaking of the competition for 2020, teams from all over India representing corporates like Hero MotoCorp, Tech Mahindra, RBS, Pai Kane, Edelweiss, SAIL,RBI, Capgemini, Indian Oil, Novartis, Barclays. Educational institutions participating include IIM Calcutta, IIT Madras, Welingkars Mumbai, Madras Christian College, Dhempe College and many more.
The prelims for the Tangentia Jigyasa Quiz will be held on February 22nd at 11am in Delhi,
Mumbai, Delhi, Chennai, Hyderabad, Kolkata, Pune and Goa. Finals of the Quiz will be held in Goa on March 7th and 7 winning teams from all over India will battle on their knowledge of business, technology as well as their ability to make reasonable deductions in a collegiate fun format. There will be multiple bidding rounds that will also add an element of risk taking to the event, with teams having to decide on their risk/return strategies. It will be an exciting evening for the participants as well as for the audience with a lot of audience prizes. The total prize money at stake is ₹300,000 with the winners turning richer. Teams can register at www.jigyasaquiz.com
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Come be a part of India's best Technology and Business Quiz. Register now for this quizzing extravagance.
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Barriers to Implementing Robotic Process Automation in Finance
Barriers to Implementing Robotic Process Automation in Finance
The final days of humans performing tedious and repetitive tasks in the world of finance are drawing near. Robotic Process Automation (RPA) offers companies within the financial sector and companies with a finance and/or payroll department the ability to automate many of the tasks associated with day-to-day operations. And more and more companies are making the leap to automation. According to a survey conducted by PwC in 2019, more and more
organization in the financial services sector have been adopting RPA and IA. However, fewer than 20% of respondents have achieved adoption of automation across their entire organization.
The benefits of RPA for your business, regardless of its size, are attractive. It is worth investing in an evaluation of how your business can implement an RPA strategy in 2021. However, it’s important to keep in mind that, as with any technological advancement, RPA does not come without its challenges. Yet, these are challenges that can be overcome, if you plan ahead.
Barriers to RPA Implementation
As technological changes sweep through the financial industry, it takes time for companies to incorporate these changes and adjust to them. Shifting from manual processes to digital automation can be particularly jarring and can raise a number of issues within a company. What follows are the most significant barriers faced by the financial sector when it comes to implementing RPA.
Resistance from Employees
Whenever a new technology is introduced, particularly one that takes over tasks once completed by humans, it is common for employees to be concerned. They might worry that their responsibilities will shift, or worse, that their skills will no longer be needed, and they will lose their job.
The solution is to ensure there is constant communication with employees throughout the entire RPA transition. This communication should include what is expected from them during the transition and what they can expect their role to be once the implementation of RPA is complete. If they know they will keep their job, they will more fully support the transition to automation.
Reluctance to Fully Adopt
Even as employees are brought on board with the implementation of RPA, there can be a lot of hesitancy when it comes to full adoption of the technology. While RPA is implemented to take over repetitive and tedious tasks, making better use of human time, it is common for CAOs and corporate controllers to feel the need to maintain some human interaction with the system.
The need for this constant human presence subtracts from the significant savings of time and money that RPA can provide a company and holds them back from enjoying the full benefits of the automation. One way to avoid this is to run the automation in tandem with the traditional manual operations for a period of time to assess the performance of each in relation to each other. This will help everyone become more comfortable with the fully automated approach.
Poor Process Selection
In order to be a good candidate for RPA, a process must be well-defined and repeatable without the need for human intervention. Ideal processes include tasks like data collection, data migration, and copy-and-paste tasks. However, it is common for companies that want to implement RPA to select processes that aren’t good candidates for automation.
Tasks that require human involvement, such as customer interaction, are a prime example. With this in mind, it is critical for a company to thoroughly review all processes being considered for automation to ensure they are standard, repetitive, and can be done without the need for human intervention.
The Need to Standardize Processes and Overcome Organizational Challenges
Traditionally, IT has been a separate entity to the business side of finance. This creates a challenge in the implementation of RPA that is directly related to the need to standardize processes across an organization and redistribute roles and responsibilities to ensure there is more than just minimal communication between the various departments and teams involved in RPA implementation.
