[AI]Mark Lockett, SS&C Blue Prism: Enhancing human capabilities with digital workforces

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SS&C Blue Prism’s VP of sales for the UK, Ireland and Benelux, Mark Lockett, discusses the firm’s latest developments, customer challenges and how to get the most out of intelligent automation tools.

Can you tell us a little bit about SS&C Blue Prism and what it does?

SS&C Blue Prism is a specialist in the field of Intelligent Automation, providing products and solutions that change the way in which our customers deliver the work they undertake.

We talk about automation augmenting the workforce, and we can do that by using a digital workforce that brings additional capacity to your human workforce. The rationale being we get a digital worker to do those repetitive, high volume, low value added tasks, and we then allow your employees to focus on the value add that they can bring. 

Intelligent Automation is really looking at the whole cycle of how to deliver the required work through the most efficient channel. That could include orchestration using business process management capabilities. It could also look at process identification through Blue Prism Process Intelligence technologies, where we’re trying to identify those tasks that lend themselves to be automated by technology. 

The dual effect of automation and orchestration of tasks that customers have to do day in, day out is where SS&C Blue Prism brings most value to its customers. A digital workforce could be aimed at improving an HR onboarding process, improving your finance period end close process or  transferring information from an outpatient system to an electronic patient record system and vice versa.The use cases are many and varied but the principle remains the same; use the right channel to deliver the work effort. The beauty of a digital workforce comes in the ability to flex work demands as and when necessary. 

What have been the latest developments at the company?

We’ve been putting a lot of our time, effort and resources into our Next Gen platform. That’s our cloud-native platform that provides access to intelligent automation capabilities, delivered in a way that suits our customers best. It helps customers enjoy the benefits of the cloud while keeping the work where it needs to be. With this hybrid deployment, Next Gen allows customers to take advantage of using the cloud, while having a self-hosted digital workforce that operates behind the customer’s firewall, on their own secure infrastructure – meaning no sensitive data leaves their network.

For many customers that operate in highly regulated industries, that really does drive the opportunity for us to enhance the way we can deliver that through the Next Gen platform. And Next Gen also brings together, in a single repository, all the capabilities that allow us to improve the business processes that we’re undertaking on behalf of our customers. 

Also, I think we’d have been living under a rock if we hadn’t appreciated the fact that Gen AI is really where the market is pivoting. We’re heavily looking into understanding how we can use that technology to really change the way that we work. We’ve introduced capabilities that allow us to integrate with a variety of large language models so our customers can adopt Gen AI. And the way in which we consider that is by using this concept that Gen AI is the capability, which is effectively the brain that allows you to have the emotional, considered response, and the digital workers are the arms and legs that deliver that work. 

So the brain, the Gen AI, does the thinking, and then the digital workforce does the actual doing. When Gen AI is wrapped into Intelligent Automation processes, it means it’s fully auditable and secure. With many customers hesitant to fully dive into using Gen AI due to security concerns, the combination is compelling. That’s something that our customers are really excited about in terms of driving use of Gen AI. And we’re seeing that in a number of places now where we’re looking at Gen AI to manage those customer facing interactions, manage those employee interactions, manage those supplier interactions. They have that ability to respond to any of those queries through a variety of channels, be that telephone,  email or chat capability, then Gen AI can pick up and author the response, executed by the automation platform. 

I speak to a lot of end users and the main thing they say about AI, because it’s so topical right now, is they think they should be utilising it. The problem for many though, is they don’t know how and why. They’re worried that they’re going to be left behind if they don’t get on board with it but maybe it’s not even suitable for them.

I couldn’t agree more. I think for a lot of our customers, and a lot of customer conversations you have, there is this view that we’ve got to do something. We’ve got to have a budget. And invariably there are budgets around for Gen AI. A lot of that is in pilot phase right now. And if you look at some of the evidence in support of it, they haven’t necessarily gone that well.

Part of the problem is that for many they are actually considering Gen AI without thinking of the business problem that they’re trying to solve. We know we’ve got this new shiny bit of kit and that we should be using it. How to use it and what to do with it is almost a secondary consideration. 

The conversation that we really try to move to with the customer is ‘what is the problem that you’re trying to solve? What is the customer issue that you’re trying to solve?’ And we’re certainly seeing that through three main lenses in terms of that use case for Gen AI.

The customer interaction, the employee interaction, or the citizen interaction, if it’s a member of the public. We’re seeing some really interesting things right now about how we are supporting our Gen AI partners, because most of what we are doing is facilitating the use of a third party large language model. We are effectively providing the framework by which our partners can interact with the customer and solve the customer problem.

What kind of trends have you seen developing in Intelligent Automation recently? 

There are a number of things that our customers talk to us about. One of the things we’ve already spoken about, and that is this notion of Gen AI. We’ve got to do it. What are we going to do? How are we going to do it? We need to use Gen AI, and we need to automate it. And there are a number of pilot initiatives that we see because of that. There’s been so much hype around the business value of Gen AI that I think it’s quite scary for some. 

There was a recent industry report by McKinsey that talked about a $4.4 trillion market opportunity with Gen AI. There are some absolutely unbelievable numbers that are thrown out about that. I think the reality of that is slightly more considered. And I think it’s not just about how we can change the way we work. It’s really about how can I get a better outcome for the stakeholder, whomever that may be, by deploying Gen AI with automation? So that’s one of the first trends. 

