People in Robotics

Most businesses suffered, some businesses failed, but for those who survived the ravages of the pandemic, what lessons have been learned and, perhaps more importantly, what plans are now in place to make businesses more resilient moving forward? History is littered with pandemics; following bird flu & swine flu, and COVID-19 has arguably been the worst since the Spanish flu. But what next?

Recently, machine learning company Hyperscience began working with partners in the Netherlands. The Hyperscience Platform helps enterprise and public sector organizations automate their data- and document-heavy processes, resulting in greater efficiencies, lower costs , fewer errors and better customer and employee experiences. Rocking Robots talked about this strategy with the EMEA General Manager at Hyperscience, Nay Odutola.

A growing number of CFOs have automation as a topic on their agenda. On the one hand the Covid-crisis forced transformation, on the other hand there is a more deep-rooted wish to perfect processes to serve the business better. But there is more to automation than just RPA as a tool; people are a key element in this, says Christopher Argent from Generation CFO in this interview with Rocking Robots.

Earlier this month, NICE—which markets RPA under the term ‘Advanced Process Automation’—confirmed that one of its biggest government customers, a major public sector agency in the UK and which it also claims was one of the first significant robot users at scale in the world, had renewed its contract with the firm.

At its ‘Forward IV’ user conference last month, along with other significant partner announcements like its work with Accenture, RPA market leader UiPath singled out its new connection with Ingram Micro as significant. But who is Ingram Micro, and how has the relationship–which started in India in 2018, but only became a global arrangement earlier this year–been progressing?

The finance function has evolved towards being the front runner of automation in insurance organizations. Several factors contribute to this evolution, among others strict regulation. This has implications for the role of the CFO. Rocking Robots talked to Frederic Moinier about his views on the insurance business and the value of automation.

How do CIOs feel about deploying RPA and AI in their organization? What barriers are still there and what are the opportunities? Roger Camrass (CIONET UK) collaborated with UiPath to explore the role of the CIO in automation and RPA. To do this, they surveyed CIOs from fifteen major organizations. In this interview, Camrass talks about the most important results of the research and his vision on the future of RPA and automation.

From Salomon ski equipment to Wilson tennis rackets via Suunto watches, Amer Sports has a dozen or so brands in the sports business. As head of Amer Sports’ Finance Shared Services Centre in Krakow, Poland, Hervé Hachet caters to the operational needs of the group’s teams in Europe, North America and Australia.

Anna Dimitrova is the CFO of telecommunications provider Vodafone Germany. In an interview with RockingRobots, she explains how her tasks have changed apace with digitalisation and why she now sees herself more as a Chief Value Officer (CVO) – also with the help of Robotic Process Automation (RPA).

Arnaud Greffet, manager of Safran Finance Services, the Finance Shared Services Centre (SSC) of the Safran group, shares his experience of the robotisation of processes.