This relates directly to the above point of selecting the processes to which RPA will be applied. When choosing the processes, there can be disagreement as to how these processes understood by the teams involved and how they should be executed. IT must have input here, but also those teams that work in the relevant business departments. Ensuring there is a dedicated manager role to help tie the disparate teams together to ensure strong communication and a smooth RPA implementation is critical to success.
Lack of Compatibility with Legacy Systems
It is common for banks and financial institutions to be using banking technology that is decades old. This includes COBOL software that has been running mainframes since the 1950s and 1960s. When integrating a mainframe with the cloud, there will be issues with transaction volume. There are also issues related to a lack of updated/thorough documentation on all the business rules on which the legacy system has been built, updated, and patched over the decades.
This takes time and financial resources that can be daunting. However, it is a necessary step in the evolution of finance technology, and it requires a holistic digital transformation process that will move the entire organization forward.
Ultimately, the implementation of RPA for financial tasks relies on thorough planning from the very beginning. This makes it possible to educate employees, retrain where necessary, and make sure everyone is on-board. It also makes it possible to ensure the right processes are chosen as candidates for RPA. When this planning is done adequately, it makes the transition to RPA smoother for everyone involved.
Tangentia with more than 17 years of expertise in global project implementation and change management, is in an unique position to deliver seamless RPA projects through its Agile methodology. Contact us today to start your automation journey.
Get Started Today
RPA has been embraced by many sectors, such as medicine, hospitality, retail, & manufacturing. Now, the financial sector is gearing up for a shift in financial management that will see companies digitize and streamline financial processes. Read our latest blog on how financial companies and internal finance teams are looking to RPA to become more efficient in day to day operations.
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Robotic Process Automation Paves the Way to More Efficient Financial Management
Robotic Process Automation Paves the Way to More Efficient Financial Management
As the world of the 21st century transitions to a fully digital, cloud-based infrastructure, businesses are constantly facing the need to “do more with less.” While this might sound cliché, it doesn’t make this phrase any less relevant. Robotic Process Automation (RPA) is one way in which companies have been able to improve processes and deliver higher quality results more efficiently and at a lower cost, all while taking full advantage of digital technology.
RPA has been embraced by many sectors, such as medicine, hospitality, retail, & manufacturing. Now, the financial sector is gearing up for a shift in financial management that will see companies digitize and streamline financial processes. McKinsey reports that 80% of business are either considering the implementation of RPA technology for managing their financial processes or are already using it in some capacity.
The use of RPA offers tremendous benefits to businesses of all sizes. It has the ability to automate what would normally be considered tedious, repetitive tasks, resulting in:
- Reduced costs
- Elimination of human error and increased accuracy
- Increased processing speed
- Increased productivity
- Improved quality
- Improved customer service
- Improved regulatory compliance and reporting
- The ability to free up employees and other resources to focus on new initiatives
Consider the financial cost to a company to fix human-made errors that would have been eliminated with RPA. According to Gartner, 70% of accounting work to correct preventable errors before a financial close has to be done manually, at a cost of as much as 25,000 hours and $900,000 per year for a company with 40 full-time accounting employees. In addition, RPA costs about one-third the cost of one offshore employee.
A great example of the use of RPA is a financial institution that provides loans. The loan process can be long and tedious. It can take days to run credit checks and determine whether a borrower is eligible for a loan. RPA makes it possible to implement this loan approval process more quickly and more accurately by using it for back-end tasks that take time to complete and are subject to human error.
Other tasks financial institutions can manage using RPA include:
- Compliance processing
- Data management
- Automating the verification and audit process
- Account management
- Processing new applications
- Making credit decisions
- Producing audit trails
However, a company doesn’t need to be a financial institution to make good use of RPA. Any company with a financial and/or payroll department will be able to reap the benefits. For examples, when it comes to accounts payable, it is common for many businesses to still rely on manual methods to process payments going out to employees and suppliers.
