Listen: RPA trends and opportunities in 2021
An interview with Automation Anywhere experts
Attended automation and digital assistants for employees are among the hottest robotic process automations (RPA) trending in the next few years.
Bank Automation News recently interviewed Automation Anywhere experts Ken Mertzel, global industry leader of financial services, and Catherine Calarco, senior director and head of global go-to-market, about the use cases they’re seeing and their predictions for RPA. Automation Anywhere, an RPA vendor, was founded in 2003 as Tethys Solutions and rebranded in 2010; the company has raised $840 million in funding over six rounds, according to Crunchbase. Other RPA software providers include Uipath, Blue Prism, Workfusion and Microsoff Power Automate, according to Gartner, an IT research and advisory firm.
More financial institutions are leveraging bots to run in real time to support employees, a trend Mertzel calls “attended automation.” In this episode of The Buzz, Mertzel explains how RPA could serve as a sort of digital assistant for employees within five years, enabling and automating everyday tasks in much the way Excel power users employ Excel macros now. Also, Calaraco discusses how cloud technology will combine with RPA to allow employees to focus on higher-value work.
The following is a transcript generated by AI technology that has been lightly edited but still contains errors.
Loraine Lawson 0:00
Good day. I spoke with RPA experts Ken Mertzel and Catherine Calarco, both of Automation Anywhere, about RPA trends and opportunities for 2021. Mertzel is the global industry leader, financial services, and Calarco is the senior director and head of global go-to-market.Ken Mertzel
Yeah, absolutely, we’re seeing, I think we’re seeing a couple things evolving. One is, I think we’re seeing more movement towards what we call attended automation. So, you know, unattended is basically run a bot does the thing in the background while you’re processing, then you pick up where it left off, but with attended is more real time integration with the bots. So the best examples in a call center, where you might be a CSR and on the phone with a customer. But while you’re on the phone with that customer, a bot is able to run in real time and aggregate all the information that’s known about that customer in terms of you know, what products they have, what transactions have they done so, so that the CSR is most empowered to to knowing everything they need to know about that customer. And then to the extent a certain, you know, they have a certain requests that can actually kick off about in real time to help with that request, or interact with others on their team, like, let’s say they need to interact with an underwriter for a loan, they can do that in real time. And that enables that collaboration. So I think one trend is really a towards that, you know, attended automation. And that real time interaction, another I’m seeing, and I think we’ll see more and more of this over the next five years is around, you know, having more of a true digital assistant for employees. So if you think about today, where most employees have Excel, and they’re using some type of Excel macros, I see in the future where most employees would have sort of a digital assistant, you know, and again, whether they coded themselves or not, but it’s something that will enable them to do some some of the basic tasks they might do. And that’ll be more the norm than right now, where you have to go out and decide you’re going to, you know, invest in RPA. I think another trend is certainly around migration to cloud, this isn’t unique to RPA. But, and even though there’s been some resistance of financial services, understandably, just because it’s heavily regulated, and obviously a lot of concerns around control over data, security, etc. But thanks to already, you know, migrating there, if you look at sort of how they’re implementing a lot of their DRP systems, so I see RPA, moving the same way, Where, where, you know, in the next five years, I think we’re already seeing, you know, in terms of new implementations, the majority of them are cloud based. And I think you’re seeing that both because of, certainly from a cost standpoint, right in terms of having to manage all of the infrastructure. But on top of that, it’s just frankly, easier and quicker to scale. So the combination of cloud and, and web based is certainly, you know, key. And then the last trend I’d see is, is really the infusion of RPA with forms of artificial intelligence or machine learning. So, um, you know, RPA can do a lot of things, but you know, it’s even more powerful when you combine it with, with AI. So, for example, we were talking about, you know, data extraction, you look at how much more efficient or effective that is nowadays, versus the old traditional OCR, that’s because it’s been empowered, you know, behind the scenes within our product is computer vision and, and machine learning, etc. So the throughput is much higher rate. And I think that will be similar for other aspects, whether it’s, you know, fraud detection, whether that’s for, you know, exception processing, where maybe you get to a point with a bot, and then you need to make some kind of decision, what are machine learning can help you, you know, processes exception. So, I think all those are, you know, I see where it’s evolved in the future.Loraine Lawson
I guess I thought of the bots as a sort of artificial intelligence that you mean, a human being, right.Ken Mertzel