The second thing that’s really interesting is our customers that have adopted process automation. They’ve used digital workers to either reduce existing costs or improve productivity. So they’ve used it initially as an opportunity for maybe a bit of cost control around improving and automating some processes. But that now is taking them to the next level, which is looking at how to use process intelligence to really identify further process enhancements that they can make. We’re talking about targeting huge organisational objectives through the use of Intelligent Automation, such as growth, customer satisfaction, or employee satisfaction, to name just a few.

I think many companies have taken the low hanging fruit by automation, and now they are investing in those technologies around process identification so they can actually be sure that what they’re automating are the right things and delivering value. But are we? Are we leaving things uncovered by not using the process intelligence in support of the business operation? That is becoming more of a story that our customers are really getting into, and we’ve had a number of deployments where customers have done those initial automation activities, and are now looking to take it to the next level.

The third thing we see more of is this co-existence with Microsoft Power applications. We’re seeing customers adopting those capabilities alongside technologies such as ours, and actually coexisting together in support. We see that more and more, and I think that’s a trend that many customers recognise in terms of the way that they’re working. It’s not just a one size fits all approach. What is the most appropriate technology?

What are your customers biggest challenges? And how can Intelligent Automation help them deal with those? 

The number one challenge is cost control. How do we manage in a market of rising prices? How do we make sure that we’re getting value for money from the automation? We continue to advocate and demonstrate the value that automation is bringing. Be really structured in terms of how you are assessing the benefit that the automation is bringing, because you are accounting for that spend, you’ve got to prove that it’s worthwhile.

For example, what’s the impact on FTE savings? What’s the volume of automations that I’m delivering? What’s the average cost of an employee that’s doing that work? Multiply one by the other and that’s my FTE saving that goes into the business case. So actual cost control, but measured in the term of the business efficiency that I get as a consequence of it. But, where the magic happens is being able to demonstrate what those extra hours have enabled you to do. Have you been able to launch better, quicker products? Have you improved employee satisfaction? Cost factors are always important, but customers must look beyond this to make full use of automation. 

Many, if not most, of our customers have their own centres of excellence that need to be able to demonstrate a value to the business. So that’s the number one conversation we get with our customers. How do we continue to justify the investment in the technology? 

What advice would you give to any companies thinking about implementing Intelligent Automation?

For any customer considering introducing Intelligent Automation, what is the problem that you’re looking to solve? That’s the crux of the matter. And often you find that customers will look to technologies such as ours, where they know they have a challenge with existing technology estate. They’ve got a high degree of technology debt in their IT estate, and one of the ways that they can overcome some of those limitations is by adopting Intelligent Automation. 

So think about the problem that you’re trying to solve, and in order to do that, we need to get a really good understanding of what the actual business processes look like. Or, more importantly, what you think those business processes look like, because often what you think they look like and what they actually look like are very different. That’s where things like process intelligence come in to support that. So what is the problem that you’re looking to solve? 

The next thing that needs to be considered is how do you plan to support that moving forward? Because where our customers have continual investment in the technology and the development of the solution capability, they need to then start being advocates for automation technologies within the business. And once you are doing that, then you are the ones that are effectively going to other parts of the business and trying to identify those automation use cases. 

Our really successful customers are the ones that have got an internal champion who is going out to other parts of the business, because for many areas of the business, this is quite a well kept secret. So helping people understand what this technology can deliver by way of automation and streamlining process, and improvement of process because it’s not that widely understood. We often find that when employees realise what benefits it brings to their team, demand for those internal champions becomes huge. 

For some people, this notion of Intelligent Automation with digital workers has got this sort of Metal Mickey robot-type notion, and we’re not talking about that at all. You’re talking about using computers to emulate human interactions and, using Gen AI, they’re then emulating the human interaction that goes with it. 

So it becomes really quite powerful, but you’ve got to think about how you’re going to sustain that. What does a centre of excellence look like? What have I got by way of developers that can write the automations? What have I then got, by way of business analysts, that can then help us support and find the automations that we need? 

Think about what the initial use cases could look like. A business case on the whole is very easy to write. Where the challenge comes is how do I then sustain and grow the automation footprint? And the customers that are doing it really successfully are either partnering with someone who continues to deliver that function for them, or they’re bringing together their own centre of excellence in house, and they are then tasked with being the champions for further deployment. 

What plans does SS&C Blue Prism have for the year ahead?

It’s something we’ve already touched upon. We are absolutely focused on transitioning our customers to the Next Gen capability, and embracing the technology opportunity that comes with that is something that customers have really input into the the development roadmap for the technology, and how we are moving with that technology. 

Our customers are really looking at when is the optimum opportunity for them to deploy Next Gen. That’s going to be a focus in the short to medium term. And the benefit that offers to our customers is really exciting, particularly when you’re talking about a global customer, where they have operations in a variety of geographies. And actually by having that central automation capability you can deploy the actual workers within each of the regions. That gives you a real step change in terms of the efficiency of automation and the ease by which you monitor and manage those automations as well. 

And then, as others are also encountering, the whole value that Gen AI brings, again, we have got a lot of focus on that. We’ve got a number of customers that are doing some really interesting things. We’ve just been successful with a customer project – a public sector body that is looking at the way they transform the citizen experience – and Gen AI has a huge part to play in that. We see that as something that will continue to improve over time.

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