IT-BPM positions face threats from robots

As workers in the business process management sector (BPM) face threats of extinction with the advent of robots, local players believe it is time to start training in highly specialized skills.

Cebu Educational Development Foundation for Information Technology (Cedf-IT) president Gregg Victor Gabison raised this concern to the country’s IT-BPM experts during the Cebu Digital Transformation Summit held at the Radisson Blu Hotel last Thursday.

“(We need to) target higher value services and aim for more IT-related activities or services requiring more skills, especially with the coming of automation or robots,” Gabison said in his presentation.

News of robotic software agents has surfaced in recent years, a relatively new technology that is commonly termed robotic process automation (RPA).

According to the Institute for Robotic Process Automation (IRPA), RPA can create 25 to 50 percent cost savings.

“Their objective is very straightforward – to carry out the business processes that would normally be done by human beings. This works best when the processes are repetitive, rules-based and frequent or those tasks that are normally great candidates for outsourcing,” said Andrew Burgess in his article “Robotics Changing the Face of BPO” published in online robotic community Robohub.

At this point, Burgess said the technology is still “relatively immature” and impacts around 20 to 40 percent of processes.

For instance, a UK insurance firm with a team of just four people can process around 3,000 claims documents a day. Without RPA, the team would need to be as many as twelve, said Burgess.

Another example is a large US firm that has introduced a service desk robot that was able to answer 62,000 calls a month. The robot can solve three out of four problems without human help.

Sought for reaction from one of the summit’s participants on BPO robots, Information Technology and Business Process Association of the Philippines (IBPAP) former chairman Rainerio “Bong” Borja believes the voice or contact centers will stay for a long time but it will evolve into a different form.

“In business, you always have customers. Sometimes, robotics will be there. Maybe in the future, there would be less voice. It will be there but in different forms,” Borja said.

Presently, 60 percent of the IT-business process management (BPM) industry in the Philippines is concentrated on voice, said Philippine Software Industry Association (PSIA) president Jonathan De Luzuriaga.

Gabison called for stronger and wider industry-academe links by preparing talents as young as those in basic education on IT, teacher trainings, and career caravans with senior high school students.

The IT-BPM sector in the Philippines generates over $20 billion in revenues annually and is employing a growing number of one million directly.
Cebu, for instance, has transformed its economy from manufacturing to services with the BPO sector, said Gabison.

Gabison recalled that back in the late 1990s, former Cebu Investment Promotions Center (CIPC) managing director Joel Mari Yu went on a roadshow in Manila to invite BPM companies to consider Cebu as a backup site.

It was in 2003 when the first call center in Cebu, Sykes Asia, came and established a 17-person backup site.

Today, Gabison said Sykes is one of the big players in Cebu, together Convergys and Accenture, employing more than 100,000 people.

Countering automation. Cebu Educational Development Foundation for Information Technology president Gregg Victor Gabison says the IT-BPM sector needs to start training its workers in highly specialized skills or else they could end up losing their jobs to robots, which can save companies 25 to 50 percent. (Sun.Star Foto/Allan Defensor)

 

Source: http://goo.gl/eQyMfP