Big growth in automation and software bots

PETALING JAYA: The lockdowns and social distancing due to the Covid-19 pandemic have driven an increase in automating business processes to increase productivity and efficiencies.

This has focused investments in platforms that can do that across business silos, observed by ServiceNow principal solution consultant (Asia Pacific and Japan) Peter Doherty.

“People are really looking at where they can optimise processes, and are using virtual agents not just for engagement, but also fulfil the end-to-end requests. This is a new thing for a lot of organisations, which are trying different types of chatbots and automation tools, ” said Doherty during an online roundtable discussion themed “Driving operational resiliency by leveraging automation in a new cost-sensitive era”, which was part of the recent #digitalXdata 2020 live virtual conference.

The panelists at the online roundtable discussion also included Star Media Group Bhd group chief technology officer Kang Yew Jin and ServiceNow director of strategic markets (Asean) Simon Ma. ServiceNow is a global cloud services provider and business process automation leader that offers a full suite of automation tools that are customisable and fully integrated, and can improve all facets of business workflow and production.

The Covid-19 pandemic has accelerated the need for automation to assist businesses to not just operate as usual, though to do things better without compromising the wellbeing of the workforce.

A survey by McKinsey found that 50% of the work time in Malaysia is spent on highly automatable activities. With proper implementation and integration of automation technology, business productivity and performance could be significantly magnified while reducing the operational and labour costs.

Ma pointed out that many of his clients look at areas of the information technology (IT) operations that could be good targets for automation. This brings about the capability to re-engineer some of these business processes to better improve efficiency, quality and speed, ” he said.

Meanwhile, a senior IT executive from a telecommunications service provider said the Covid-19 pandemic also resulted in the company deploying automation technology to better deal with customer complaints.

“Our network guys couldn’t go out and resolve certain issues, and the amount of customer calls or complaints received was very high. So, we had to automate elements in the customer service arm. What the automation software did was built a workflow – from the point where the customer complains, and thereafter the agent creates a case; then the robotic system either helps to raise the case to the network team, or leads them to do either basic troubleshooting, or some other configuration that set matters right. The new workflow helped us to turn things around a lot faster, ” she said.

In response, Doherty said companies often do not have the automated workflow capabilities of the telecommunications service provider, and thus, suffer from a lot of stress due to the overwhelming number of customer complaints during the Covid-19 pandemic. “That’s a great story. You (the telecommunications service provider) are talking about an end-to-end workflow. That is a customer-focused outcome, ” he said.

A courier service provider also had to turn to automation software, due to the explosive jump in delivery volumes during the movement control order (MCO). “During the MCO, our volume doubled up in terms of parcels. We had difficulty in deliveries because we are very manual in operations and human dependent, which resulted in a high volume of customer phone-in complaints – parcels not received, late deliveries, etc. So, we enabled chatbot to answer about 80% of the enquiries which are usually about parcel status and current location, ” said the digital lead of the courier service provider.

Doherty said during the lockdowns, many business services suddenly became mission-critical and used video conferencing platforms as examples. “Many started leveraging technologies like machine learning to predict when things were going wrong. As you come out of these virtual meetings, oftentimes you might not be happy with the connection quality. The system will automatically create a case, and people like me would proactively respond to you, so you don’t get frustrated, ” he said.

Doherty added that many organisations across the region he spoke to weren’t fortunate in suffering breakdowns in their processes and business services, especially from an IT perspective. “There were too many areas that relied on manual activity and involvement. So, we’re working with a lot of those companies to look at those key points where they need to automate.”

He noted the Covid-19 pandemic has resulted in many companies moving to cloud-based platforms. “More and more, we’re seeing the need to be agile and move quickly and they cannot do that with their legacy systems. Though, you have to automate the risks, the visibility, the management, and making sure you know what is in the cloud, what you’re running and how to keep it resilient, ” said Doherty.

He also pointed out that the days of innovation for the sake of innovation investment, are gone. “Innovation now must be clearly driven to business outcomes, ” said Doherty.

#digitalXdata 2020 was organised by Star Media Group with ServiceNow as a virtual roundtable partner. The live virtual conference showcased the market outlook and forecast for 2021 and beyond in the areas of technology, digital and analytics.

Liew Kok Mun, the senior manager, solution consulting, ServiceNow, spoke at the industry panel discussion “How Can We “Humanise” Technology & Digital Into the Workforce of Tomorrow”. The playback of the session can be viewed at bit.ly/dxdservicenow

For more info, visit www.servicenow.com