RPA can streamline the accounts payable process to ensure all payments go out on time every time by:
- Automating the accounts payable process
- Tracking duplicate payments
- Processing all payments
- Issuing purchase orders and invoice receipts
- Detecting fraudulent invoices and transactions
In addition, RPA can help companies automate financial tasks like:
- On-boarding suppliers and customers
- Doing price comparisons
- Setting contract terms
- Gathering market intelligence
- Tracking and gathering data from portal queries
- Exception processing for special orders
- Delivery reconciliation
RPA is a solution that is turning heads as it is adopted by more and more companies as a way to automate many back-end financial processes. The key to making the best use of RPA is to identify tasks that are a waste of valuable time and resources and allocate those to the automation process. This frees up financial resources and employees to focus on other initiatives that will help any company remain competitive and ultimately increase its bottom line.
Tangentia with more than 17 years of expertise in global project implementation and change management, is in a unique position to deliver seamless RPA projects through its Agile methodology. Contact us today to start your automation journey.
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Interested in Automation but don’t know where to start?Looking for somebody to help maintain, support and enhance your existing bots? Contact us now. We promise a human will answer your query, not a bot.
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With 2019 Nearly Over- Where are AI, RPA & EDI going in 2020?
Where are AI, RPA & EDI going in 2020?
A perspective by Tangentia CEO, Vijay Thomas
2019 was a significant year for Tangentia. As a recognizable ‘global boutique’ consulting firm that provides bespoke services in Canada, USA and India—we are excited about the progress we saw.
Whether it was our core B2B business of EDI(Electronic Data Interchange) and Ecommerce or the development of our new AI(Artificial Intelligence) and RPA(Robotic Process Improvement) segment, we empowered many businesses to improve their core operations.
But what trends really defined 2019? And which ones will continue to lead the way into 2020?
2019 Was a Milestone Year For Tangentia
2019 was the year we committed to automation through our AI and RPA service offerings. While we had some exposure previously (mostly through providing staffing solutions), we expanded our offerings by creating a new range of services that focused on key problems that businesses face in a multitude of industries. We expanded our partnership with IBM to become a Platinum partner of IBM for Watson AI. Also we are global partners for Automation Anywhere, UI Path and Blue Prism in the RPA space.
We also consolidated some of our legacy services, improving our B2B business segment—which includes our legacy EDI and Ecommerce business. These services continued to grow substantially outside of North America with many significant wins in 2019 in India including India’s largest retailer.
Our global headquarters also moved in Toronto, from Willowdale to the Waterfront district, which saw us join the likes of Google,Uber, LCBO, Royal Bank, and soon Microsoft in what is arguably the fastest-growing tech hub in the world. We are beyond excited to be located in such an innovative area of the city.
How Will 2020 Impact Digital Transformations?
Company accomplishments are important, but the real value is in the lessons we learned from the exciting technologies that we offer.
So, what were the main takeaways from 2019?
Automation Isn’t a Magic Bullet
The RPA industry saw between 600-1000% growth in 2019. These numbers are large and signify that many companies are investing in this technology heavily. Major players in this industry have become unicorns in the investing world as the markets realize the potential that automation has.
However, AI, RPA, automation, and similar technologies aren’t a guarantee. Companies that invested millions into this technology without a plan saw minimal results.
Automation is a catalyst for innovation, but your business needs the right systems in place to take advantage of it. The goal of RPA is to enhance existing systems that are already working. An automation solution will decrease costs, improve efficiency, and other core metrics- but only if an organization understands what areas they need to improve.
It’s important that a company makes small changes that compound over time. We encourage our clients to push for real value and not to fall victim to the marketing pitches that they’ve heard about automation. Our team even has a Continual Process Improvement(CPI) using RPA model that we encourage our customers to try out.
In 2020, we expect to see more companies identify how RPA can help their organization cut costs, improve productivity, and make their business more agile.
EDI Isn’t Dead. It’s Evolving
Yet again, critics made the claim that EDI is dead. But as an EDI solution provider, I can assure you that EDI isn’t going anywhere.
If anything, EDI is evolving and adapting to the digital age. At Tangentia, we see EDI as any B2B communications between two business entities and not through the traditional lens of ANSI X12 or EDIFACT. And while this traditional EDI may be slowing down, XML and API formats aren’t going anywhere—especially in the age of integration. Today, businesses rely on countless apps having the ability to communicate and synchronize flawlessly. This alone will ensure the longevity of EDI as companies look to simplify B2B communications.
