The Fourth Industrial Revolution; Cognitive and the Future of Work
Robotic Process Automation vs Cognitive Process Automation; How are they different, and why should we care?
Cognitive Process Automation. What is it — and why is it beginning to get the attention of organization’s C-Suites globally? To understand Cognitive Process Automation (CPA), we should first talk about Robotic Process Automation (RPA). RPA is the automation of a wide range of administrative, back office or process-centric tasks, by using specific software algorithms that mimic the decisions and actions of humans.
RPA automates rule-based processes. Just think of it as a ‘robot’, or algorithmic software, mimicking key strokes a human might preform on a PC, to complete a repetitive task. For instance, with technologies already available today, you might program a robot within an Insurance Firm to assemble all the information required to process a claim for a customer. The robot would find the data, organize it, present it to the user — and even make a recommendation concerning the claim, if the process was strictly rule-based.
Will RPA Change Work?
RPA is quite simply changing the way the world does work. According to research, up to 45% of the present paid activities could be automated using technology we already have. By 2020, the market for RPA services will reach approximately $6 billion and 100 million knowledge workers will be impacted by 2025. That’s just the beginning.
Many organizations begin their RPA journey mostly to capture efficiency and cost cuts, needed to stay competitive. “In many cases my clients are being disrupted by digitally native start-ups and their organizations must be in a defensive position to fend off those competitors.
Often there are hostile takeovers on the table. Even activist shareholders are calling for cuts — demanding seats on the Board and saying, “If you don’t cut costs — we will,” reports Poul Flagstad, Director, IBM Global Business Transformation. So, therefore, RPA is a necessity to compete in the marketplace of tomorrow.
When Cognitive Appears
RPA is delivering improved cost, speed, performance, analytics, audit ability and accuracy. A hand that’s hard to beat — until you introduce Cognitive. Glen Finch, IBM’s Global Managing Partner, Cognitive & Analytics, describes it to us this way, “It helps when talking about the difference between RPA and CPA to think of it in terms of efficiency, and efficacy. Efficiency is ‘How can I do things with less effort, less time, fewer people?’ Efficacy is ‘with all of the information available to me, is there a more beneficial way to achieve a better overall outcome?’ Efficacy is about Intent.”
“You can not underestimate the power of cognitive”
“You can not underestimate the power of cognitive”, continues Finch, “Take this example. Say we undertake a RPA project for a company — like processing invoices. We could build a robot that is able to ensure, quickly and with excellent accuracy, that funds are being paid in the right amount, to the right people at the right time. Perhaps we can save the client $4 million dollars in operating costs.
Enter Cognitive. Cognitive Assets will enable robots not only to complete tasks, but also to search and analyze unprecedented amounts of data, searching for the best way to achieve key business goals. With Cognitive capabilities, robots will now go on to ask themselves more complex questions such as ‘Beyond basic invoice matching, were my various discounts optimally awarded? Is there a better way to consolidate my deliveries, achieving better economies of scale?’
Cognitive Process Automation (CPA), unlike RPA, actually understands the intent of the business user. Because it can compile information from sight, sound — even sentiment, Cognitive Agents are able to collect and analyze data much like a human would, but at scale. Searching through mountains of data, the cognitive engine identifies patterns, and gains insights, perhaps never recognized before.
The engine can then take actions to change processes — and behaviors — to achieve the best possible outcome. “With these types of insights and actions, we have seen cost savings multiply by 25, turning a $4 million cost takeout play into a $100 million game changer for our clients.” Says Finch.
Computers That Can Reason
“We are no longer talking about programming computers with rules and information. We are now talking about computers that can reason — and they can teach themselves. Although in many cases we can reduce or eliminate the need for humans to complete certain tasks, this is not the end result we are looking for.
We are thinking about how cognitive can augment human intelligence — not replace it. Think of a Cognitive Agent that can assess millions of medical reports bringing the collective wisdom of cutting edge scientific insights to the most remote of Doctors. We are removing the need for humans to spend time doing repetitive, non-value added tasks so that they can do things that, quite frankly they prefer, like design new products or find new ways to communicate with and care for customers.”
Getting the Job Done
“The road to Cognitive Process Automation is not an easy one, but we try to make it as easy as possible for our clients. Our customers are under immense pressure so we got ourselves organized into teams that would to be able to get our clients the right solutions to the right market — quickly.”
Enter the Cognitive Garage. The Cognitive Garage is a place where we are bringing together an incredibly varied group of technology and business professionals, to ‘re-imagine processes’ — therein, re-imagining business. Sean Tinney explains, “when you add cognitive assets to robotic automation it becomes a whole new game. You go from small ‘t’ to big ‘T’ Transformation.”
“But I think what I’m most proud of is the way so many different people came together to create. We saw that our clients did not have the time to assess each process within their organizations from scratch — so our people built a library of ‘re-imagined processes’ that are common and repeated across industries. For instance in financial services, we currently have over 500 banking processes and 400 for insurance — that together get our customers up and running,” says Finch.
The real difference comes, according to Finch, when teams start to introduce Cognitive Assets. What are they? Cognitive Assets can be described as such “assets that allow for the integrity and efficiency of multiple conversions of individual knowledge into organizational knowledge.” It means the machine is thinking, and as was discussed earlier, it is searching for the best possible outcome using vast information — not just executing a task. Finch says he has seen benefits from CPA up to 25X those realized through RPA.
IBM is apparently not stopping there. Next they’ve set off to create a library of robots built to execute the processes necessary. “With Libraries of Re-imagined Processes, Robotics and Cognitive Assets, I have seen clients up and running with a robot in a week,” said Finch.
But no individual asset can realize their optimal results without a good integration framework. For this reason, IBM is hiring top professionals to create a ‘fabric’ that serves to unite Processes with Cognitive assets, frictionlessly. Finch concludes, “We bring a lot of knowledge in the area, and we definitely have a point of view — but the solution is different for every client so we’re careful to listen. It feels really good to be able to come to our clients with Assets they can put to work almost immediately. We are in a race — and every second counts. The clock is officially ticking…”