Yeah. I mean, you know, obviously, you know, the true amount of like, true AI out there is somewhat limited. But if you look at machine learning, by way of example, right, so take an exception processing situation where, you know, let’s say an exception comes up, if you probably looked at any exception, you probably find that 80% of you know, the exceptions might be processed in one of four ways. Basically, machine, you know, leveraging machine learning, you can feed all that data in terms of all the exceptions, see what factors drove a decision across the globe or other, and therefore actually be able to go ahead through the complete automation with, you know, 80% of those instances, and then focus, you know, the human resources on those 20% more more complex cases.Loraine Lawson
And when you say cloud AI, they go into public clouds, or they going to private clouds,Ken Mertzel
but certainly going to be an evolution. I mean, you know, initially, you know, most banks are doing cloud on premise, and certainly private again, just it’s primarily driven by understandable concerns over data privacy and data security and regulatory oversight. I think over time, they’ll be a migration as companies realize, you know, look, if you look at the major cloud providers, obviously, their number one focus is around, you know, data security and, and privacy. So I, you know, my personal view is that over time it’s going to migrate. But certainly right now, it’s more, you know, private cloud and cloud on premise.Loraine Lawson
Anything else I should have asked about?Ken Mertzel
I think those are the main things, I think the other area where we’re seeing, you know, usage pretty extensively in financial services. And, and again, financial services, a good indicator of where RPA is going, because it’s, you know, far and away the largest user of RPA. But if you look, in terms of other areas of usage, compliance is a huge one, you know, we talked about how it’s heavily regulated, so we’re seeing a lot of adoption of RPA, for enabling the, you know, KYC, or know your customer and AML, or anti money laundering, compliance management in terms of being able to ensure that they get all the information they need about a customer or business, as well as monitoring transactions. So we’re seeing a lot of usage there. And certainly in lending, you know, PPP is a small example, obviously, it’s being used more broadly, in terms of, you know, all types of London, particularly, we’re seeing it heavily in mortgage, again, because of the very, you know, document intensive nature of that process. And banks in current times have been using it extensively, also for forbearance programs, so to the extent their customers have been, you know, impacted by economic hardships. They’re, they’re not putting the loans into delinquent status, and they’re deferring payments. So banks are able to actually proactively defer payments, rather than waiting for a customer to, you know, call and ask for assistance. And so that’s been, you know, a huge benefit both to banks from a financial standpoint, in terms of the amount of labor that they require, but also certainly in terms of customers, right, who therefore don’t have to now deal with credit agencies and, and other issues when they’re dealing with other economic hardship. So it’s really been, you know, I think a win win, but from customer and bank standpoint. So those are just some additional examples. Obviously, they’re, they’re hundreds, but those are some of the, you know, the big ones that we’re seeing today.Catherine Calarco
Yeah, yeah, just add to that cross industry, obviously, the financial and banking industry as they mature adopter of automation. And it leads in terms of the, you know, deployment across their their particular functions. Globally, across industries, where we are now a next report, which just came out, shows and predicts that there’s going to be a doubling of both the deployment of automation across functions at a business and also investment is doubling. And that over 63%, of companies report that they are deploying actively scaling, or deploying across multiple business units. So it’s becoming a ubiquitous platform. And you mentioned earlier about the both the care and cloud, the maturity of an organization, we have a specific journey that our customers go through, but they this governance side that Ken is talking about. And once they establish that are the platforms have made it easier to scale forward, and been able to make make it easier to actually serve the business units and have them adopt automation in a secure a governed way. And so we’re seeing that go quickly, from like five bucks a month, to 15 bucks a month to 25. You know, they, they start to ramp up very quickly. And that’s the maturity of us providing that information and technology, and cloud. You mentioned cloud — cloud addresses a lot of the barriers. And in the now next report, there’s some talk about lack of expertise and budget, etc. And so what cloud does is it enables them to move quickly to implementation, and be able to get the benefits sooner. And that’s one of the advantages, because a lot of the lot of industries have a lot of disparate legacy systems that are not well served by API’s or, or would take quite a long time to actually build those. So this allows them to get the benefits of digital transformation without the time to build out an API or maybe use it as a temporary stopgap to build that out. So it’s really a tools and a platform that enables businesses to build resilience, securely and under compliance to create a cost benefit. And also, the number one thing is to move people to higher value work. So you know, you’re dealing with the COVID. And dealing with situations around that you need tools that allow that agility, and we’re seeing that in the market. So the movement to more agile businesses is going to be a definite trend. And that requires cloud requires tools like RPA as a pillar of digital transformation.