Legacy companies will always rely on some form of EDI, while modern startups have the benefit of building out in the digital world. Still, even startups require EDI solutions using either the XML or API formats.
Digital Transformations Matter – But You Must Define What It Means to Your Company
Digital transformation is the buzzword today. Every company is claiming they are making a digital transformation.But what does it really mean?
An effective digital transformation should be all about making incremental changes that drive long-term value and improve the user experience.
For example, a business may use an invoicing system that takes one month to complete. They could realize substantial gains by automating this process down to several days.
One advantage that we can offer our clients is the perspectives we have gained from working in Canada, the United States, and India. We can help companies identify what’s working in one region and find ways to adapt that same technology in another.
Digital transformations aren’t going anywhere in 2020. Successful companies are always looking to modernize and improve the way they connect with customers, employees, and partners. However, we expect to see companies focus more on what their personalized digital transformation looks like.
Where Is Tangentia Going in 2020?
Agile Digital Transformation
Our unique agile approach to digital transformation has allowed us to deliver complex digital transformation projects for the largest beverage alcohol distributor in the world, the largest retailer in India and many mid sized companies worldwide. We will continue to stay true to our belief in the power of the iterative agile delivery model.
Global Boutique
Tangentia is a ‘global boutique’ firm. We know how to execute using a global delivery model with much less overheads than our competitors and that provides our customers with high-end services at a value driven price.
Get Started Today
Interested in Automation but don’t know where to start? Looking for somebody to help maintain, support and enhance your existing bots? Or just want to say hello? Contact us now. We promise a human will answer your query, not a bot.
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B2B
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World-leading Proven EDI & B2B Integration SolutionsTangentia B2B
Automate EDI data flow to your business applicationsTangentia EDI
2000+ Global EDI ConnectionsTangentia EDI
Let us manage your EDI infrastructureTangentia AMS for EDI
Tangentia B2B
Tangentia B2B is a one stop shop for your B2B, EDI, trading partner, supply chain requirements, Connect your business with your enterprise-level trading partners worldwide through our network of more than 2000+ EDI connections, and integrate your EDI data with your ERP and other internal business applications seamlessly.
EDI
Reduce your EDI costs, increase your flexibility, and be EDI-ready quickly. Move your EDI to the cloud.
Features
STABILITY
Backed by the global Tangentia Consulting & Technology Organization
CREDIBILITY
11 Fortune 500 customers
FLEXIBILITY
Integration to 50+ ERP/WMS/E-commerce systems
RELIABILITY
1000+ B2B customers globally
SCALABILITY
Connect to more than 2000+ trading hubs globally
NO EDI CHARGEBACKS
Guaranteed EDI compliance to trading partner specifications
Tangentia B2B Customers
Testimonials & Case studies
“Tangentia B2B has helped King’s Crown save both time and money.”
Bernadette shares her thoughts on why she picked Tangentia B2B and her positive experience with the Tangentia. Tangentia B2B’s EDI and Order Management cloud offering has helped Kings Crown save both time and money.
“If you are looking for EDI, I would recommend Tangentia B2B.”
National Home Products has been in business for over 50 years delivering on its promises and making their customers happy.
“Tangentias ability to code in many environments gives us the confidence to handle any new business opportunity that comes our way.”
Six years ago we were looking out for solutions that would make us future ready. We finally zeroed in to implementation of EDI solutions from Tangentia B2B
“We recommend Tangentia to firms looking for IBM WebSphere MQ and Financial Services Industry expertise.”
Banking & Financial Industry connectivity with trading partners & clearing houses like DTCC using IBM WebSphere MQ.
“In 2012,we decided to move forward with a non-integrated, web-based EDI solution from Tangentia.”
The web interface is user-friendly, and has an easy learning curve; it also provides the search functionality critical to a company like ours.
Tangentia B2B Partners
Digital Transformation: One Button at a time!
Digital Transformation: One Button at a time!
Tangentia Media
Finding the right promotional giveaways for your exhibition can be a challenge.Promotional products are only successful in marketing your company or organization if the person who receives it is actually going to make use of it. When choosing a product, think about how well you might receive the item?
