In an exclusive interview with TimesTech, Srividya Kannan, Founder and CEO of Avaali, discusses the transformative potential of Robotic Process Automation (RPA) and how hyper-automation and cognitive intelligence are driving industry growth. Kannan highlights Avaali’s innovative solutions, such as Velocious and AcuRec, and their impact on enterprise efficiency, cost reduction, and compliance.
Read the full interview here:
TimesTech: What factors are driving the expected surge in the RPA market, and how is Avaali positioned to benefit from these trends?
Ms Srividya: Large and medium enterprises are actively seeking hyper-automation initiatives, creating significant market demand. The future of RPA is promising, with spending expected to surge in the coming years. This growth is fueled by transformative trends such as hyper-automation and cognitive intelligence, making it crucial for enterprises to invest in these technologies.
Hyperautomation integrates advanced technologies like AI, machine learning, process and task mining, and analytics to automate complex processes for significant efficiency gains, cost reduction and value realization. For instance, customer queries can be analyzed, sorted and sent to the right stakeholders in a company for a faster turnaround. A call centre’s work queue can be prioritised based on analysis of target customers and higher likelihood of purchase.
Cognitive intelligence enhances RPA by incorporating AI and machine learning to handle unstructured data, make informed decisions, execute more complex tasks, and improve operational excellence. This shift allows businesses to provide personalised customer interactions, boosting satisfaction. Delivering automation at scale requires substantial buy-in from internal functional users and strong management buy-in. Additionally, enterprises must have clarity on what business goals and outcome they want achieved via this technology.
At Avaali, we work extensively with customers, identifying processes and tasks to automate, delivering the automation work, and, importantly, also helping them build an automation CoE.
TimesTech: How do AI, machine vision, and ML enhance Avaali’s RPA solutions, and what future developments do you foresee?
Ms Srividya: AI, machine vision, and ML are critical in transforming traditional RPA into more intelligent and adaptive systems. AI enables RPA to make data-driven decisions. This capability allows bots to handle complex scenarios that require a level of judgment and adaptability previously unattainable with basic RPA. By incorporating NLP, RPA solutions can understand and process human language. This makes it possible for bots to interact with unstructured data, such as emails and customer service interactions, thereby expanding the scope of automation.
Machine Vision technology allows robots to interpret and understand visual information from the world. In manufacturing and quality assurance processes, Machine Vision can significantly improve accuracy. RPA solutions use machine vision to detect defects and ensure quality control, reducing human error and increasing efficiency. Machine Vision can also extract data from documents, images, and videos. This is particularly useful in industries like finance and healthcare, where manual data entry is time-consuming and prone to errors. Machine Learning algorithms allow RPA bots to learn from historical data and improve over time. With ML, RPA bots can adapt to changes in the process flow, making them more resilient and capable of handling exceptions. This adaptability is crucial in dynamic environments where business processes are continually evolving. For example, Machine Learning models can further predict financial trends, helping organisations make informed decisions. RPA solutions can streamline administrative tasks in healthcare, such as patient record management and billing. Machine Vision can assist in interpreting medical images, while AI and ML can provide insights for better patient care. The future of RPA lies in autonomous systems that require minimal human intervention. Advances in AI and ML will enable RPA solutions to become more self-sufficient, capable of learning new tasks and optimising processes independently.
TimesTech: Can you share examples of how Avaali has reduced cycle times by 40-70% for large enterprises?
Ms Srividya: Avaali has driven transformative changes for large enterprises, guided by three key pillars: cost optimization, capability building, and innovation.
Firstly, our focus on cost optimisation leverages digital interventions to streamline critical business processes, including Procurement, Finance & Accounting, Supply Chain, and Legal. This results in more efficient, cost-effective operations, ensuring financial sustainability.
Secondly, capability building is essential to our strategy. Understanding the functional aspects of business processes and the technologies driving transformation allows us to reduce operational costs, enhance visibility, and improve governance. This deep expertise ensures comprehensive skill development and technological proficiency.
Lastly, continuous innovation fuels our progress. We develop new solutions to meet evolving business needs, exemplified by the launch of ‘Velocious’ in August 2020, which automates sourcing and procure-to-pay processes, and ‘AcuRec,’ our reconciliation solution. These innovations demonstrate our commitment to facilitating organisational transformations.
Avaali has collaborated with over 300 large enterprises globally, including Tata Projects, Mediclinic UAE, Borosil Ltd, UPL, Manipal Hospitals, Tata Croma, and Bidco Africa. We’ve significantly reduced cycle times by 40-70%, minimised manual interventions, improved governance and compliance, and centralised operations through advanced digital solutions.
TimesTech: What impact have solutions like Velocious and AcuRec had on your clients’ operations?