Good day. I spoke with RPA experts Ken Mertzel and Catherine Calarco, both of Automation Anywhere, about RPA trends and opportunities for 2021. Mertzel is the global industry leader, financial services, and Calarco is the senior director and head of global go-to-market.Ken Mertzel
Yeah, absolutely, we’re seeing, I think we’re seeing a couple things evolving. One is, I think we’re seeing more movement towards what we call attended automation. So, you know, unattended is basically run a bot does the thing in the background while you’re processing, then you pick up where it left off, but with attended is more real time integration with the bots. So the best examples in a call center, where you might be a CSR and on the phone with a customer. But while you’re on the phone with that customer, a bot is able to run in real time and aggregate all the information that’s known about that customer in terms of you know, what products they have, what transactions have they done so, so that the CSR is most empowered to to knowing everything they need to know about that customer. And then to the extent a certain, you know, they have a certain requests that can actually kick off about in real time to help with that request, or interact with others on their team, like, let’s say they need to interact with an underwriter for a loan, they can do that in real time. And that enables that collaboration. So I think one trend is really a towards that, you know, attended automation. And that real time interaction, another I’m seeing, and I think we’ll see more and more of this over the next five years is around, you know, having more of a true digital assistant for employees. So if you think about today, where most employees have Excel, and they’re using some type of Excel macros, I see in the future where most employees would have sort of a digital assistant, you know, and again, whether they coded themselves or not, but it’s something that will enable them to do some some of the basic tasks they might do. And that’ll be more the norm than right now, where you have to go out and decide you’re going to, you know, invest in RPA. I think another trend is certainly around migration to cloud, this isn’t unique to RPA. But, and even though there’s been some resistance of financial services, understandably, just because it’s heavily regulated, and obviously a lot of concerns around control over data, security, etc. But thanks to already, you know, migrating there, if you look at sort of how they’re implementing a lot of their DRP systems, so I see RPA, moving the same way, Where, where, you know, in the next five years, I think we’re already seeing, you know, in terms of new implementations, the majority of them are cloud based. And I think you’re seeing that both because of, certainly from a cost standpoint, right in terms of having to manage all of the infrastructure. But on top of that, it’s just frankly, easier and quicker to scale. So the combination of cloud and, and web based is certainly, you know, key. And then the last trend I’d see is, is really the infusion of RPA with forms of artificial intelligence or machine learning. So, um, you know, RPA can do a lot of things, but you know, it’s even more powerful when you combine it with, with AI. So, for example, we were talking about, you know, data extraction, you look at how much more efficient or effective that is nowadays, versus the old traditional OCR, that’s because it’s been empowered, you know, behind the scenes within our product is computer vision and, and machine learning, etc. So the throughput is much higher rate. And I think that will be similar for other aspects, whether it’s, you know, fraud detection, whether that’s for, you know, exception processing, where maybe you get to a point with a bot, and then you need to make some kind of decision, what are machine learning can help you, you know, processes exception. So, I think all those are, you know, I see where it’s evolved in the future.Loraine Lawson
I guess I thought of the bots as a sort of artificial intelligence that you mean, a human being, right.Ken Mertzel
Yeah. I mean, you know, obviously, you know, the true amount of like, true AI out there is somewhat limited. But if you look at machine learning, by way of example, right, so take an exception processing situation where, you know, let’s say an exception comes up, if you probably looked at any exception, you probably find that 80% of you know, the exceptions might be processed in one of four ways. Basically, machine, you know, leveraging machine learning, you can feed all that data in terms of all the exceptions, see what factors drove a decision across the globe or other, and therefore actually be able to go ahead through the complete automation with, you know, 80% of those instances, and then focus, you know, the human resources on those 20% more more complex cases.Loraine Lawson
And when you say cloud AI, they go into public clouds, or they going to private clouds,Ken Mertzel
