Robotic Process Automation (RPA) and Process Mining came to the fore during the pandemic as companies took steps to digitally transform. When employees couldn’t be in the same office together, it became crucial to cobble together more automated workflows that required fewer people in the loop.
The observations were made in an International Webinar and Members’ Conference on ‘Transforming Finance & Accounting with Robotic Process Automation’ organized by the Institute of Chartered Accountants of Bangladesh (ICAB) on Thursday, 08 April 2021 through online using ZOOM App.
Experts also opined that in a growing market like Bangladesh which is fastest growing in SAARC region at this moment - It's very critical for the enterprises of Bangladesh to embrace "Intelligent Automation" to enable business growth at exponential rate beating certain uncertainties like COVID & its impact on economy. Zunaid Ahmed Palak, MP, State Minister, Information and Communication Technology (ICT) Division, GoB graced the Conference as the Chief Guest.
Anshuman Rai, Vice President, India & South Asia Business, Uipath, Christiaan Esmeijer, Vice President-EPS Global Services, UiPath and Arunprasad Ram, Finance & Accounting-Industry practice leader, UiPath were Keynote Speakers.
As Panelists CA. Janardhan Hebbar, Vice President Finance, Dentsu Aegis Network, Sazzad Chowdhury FCA, Director & CFO, Berger Paints Bangladesh and Faisal Mohammad, Head of Automation, Robo2Mation spoke in the conference.
Mahmudul Hasan Khusru FCA, President-ICAB delivered address of welcome while Dewan Nurul Islam FCA, Past President, ICAB and Managing Director, Grant Thornton Consulting Bangladesh Ltd. presided over the Members’ Conference as the Session Chairman. They also opined that, the role of technology and its integration within the organizations is evolving at a faster pace. The ever-increasing regulatory changes and the compliance functions are reducing the speed of work done by employees. This has resulted in the adoption of robotics process automation to manage the compliance functions in a better manner than employees.
Robotic Process Automation (RPA) is the technology that allows anyone today to configure computer software, or a “robot” to emulate and integrate the actions of a human interacting within digital systems to execute a business process. RPA bots utilize the user interface to capture data and manipulate applications just like humans do.
They interpret, trigger responses and communicate with other systems in order to perform on a vast variety of repetitive tasks. Only substantially better: an RPA software robot never sleeps and makes zero mistakes.
RPA robots are capable of mimicking many–if not all–human user actions which are rule-based. They log into applications, move files and folders, copy and paste data, fill in forms, extract structured and semi-structured data from documents, scrape browsers, and more.
The world has moved beyond RPA (Robotic process Automation) to Intelligent hyper automation whose 3 key pillars are; RPA, OCR (optical character recognition) and Process Mining (with Data science )
As chief guest Zunaid Ahmed Palak said, the world is becoming data and technology-driven increasingly. With the rapid pace at which technology is developing, finance & accounting professionals will have to find ways to capitalise on the opportunities presented, or risk being left behind with digital innovations, he said and added this will ensure business operations and process compliance with regulations and standards.
He also said, Robotic Process Automation is employing smart software robots (bots) that identify, and copycat human interactions with core legacy systems, along with web and other desktop applications to execute processes.
ICAB President Mahmudul Hasan Khusru FCA said, Hyperautomation, RPA, Process Mining, OCR gives a golden chance to the new generation of Bangladesh since these new edge technologies have exponential growth prospects.
Hence it will be critical for top Universities, Engineering Bangladesh to imbibe Automation related courses in their curriculum since moving forward its essential to make the Students ready for Next gen Technology as Automation will be an essential part of lives of working executives like the way Mobile phones , Microsoft office, laptops , desktops etc.
The keynote speakers said, the global robotic process automation market size is expected to reach USD 10.7 billion by 2027, expanding at a CAGR of 33.6% from 2020 to 2027, according to a new report by Grand View Research, Inc.
Robotic process automation (RPA) offers a proven solution for enterprises that are hampered by challenges and inefficiencies associated with legacy business systems.
RPA enables organizations to automate structured functions and allows increased focus on core business activities. Increasing adoption of automation software and services has enabled organizations to meet consumer expectations and offer enhanced customer management.