Ms Srividya: Our Velocious solution has revolutionized how our clients manage supplier relationships. By providing a single source of truth across all Purchase Orders (POs), Goods Receipt Notes (GRNs), invoices, and payments, we’ve helped clients streamline their procurement processes. This holistic approach ensures that all stakeholders have access to accurate and up-to-date information, fostering trust and transparency with suppliers. Key benefits include improved Supplier Relationships and seamless Vendor Onboarding, given that our Vendor Onboarding solution effortlessly validates supplier data and documents, reducing errors and ensuring a smooth process and over a 70% reduction in cycle time to the process with associated cost reduction. Our sourcing and reverse auction solution also enables superior sourcing practices while providing transparency and process compliance. We have also transformed accounts payable by automating invoice processing. This automation eliminates duplicate payments and significantly improves governance and compliance. AcuRec is a game-changer for volume-intensive reconciliation processes, such as bank, credit card, and Point of Sale (POS) reconciliations. Our clients have experienced substantial reductions in reconciliation cycle times, leading to cost savings and operational efficiencies.
TimesTech: What are your thoughts on the future of RPA monitoring tools for compliance and risk management, and how is Avaali preparing for this demand?
Ms Srividya: The future of Robotic Process Automation (RPA) monitoring tools for compliance and risk management is poised for significant growth and transformation. As organizations increasingly adopt RPA to streamline operations and reduce costs, the need for robust monitoring tools to ensure compliance and manage risks becomes paramount. Here are several key considerations for the future:
Enhanced Compliance Capabilities: RPA monitoring tools will need to evolve to keep pace with the growing complexity of regulatory environments. This includes the ability to monitor and audit bots in real-time, ensuring they adhere to the latest compliance standards and regulations.
Integration with AI and Machine Learning: The integration of AI and machine learning with RPA monitoring tools will enable predictive analytics and anomaly detection. These advanced capabilities will help organizations identify potential compliance breaches or risks before they become significant issues.
Scalability and Flexibility: As organizations scale their RPA initiatives, monitoring tools must be able to handle increased volumes of transactions and bots. Flexibility to adapt to different industries and regulatory requirements will be crucial.
User-Friendly Dashboards and Reporting: Future RPA monitoring tools will likely offer more intuitive dashboards and reporting features, providing compliance officers and risk managers with clear and actionable insights.
Security and Data Privacy: With growing concerns around data privacy and security, RPA monitoring tools must ensure that bots operate securely and that sensitive data is protected. This will include robust encryption, access controls, and compliance with data protection regulations like GDPR.
Collaboration and Governance: Effective governance frameworks will be essential. RPA monitoring tools will need to facilitate collaboration between IT, compliance, and business units to ensure a unified approach to risk management.
Avaali’s commitment to innovation and excellence positions us as a leader in the RPA market. Our focus on enhanced compliance, AI integration, scalability, user-friendly interfaces, security, and collaborative governance ensures that we are not just meeting today’s demands but are also prepared for tomorrow’s challenges.
TimesTech: How does Avaali stay ahead in both business process expertise and technological advancements to drive transformation?
Ms Srividya: We strongly believe in continuously innovating to remain relevant to our enterprise customers. Our strategy revolves around a deep understanding of emerging technologies and evolving business models.
Here’s how we stay ahead:
Continuous Engagement with Stakeholders
Our practice, delivery, and sales teams actively engage with customers, partners, and industry analysts. This constant communication allows us to gain insights into their strategies, especially in the context of rapid technological evolution. We can develop highly relevant and impactful solutions by understanding their needs and challenges.
Thought Leadership
At Avaali, thought leadership is crucial for creating next-generation enterprise solutions. We drive thought leadership through various initiatives, including:
- Illuminar: Our publication shares insights, trends, and expert opinions on industry developments.
- Janus: Our Source-to-Pay user group that fosters a community of knowledge sharing and collaboration.
These platforms allow us to stay at the forefront of industry trends and provide valuable insights to our customers.
Ideation and Co-Creation
While numerous technologies are available, the key to driving transformation lies in ideating and co-creating with our customers. We work closely with them to explore their unique use cases and operating models. This collaborative approach enables us to develop tailored solutions that address business challenges and drive significant transformation.
Adapting to New Operating Models
We discuss new operating models powered by emerging technologies with our customers. Whether leveraging AI, machine learning, or blockchain, we ensure our solutions align with the latest advancements. This adaptability allows us to meet our customers’ evolving needs and stay relevant in a rapidly changing landscape. For instance, we have enabled over 100+ customers to deliver superior outcomes in their GBS or GCC by leveraging digital.
Avaali stays ahead in business process expertise and technological advancements through continuous stakeholder engagement, thought leadership, ideation, and adapting to new operating models.
Our commitment to innovation and customer-centric approach ensures we drive meaningful transformation for our enterprise customers.