With this in mind, our marketing team did a fantastic job of getting it right, making our Tangentia Badges a huge success at Vibrant Goa. Check out some of the final designs that made it from the hundreds of initial ones our team worked on.
Tangentia – I Love Goa
The biggest hit at the event by a mile, this button was popular amongst visitors, fellow exhibitors and students alike. We even had our humble button get a few selfies with some big-name personalities like Mr. Piyush Goyal – Minister of Railways & Commerce Government of India, Mr. Pramod Sawant, Honorable Chief Minister of Goa & Mr. Jagat Shah – Chief Mentor Vibrant Goa.
Tangentia – KEEP CALM and AI
Artificial intelligence (AI) not only powers your latest smartphone nowadays but, is also providing solutions to big and thorny problems like business processes, digital security, disaster management and cancer treatment.
Tangentia.AI is helping companies leverage this potential for faster, smarter and more economic growth. As such, it makes sense to just sit back, relax and AI!
Tangentia – Kitne BOTS the re Kaliya?
Perhaps one of the most iconic dialogues from one of the most iconic movies of yesteryears.
Tangentia’s Robotic Process Automation team took this timeless classic and made it their own. With RPA and Intelligent Automation, the possibilities for business processes and growth is virtually limitless.
Tangentia – To be or not to B2B, That is the question?
Question indeed, and one our experts at Tangentia.B2B can help answer. Tangentia EDI is a one-stop shop for your EDI, B2B, trading partner, supply chain requirements. Connect your business with your enterprise-level trading partners worldwide through our network of more than 2000+ EDI connections, & integrate your EDI data with your ERP and other internal business applications seamlessly.
Tangentia – Wanna chAI?
A quirky take on the famous desi Chai and Tangentia’s budding AI division that is helping accelerate digital transformation through intelligent automation.As the saying goes, a BOT can happen over coffee!
Grab your Free button now!
With all the love and praise we received at Vibrant goa, and with most of our buttons running out of stock by day 3, it only seems fair that we send out some more to those who didn’t get one. If you would like to receive any of these buttons, do let us know in the form below, and Tangentia will send them out to you, for Free!
Tangentia at Vibrant Goa Global Expo and Summit 2019
Tangentia at Vibrant Goa Global Expo and Summit 2019
Think Global, Act Local
Tangentia was Gold Sponsor at Vibrant Goa 2019, Goa’s largest international business expo & summit, which kicked off to much fanfare on 17th October 2019 at the S.P Mukherjee Indoor Stadium, Panaji.The 3-day event saw an average of 50,000 footfalls per day, with participation from 56 countries, 20 Indian states & over 3000 businesses.
Tangentia’s booths showcased our acumen in end-to-end solutions for Automation, B2B and Digital. On display were some of Tangentia AI’s interactive bot’s letting visitors get a first-hand feel of how automation and Tangentia.AI is transforming industry processes and experiences.
Visitors to Our Booth
The Tangentia booth had a lot of footfalls – we did not count but surely more than a couple of 1000 over the 3 days. We had delegates from 42 countries visit us and more than 500 business cards. Some of our visitors were quite high profile and can be seen above.
“My Mantra for Success” Campaign
A huge hit at the event was Tangentia’s “My mantra for success” contest. The campaign witnessed 1000+ contestants battle it out online for a chance to win an Amazon Echo every day.The contest was also a great opportunity to interact with the budding goan talent pool of engineers, developers and management professionals, much of whom were fascinated by Tangentia’s AI operations, robotics and internship opportunities.
Tangentia Knowledge Session “The Future of Work, Bots, and AI is here”
Tangentia received a positive response from a number of industry partners, officials as well as local government bodies, who appreciated Tangentia’s longstanding contribution towards Goa’s push towards digital transformation.
Tangentia also organized knowledge sessions at the event for delegates and visitors, with the “The Future of Work, Bots, and AI is here” session highlighting work done by Tangentia AI experts in the fields of Robotic Process Automation, Blockchain, and Machine Learning.
