Riding the robotics wave can bring big rewards for HK enterprises

Robots are no longer just for science fiction movies and manufacturing or cute humanoid machines that greet you at conference stalls as promotional gimmicks.

In the white-collar business world, robotics are being used to automate processes, drive down costs, improve response times and increase productivity, reduce errors and improve customer service. These robots are essentially virtual workers that execute rule-based processes, with significant improvements in accuracy and efficiency.

Consider the financial services industry, a prime employer of Hong Kong residents. In Accenture’s Technology Vision 2016 study conducted with more than 500 leading banks and insurers,72 per cent of financial services executives said they believe that the new workforce will be comprised of employees as well as intelligent machines. They said they expect 35 per cent of jobs will be automated in the next two decades.

These executives are thinking about how robotics process automation (RPA), which lets organisations automate tasks as if a real person was doing them across multiple applications and systems, can improve their bottom line. Processing costs can be reduced (by as much as 80 per cent in financial services) and RPA can work 24/7, so productivity goes up (indeed in financial services, the average handling time for many processes is reduced by as much as 40 per cent). With fewer errors, compliance costs are reduced, as well.

At the most basic level minibots leverage simple macros, such as Microsoft Excel, to automate basic tasks. The next robotics step up is the use of applications that consolidate data from multiple sources and execute manual tasks to achieve process automation. The next level in robotics are computer-generated characters or chatbots that can converse and answer queries and provide guidance. And then there is technology that is adaptive, interactive, understands context and can apply what it has learned to future situations.