NOVEMBR 2020CIOAPPLICATIONS.COM8IN MY ViewBEST PRACTICES TO SCALE RPA AND COGNITIVE SVANDANA KHANNA, DIRECTOR DIGITAL FINANCE TRANSFORMATION, UNILEVERuccess in any facet of life or work starts with understanding the goals and the mission statement. Most importantly if we know the answer to "what are we solving for," half the battle is won, the path becomes clearer to tread on. Once you have established the guidelines how you will be able to define the KPIs to measure success. Thekey to success in this context is when you deliver on or beat your KPIs. Same thought process applies to digital transformation, once understood can reap benefits with automation and the change in the mindset of the organization. But it all starts with education first, governance or center of excellence (COE) next and change managementall along.Automation is the most misunderstood and downplayed term.Usually when someone talks about it, they are limiting themselves to a few capabilities for example RPA and AI/ML, since they are still considered the buzz words. Most of the time people are lost in the acronyms and eventually everything is clubbed as one term without knowing the full picture behind it.In the spirit of education, let us define it a bit more-RPA is rule based and focuses on repetitive tasks, faster handling time, reducederrors, and decreased costs while cognitive functions areused for predictable decision making. It acquires human like thought and decision-making capabilities and most of the capabilities include NLP and cognitive analytics like chatbots.Both capabilities save time and money and it depends on what is needed when and who can lead it.Governance is the next step after education, and it is an important one because you are bringing the right people together who understand the automation capabilities and are willing to take it forward. Right governance leads to a successful COE. But starting and sustaining a COE is not easy if we do not have the right players involved.There are some key fundamentals which everyone should be aware of when establishing a COE and you are not just thinking about running the COE, but the goal should be running it successfully.Have a buy in from leadership, stakeholders early on, and this will position you better for the long run.Continue that dialogue and share the metrics to show success regularly. KPIs should be established. Have a group of team members who are accountable, passionate, and driven to be associated with the COE. If they are willing to commit and take it higher then you can scale faster as well. Theright vendors/partners will help you in the journey through out.Challenges arise when momentum is lost from any of the key players along the way and when you are not able to show success.Always pay emphasis to how you kick start the COE, it is ok if it takes time to lift off the ground but when it is in motion it should be credible, reliable and deliver a trustworthy experience with right accountable parties involved.You must constantly plug in the skills gaps to sustain the momentum while scaling automation.You can do it in multiple ways. Take help from outside parties to establish Vandana Khanna
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