Taking over the wheel: RPA and guiding your business forward [Podcast]

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Adam Muspratt
05/15/2018

“We can get so far doing this Lean Six Sigma, but now we recognize to go further, we need to bring technology into the mix,” said Yorkshire Building Society’s Richard Frost

Talking to AIIA’s editor Seth Adler, Richard Frost, Lead Enterprise Architect at Yorkshire Building Society, explains why robotic process transformation was such an integral aspect of moving Yorkshire Building Society forward. He also discussed the difficulties and triumphs he encountered along his company’s journey, from initial technology proposals to implementation.

“Robotic process automation is something that the business can own and can get on and make change without really needing too much help from IT,” explained Richard Frost.

Prior to his current role at the Yorkshire Building Society, Richard applied his technological expertise to enterprise architecture at IBM, staying consistently on the edge of innovation. A firsthand witness of the first personal computer, Richard experienced how incorporating new technology was beneficial to Operational Excellence.

“I kept talking about automation. Our operations director wanted some automation, wanted robotics, so he asked me to step across into the operation excellence team to work on robotics as a project”

We’ve previously discussed the benefits of implementing an automation framework, however, Richard realizes finding the right vendor is half of the battle. Fluctuating markets, cost, and contract length are just some of the things that have to be considered carefully, “I think the market will change, so I'm not buying into a five or ten-year deal just yet,” said Richard.

“I've been a big promoter of business process management, which obviously fits in alongside that, and I absolutely believe you don't automate a broken process. So you have to do your Lean Six Sigma and then you bring in the technology”

Join Richard Frost and host Seth Adler as they discuss the technology vendor selection process...

Listen:

Key takeaways from this week’s AIIA podcast

Inspire your team with confidence and be passionate about your proposals

“There's a lot of groundwork in terms of giving them confidence. I presented them with a list of reliable vendors that we could do business with so they weren't afraid to make a decision. Then I did a lot of work in terms of explaining why we needed this technology and what we'd be able to do with it.”

Have a clear end-goal

“What we want to do is have our colleagues spending valuable time with customers and not time routing them to the right person. We don't want a customer lost in the IVR, we don't want them being transferred from one person to the next”

Have defined vendor selection criteria

Commenting on finding the right vendor, Richard believes that you can never ask yourself too many questions. “Are they a match for us; are they ten times our size and then they will just walk all over us? When we want to start working with them, will they send in the B team once the sale has been made?”