The Week: Cognizant’s Executive Vice President of Business Process Services Talks About the Company’s Headway in Harnessing the Power of Automation

“The use of sophisticated robotic process automation software allows us to automate repetitive process steps across the value chain,” says Gajen Kandiah. “This frees up resources to focus on customer-facing and value-added work. Automation also gives us the opportunity to structure, price and measure our offerings as outcome, transactional or gain-share agreements.”

The magazine notes: “Cognizant’s Intelligent Process Automation (IPA) engine, which is a proprietary technology, is used in functional processes across industries and functions such as loan applications for banks, claims adjudication for insurers, provider verification for health care, clinical data management for life sciences, and accounts payable and invoicing for finance.”

On whether automation will lead to job losses, Kandiah says, “While positions that support basic, rudimentary tasks will likely be in less demand over time, we feel that automation won't supplant knowledge labor. Our IPA engine allows automation of front-, middle- and back-office processes typically performed by teams of people accessing multiple applications and following defined, rules-based guidelines. With IPA, these teams are now supported and empowered by smart robots and are achieving greater levels of performance and innovation.”

The magazine cites a Cognizant study of some 500 U.S. and Europe organizations, which revealed that knowledge workers, informed by data, use automation as a force multiplier.

Kandiah adds, “Automation becomes a fundamental enabler, working powerfully in tandem with humans not only to drive new levels of process efficiency, but to tackle business challenges differently. The human touch remains alive, essential and elemental to how better and different processes are orchestrated and managed.”

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