Robotic Process Automation (RPA) Conference

Robotic Process Automation (RPA) has evolved overtime into its current state and helps provide quick wins to organizations in terms of cost efficiencies and incremental capacity. In its early days, RPA was primarily an efficiency enabler to Business Process Outsourcers (BPOs). However, the benefits have sparked tremendous interest lately - Forrester predicts over 4 million bots will be in production by 2021. Despite this emerging trend, many organizations are not fully prepared to embrace RPA and make it part of their DNA. In this talk, we will discuss how to get started with RPA and go beyond the proof of concept (PoC) state by developing a short-term, mid-term and long-term RPA Strategy for the Enterprise being mindful of ROI and other innovations such as Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence.

Noel Kirthiraj is Co-Founder and CEO of UXPLORE, started with a vision to enable organizations to be more operationally efficient by augmenting human capabilities with automation and artificial intelligence. UXPLORE is an automation platform for easily training and managing Software Bots as an Intelligent Digital Workforce (IDW), to help organizations optimize the Revenue per Employee ratio. Noel started as a Software Engineer and built a career over 15+ years in various product leadership roles with tech giants such as Motorola, Google and Lenovo. A graduate of McMaster University (B.Eng.Mgt., with double majors in Computer Engineering and Business), Noel also completed his MBA at the Schulich School of Business with focus on Strategy, Corporate Finance & Venture Capital.

Many of the technology leaders though are determined to implement RPA as a solution in their organization, are not sure about where and how to start. Introducing new and emerging technology like RPA to a global company can be a daunting task unless the CIO or the relevant IT leader who sees worth in this promising technology and incubates a Center of Excellence (CoE) funding from his own budget.

I am part of one such epic journey of both HCL and Deloitte joining hands with several leaders and clients to continuously re-invent the wheel in the area of automation. I would like to present my rich experience in holding managerial positions in Intelligent Automation Center of Excellence (IA CoE) and how it helped 50+ global clients in HCL and multiple key stakeholders in Deloitte. I would touch upon not just RPA but the intelligent automation as a whole, how is it evolving and also try to answer the below questions through my presentation

- What is Intelligent Automation
- What is RPA
- What is CoE
- What are the pre-requisites to setting up a CoE
- What are challenges, road-blocks and benefits through implementing a CoE
- Lessons learnt from my 3+ years of working in a CoE
- Journey with UiPath
- Will RPA/AI really take out jobs
- Is AI the distant future

Sandeep is a post-gradute from Indian Institute of Management (IIM) Tiruchirappalli where he was specialised in Operations consulting. He later joined HCL Chennai, India as an Associate Manager - Application Support & Maintenance Center of Excellence (ASM CoE) where he was part of many operations and automation initiatives for 50+ global HCL clients. He later joined Deloitte Canada as a Manager Intelligent Automation CoE and is proud to be part of Deloitte's succesful RPA journey.

His career interests are RPA and AI

RPA gives companies an opportunity to increase overall operational efficiency and re-allocate human resources towards high-impact activities. But without clean, accessible, high-quality data, companies can’t really take advantage of RPA. Learn how unstructured data fuels RPA to deliver maximum value, improve operational efficiency and create happier customers.

Sheri has spent her entire Sales career in the technology space, with the last 15 years focused on B2B Enterprise software sales. She is driven by customer success and motivated to establish and build strong, value-based relationships. At Adlib, Sheri is a trusted advisor and is focused on assisting her customers through their digital transformation journey.

Overview of Intelligent Automation building blocks:
Digitization (Paper to Digital, Digital Interfaces, Bringing Structure to unstructured data)
Automation
Machine Learning, Logistical Regression, Optimization

Shared Experiences & War Stories:
Sharing examples of Intelligent Automation including lessons learned

Simplifying Digitization:
Examples in Insurance Digitization using OCR/ICR/HCR
Example in Financial Services using NLP
Examples in Health Care - Working with Doctor's Handwriting and Digitization Options

Eliminating Complexity in Automation:
Telecoms Equipment Support: Flipping the problem to reduce complexity for better results (more complete, fewer errors, faster processing)

Machine Learning & AI need to solve the right problem:
Telecoms Marketing & Loyalty: An example of where Machine Learning and other AI tools correctly solves & optimizes the problem, yet produces sub-optimal results
Automating end-to-end opens up new AI & ML opportunities
Retail Banking & Insurance:
How end-to-end processing (applications, adjudication/underwriting, quotes/offers, approvals, account provisioning) provides new opportunities for insight & Lessons Learned

Beware "black-box" algorithms:
Do they work as you expect they do?
Are you loosing access to valuable insights?
Embrace Modular, Extensible and Scalable Design
Sometimes a simple tool works (and is cheaper) / Sometimes you need the best
Solve the right problem
Capture and Leverage Insights
- How to share insights (Reports, data, ML/Model results)

Hugh Frost is the Practice Leader for the Automation practice at The Burnie Group, which includes Intelligent Automation, AI, and Analytics. In 2013, The Burnie Group were the first North American Consulting firm to partner with Blue Prism to become North America's first RPA Consulting firm. Since this time, the Automation practice has continued to stay at the forefront of Intelligent Automation topics including all aspects of Digitization, Automation, Artificial Intelligence and advanced Analytics.
- Hugh has over 20 years of experience working in technology, management consulting and analytics roles with a focus of transforming customer operations and marketing. Prior to joining the Burnie Group in 2011, Hugh founded his own practice Client Lens Group. He has run customer analytics and database marketing departments at Nielsen and Telus, worked as a consultant at McKinsey & Company, and has managed large applications and Infrastructure departments, and Project Management Offices across Canada, UK and EMEA (Europe, Middle-East & Africa).
- Hugh holds a Masters of Business Administration (MBA) from London Business School, where he focused on Private Equity and Venture Capital Finance and Strategy.

My speech will be based on live cases and actual RPA use cases in the industry. I will have ZERO conceptual or theoretical data. I will be talking about challenges of RPA implementation for RPA virgins (late adopters and first time implementers) and veterans’ alike .I will shed some light on my practical RPA experiences .Sharing my insights working across the globe and industries. Everyone talks about Machine Learning with RPA but are we trying to live a Sci-Fi dream and ignoring the low hanging fruits of RPA: Attended Automation, OCR and RPA, BPM and RPA, and smart automation examples. I will also be presenting a few demos.

Kanika is a key member of the Global Deloitte Robotics and Cognitive Automation Community and has over 5 years of experience in the technology and consulting space donning different roles – developer, requirement specialist, analyst and consultant. Since joining the firm, Kanika has developed automation solutions across Industries. Some of her work includes:

- RPA Strategy and feasibility Assessment for one of the leading banks in Toronto
- RPA POC for a major Canadian Courier & Shipping company (Toronto)
- RPA Automation of Accounts Payable (Deloitte Internal)
- Large Financial Institution based out of Edmonton: Technology assessment, Anti-money laundering and tax payment processes.
- Major Telecom client in Calgary
- POC for Media and Advertisement (Toronto)
- Public sector projects

Prior to joining Deloitte, Kanika has worked in Process Integration and Automation at Client Bell. She has also worked for a leading Insurance provider in the Unites States. Kanika holds a Bachelor degree in computer engineering and Masters in Business Administration from Symbiosis

- Dr. Mikel Harry - Six Sigma Management Institute - Lean Six Sigma Black Belt
- University of Toronto - Bachelors of Applied Science, Mechanical Engineering