but certainly going to be an evolution. I mean, you know, initially, you know, most banks are doing cloud on premise, and certainly private again, just it’s primarily driven by understandable concerns over data privacy and data security and regulatory oversight. I think over time, they’ll be a migration as companies realize, you know, look, if you look at the major cloud providers, obviously, their number one focus is around, you know, data security and, and privacy. So I, you know, my personal view is that over time it’s going to migrate. But certainly right now, it’s more, you know, private cloud and cloud on premise.Loraine Lawson
Anything else I should have asked about?Ken Mertzel
I think those are the main things, I think the other area where we’re seeing, you know, usage pretty extensively in financial services. And, and again, financial services, a good indicator of where RPA is going, because it’s, you know, far and away the largest user of RPA. But if you look, in terms of other areas of usage, compliance is a huge one, you know, we talked about how it’s heavily regulated, so we’re seeing a lot of adoption of RPA, for enabling the, you know, KYC, or know your customer and AML, or anti money laundering, compliance management in terms of being able to ensure that they get all the information they need about a customer or business, as well as monitoring transactions. So we’re seeing a lot of usage there. And certainly in lending, you know, PPP is a small example, obviously, it’s being used more broadly, in terms of, you know, all types of London, particularly, we’re seeing it heavily in mortgage, again, because of the very, you know, document intensive nature of that process. And banks in current times have been using it extensively, also for forbearance programs, so to the extent their customers have been, you know, impacted by economic hardships. They’re, they’re not putting the loans into delinquent status, and they’re deferring payments. So banks are able to actually proactively defer payments, rather than waiting for a customer to, you know, call and ask for assistance. And so that’s been, you know, a huge benefit both to banks from a financial standpoint, in terms of the amount of labor that they require, but also certainly in terms of customers, right, who therefore don’t have to now deal with credit agencies and, and other issues when they’re dealing with other economic hardship. So it’s really been, you know, I think a win win, but from customer and bank standpoint. So those are just some additional examples. Obviously, they’re, they’re hundreds, but those are some of the, you know, the big ones that we’re seeing today.Catherine Calarco
Yeah, yeah, just add to that cross industry, obviously, the financial and banking industry as they mature adopter of automation. And it leads in terms of the, you know, deployment across their their particular functions. Globally, across industries, where we are now a next report, which just came out, shows and predicts that there’s going to be a doubling of both the deployment of automation across functions at a business and also investment is doubling. And that over 63%, of companies report that they are deploying actively scaling, or deploying across multiple business units. So it’s becoming a ubiquitous platform. And you mentioned earlier about the both the care and cloud, the maturity of an organization, we have a specific journey that our customers go through, but they this governance side that Ken is talking about. And once they establish that are the platforms have made it easier to scale forward, and been able to make make it easier to actually serve the business units and have them adopt automation in a secure a governed way. And so we’re seeing that go quickly, from like five bucks a month, to 15 bucks a month to 25. You know, they, they start to ramp up very quickly. And that’s the maturity of us providing that information and technology, and cloud. You mentioned cloud — cloud addresses a lot of the barriers. And in the now next report, there’s some talk about lack of expertise and budget, etc. And so what cloud does is it enables them to move quickly to implementation, and be able to get the benefits sooner. And that’s one of the advantages, because a lot of the lot of industries have a lot of disparate legacy systems that are not well served by API’s or, or would take quite a long time to actually build those. So this allows them to get the benefits of digital transformation without the time to build out an API or maybe use it as a temporary stopgap to build that out. So it’s really a tools and a platform that enables businesses to build resilience, securely and under compliance to create a cost benefit. And also, the number one thing is to move people to higher value work. So you know, you’re dealing with the COVID. And dealing with situations around that you need tools that allow that agility, and we’re seeing that in the market. So the movement to more agile businesses is going to be a definite trend. And that requires cloud requires tools like RPA as a pillar of digital transformation.
