In every type of business, there are often thousands of tasks that require employees' attention but don't take advantage of their real skills, such as filing documents, typing data or answering routine emails.
All of them are essential tasks for the operation of a company, but in addition to being repetitive and time-consuming, they are an inefficient use of talent.
Fortunately, the rise of process automation has given organizations the option to automate many of these routine but valuable tasks, freeing their employees to do more interesting and productive work and even to complete highly complex tasks more efficiently and effectively.
Example in the banking sector
For one large bank, automating processes meant not only improving operational efficiency, but also giving its employees time to focus on more valuable work and innovating on a larger scale in terms of workplace management technology.
Despite being a large and thriving company, the bank had identified among its operations a wide range of functions and business processes that represented opportunities for automation. And while the bank had a clear vision for automation, it was also aware of the need to consolidate support and clearly map and refine its approach.
Soon after the project began, the bank was finding an increasing number of opportunities to apply automation solutions to. But there were still processes that, while repetitive and time-consuming, were considered too complex to be realistic candidates for automation.
However, many of these areas were, in fact, solvable problems. They just needed additional capabilities. As specific process tasks were analyzed, the bank was able to devise new solutions that would enable it to automate increasingly sophisticated operations.
Successful automation opportunities, which have enabled it to transform entire functions, include:
Claims processing
One of the first areas where automation expertise began to deliver real results was in transforming the way the bank handled consumer complaints.
Many of the claims handled by the company were first sent to the head office for action, but it was discovered that about 75% of them could be handled at the branch offices. Now, reviewing these emails and identifying the actions to be taken in each case was time consuming, approximately one minute per claim.
For the first time, automation was used to handle complaints. Natural language processing (NLP) algorithms combined with machine learning classification techniques were applied to read the emails, detect the tone and style of the language, assess the nature of the complaint and determine which team should receive it.
The resulting AI system was then integrated into the workflow, at the topic-related steps, so that each complaint could be forwarded to the relevant manager. Thanks to this solution, the 80% of complaints can now be handled automatically, from start to finish.
Extraction of mortgage loan information
Mortgage loans contain a lot of important information that needs to be filed for future reference during their credit life, and this involves manually reading, sorting and filing this information. The bank's credit team performed these actions about 150 times a day, averaging 2.5 minutes per document.
With the help of process automation, the bank was able to build a solution that combined optical character recognition (OCR), machine learning and PLN to automatically transcribe scanned mortgage loan documents, read the content, and extract and archive key data.
Since its implementation in 2019, more than 90% of the electronic copies received of mortgage loan contracts are automatically processed and archived on a daily basis.
Corporate banking emails
Like any business, the bank's day-to-day operations involved a lot of emails. Its operational team spent a lot of time manually routing customer emails to the correct staff member.
Using a combination of NLP and machine learning techniques, the team was able to create an intelligent system that automatically identified the service request numbers of incoming emails and sorted them for further handling. Now, automatically, the 92% of emails are classified with 92% accuracy, and the 80% of customers are identified with 85% accuracy.
To create these increasingly complex automated solutions and ensure that they were not only successful, but also safe, a team comprising a wide range of in-depth technical expertise was called upon.
Incorporation of robots at the center of efficiency
From the start of the project, the bank had set an ambitious automation target, and as the experience developed, it became clear that there were additional opportunities for further automation. Today, the bank is automating more than 100 processes per year, which goes a long way toward saving man-hours and freeing up employees to focus on more complex tasks.
Even with rapid advances in AI, robots will still need to perform tasks beyond their specifications. As such, human expertise and creativity will remain critical. It is precisely because of automation that human talent is empowered to be the true driver of value in the organization.
In an era of unprecedented change, the successful and timely integration of technology is not only the key to survival, but the path to unlocking new forms of value. In the face of rising customer expectations, it is critical to focus on generating value for customers through technology and business transformation.