“I Love Goa” Buttons from Tangentia
The Tangentia I Love Goa buttons were a huge success with nearly 1000 of them distributed amongst the attendees. We even had our humble button get a few selfies with some big-name personalities like Mr. Piyush Goyal – Minister of Railways & Commerce Government of India, Mr. Pramod Sawant, Honorable Chief Minister of Goa & Mr. Jagat Shah – Chief Mentor Vibrant Goa.
Canada-Goa B2B Meet
As a Canadian headquartered company & with our CEO being the head of the Canadian delegation to Vibrant Goa, the “Canada-Goa B2B Meet” sponsored by Tangentia was a great opportunity for Goan companies looking to do business with Canadian companies in India or looking to expand to Canada. Discussions were held with the Canadian Delegation about their businesses, plans & aspirations for India & Goa as well as collaboration opportunities.
FOHO (Fractional Ownership Homes)
Another highlight of day one was the grand launch of FOHO (Fractional Ownership Homes), a fresh take on the idea of home ownership. FOHO is the latest addition to Tangentia Venture’s vast portfolio of businesses and startups.
FOHO is a unique opportunity where unconnected buyers collectively & securely own the freehold of a home better known as fractional ownership. We are a more cost-effective alternative to whole ownership of a holiday home with the additional benefit of potentially growing your investment. We’d say that we are smart second-home ownership opportunities.
Learn more at www.letsfoho.com
Our CEO Vijay Thomas summed up the expo perfectly.
“The world is on the cusp of a revolution with multiple market forces like globalization, digitalization, remote working, global creative class, work-life Balance, Blue Economy, fractional ownership of assets and shared services becoming prevalent. Goa could become one of the global leaders with its ability to provide the platform for many of these market forces. Vibrant Goa showcased all that exists in Goa, and more so showcased what was possible in the future and from what we can see the future is exciting for sure. We at Tangentia are really excited about the Goa story and would invite everybody worldwide to come and have a look at what Goa has to offer.”
The Team at Tangentia looks forward to participating in Vibrant Goa 2020 in Dubai.
Tangentia participates in Vibrant Goa delegation to Israel
Tangentia participates in Vibrant Goa delegation to Israel
“It was a wonderful experience representing Goa and Goan Business in Israel. Right off the bat, Goa was very well recognized by Israeli business people as multiple generations of Israeli's have been coming to Goa as tourists and the fact that they could do business in Goa brought a smile to their faces. Representing Tangentia which is a technology company, it was initially difficult building a business proposition for the Israeli technology companies to partner with us but after a few conversations, it was evident that there is a huge opportunity for Israeli companies looking at the Indian market to partner with companies based out of Goa and using that partnership to springboard into the Indian market.”
“There is a lot of trust built over the decades between Israel and Goa and with direct flights starting up in September between Tel Aviv and Goa, it will be a huge catalyst to business. Our delegation was successful in convincing multiple major Israeli organizations in the Innovation, Startup and Medical fields to participate in Vibrant Goa and we look forward to meeting them in Goa in October.”
“It was my first visit to Israel and I will confidently say that it will not be the last one. I would like to thank Vibrant Goa for the opportunity to be part of this wonderful delegation and the Government of Goa to have sent Mr. Joshua Dsouza as an official representative on the delegation. Slowly but surely, we are confident that Goa will be on the mind of Israeli businesses when they think of India.”
Teaming Humans with Bots – Workplace strategy for the Future
Teaming Humans
with Bots
Workplace strategy
for the Future
Teaming Humans with Bots – Workplace strategy for the Future
by Rajhans Gupta and Nikita Mapari
“Robotgeddon” has become an awfully popular expression nowadays. The term was put together from the word “robot” and “Armageddon.” Could AI really replace humans? Let’s investigate a bit.
We are living in the golden age of digitalization: in the past few years, many new technologies have emerged. Two significant ones are artificial intelligence and automation. These rapidly developing fields have an effect on almost every area of business. If businesses want to work efficiently and successfully, they have no other choice but become better at AI and automation.
Automation or Artificial Intelligence
Automation means that a software (bot) does an activity automatically which could otherwise be done by using actual manpower. This is also the field where robotics is most useful. A machine that had been set up appropriately is able to do the task it has been programmed to do. Thanks to automation, you can put an end to boring and repetitive activities, which can easily and perfectly be done by a machine instead. The most important areas where automation is used are manufacturing, online marketing and sales processes.
Artificial Intelligence
AI is no different than a set of computers and automated software's that normally require human cognitive functions (e.g. the ability to learn). You can see that there are similarities between the two technologies, but there is a significant difference too: while AI is able to learn and apply the things it had learned in practice, automation can only perform those monotone tasks that it had been programmed to do. The most important companies to consider when talking about artificial intelligence are Google, Microsoft, and Facebook.
Productivity Fluctuation: Robots Vs Humans
Creating a balanced and even workflow will optimize productivity for robots – in the same way as it does for human workers. Surely robots don’t get tired, can work 24/7, are fully skilled at what they are programmed to do, and don’t have any pesky motivational issues – so must their productivity always be consistently high?
For a bot or human, productivity is best measured as a ratio of output: input. How much work did we get out for the amount of time we put in? For this to make sense we generally convert time into “capacity to do work” based on some idea of how much work could be done in a given time.
So, if Person A completes 75 tasks in a day and they had the capacity to complete 100 then their productivity was 75%. Similarly, if Robot B completes 500 tasks in a day and had the capacity to do 1,000 then their productivity would be 50%. As we begin to increase our investment in Robotic Process Automation (RPA) and AI: the productivity of this (potentially) cheaper processing resource will matter – if not so much now then certainly when everyone is employing RPA to do similar tasks within the same services.”
But why would Robot B only do 500 tasks? They wouldn’t dawdle because they didn’t like their boss. They wouldn’t spend hours on social media, and they would surely only be allocated tasks that they were 100% capable of processing. Maybe Robot B could only process 500 tasks because there were only 500 available to be done. The plain fact of the matter is that with humans and robotics increasingly working alongside one another in service operations a blended and balanced approach needs to be taken on the issue of productivity.
Working Together
When thinking about smart machines or robots entering many domains of our lives, several visions come to mind: robots taking over the world, jobs disappearing, and machines running amok and reproducing themselves. But a look at what’s being developed today, and the potential of these new powerful machines, yields an optimistic view of the future.
Despite generations of new technologies, we’re now working more rather than less. Adult male peasants in the 13th century in the United Kingdom worked an average of 1,600 hours a year; a manufacturing worker in the United Kingdom in 1990 worked 1,850 hours; an investment banker in New York today works close to 5,000 hours. There hasn’t yet been a technology that has resulted in our working less.
This is because machines don’t just replace what we do, they change the nature of what we do: by extending our capabilities, they set new expectations for what’s possible and create new performance standards and needs.
So will robots take our jobs?
You’ve got no reason to worry though. An article from Forbes sums up beautifully the biggest paradox that comes to mind in connection with automation and AI. It is a generally accepted view that a software can do a human job more efficiently and with a smaller chance of errors than an actual human being. If you want to apply this theory to all aspects of life, then that means that robots are actually better at educating people and raising children, too. And the paradox is right there: if humans do have to compete with such smart machines, then there are also machines among these which educate and train humans to be better and to take advantage of their qualities (and these people will continue to build robots and make them even better so that the robots can further educate them, and so on). This way, it is already not so easy to imagine that robots will take jobs, right?
To Sum It Up
Amateurs armed with good strategies and harnessing the computational power of machines turned out to be the winning combination! That’s the best metaphor for the evolving new machine-human partnership: with smart machines as our partners, we can operate at the level of grandmasters, not just in chess but in most domains of our lives, from science and medicine to gaming and commerce.
The combination of humans partnering with bots and using superior strategies opens up new worlds for exploration. The thought of robots taking over the world one day and people losing their jobs, there is no reason to worry about such things. Automation and artificial intelligence are rather a blessing than a curse – they actually don’t take jobs from people but complement them.
About the Author
The authors, Rajhans and Nikita work with Tangentia India Technologies and are based out of our Goa and Pune operations in India respectively.
Tangentia is an implementation expert in AI,RPA & Automation solutions & has partnerships with UiPath, Automation Anywhere & Blueprism.
To learn more about Automation & what Tangentia can do for you please follow this link .
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