Category: blog

Traditionally, workflow automation in financial services has been limited to two aspects. First, the front office is where automation is usually deployed – e.g., an automated chatbot to solve customer queries or marketing automation to increase customer engagement. Second, automations are implemented in silos to optimize individual tasks, without integrating into broader associated or contextually surrounding workflows. This leads to a host of missed opportunities, which you can address by reassessing underlying workflows and leveraging automation holistically.

What Got You Here Won’t Get You There

Business processes change frequently, and your existing workflows and older approaches may be completely out of sync with today’s demands, causing missed opportunities.

• In addition to the front office, mid- and back-office processes like manual data entry could hugely benefit from automation. Particularly in the new normal, reduction of manual effort in such workflows makes a lot of sense.
• Digital transformation is an ongoing process and the upheavals of 2020 have significantly accelerated transformation initiatives. Pre-pandemic workflows, task-focused bots, etc. should be revisited and firms should look to leverage true end-to-end, integrated automation.
• Automation technologies are constantly evolving – for instance, intelligent automation uses AI/ML with rules-based automation in a hybrid model to be able to address the widest possible variety of scenarios. Existing systems and processes that got you where you are today may not be suited to unlocking these opportunities.

Meanwhile, the financial services industry has rapidly evolved to become digital-first, which further widens the gap between industry leaders and laggards. For instance, NVIDIA’s 2021 survey found that 1 in 3 firms plan to use AI to increase revenues by 20% or more. This calls for a well-articulated automation roadmap, starting with a reassessment of your current state.

Starting the Automation Roadmap: Considerations and Use Cases

Financial service firms starting out with mid and back-office automation must first ask themselves the following questions to understand the current state of workflows and what needs to change:

• How long ago were the workflows created and what problems were they intended to solve?
• Where are the gaps and roadblocks in the workflows that require manual intervention?
• What systems were used?
• Are the workflows adequately structured or well-defined?

It may be necessary to first transform the process and workflow map at your mid and back-office before you get started with automation. Ideally, workflows that are low in complexity and high in volumes are the best candidates for automation, which will be revealed through a careful assessment.

The top three use cases for workflow review, transformation, and automation in financial services include:

1. New account opening – Account opening activities involve structured and repeatable workflows that can be automated by integrating key enterprise systems.

2. Data migration/entry – Data migration between systems and data entry from unstructured documents to digital forms take up thousands of person-hours every year in a typical firm. Bots combined with AI technologies (OCR, ML) can perform these tasks automatically.

3. Anti-money laundering (AML) and fraud detection – AML workflows rely on a predetermined set of signals and data thresholds to detect risk and alert stakeholders. Through automation, you can improve detection accuracy and auto-alert stakeholders without delay.

New Priorities for a Reimagined World

Workflow automation is just another step in the holistic journey towards making financial services workflows more efficient and effective. And remember, this journey is never “done” or “over.” A new approach to automation is required that looks beyond siloed savings towards:

• Improved engagement and brand reputation by creating delightful experiences for customers and employees alike
• Holistic effort savings and hours freed up for value generation across the front, middle, and back-office
• Business resilience and scalability through a reduction in costs, risks, and technical debt

It all begins with recognizing that the workflows that got you here won’t get you there and identifying the precise strategic and technological levers needed to reach future growth milestones.

To learn more about how JIFFY.ai can help your financial services firm reimagine workflows to reduce costs while improving efficiency, contact us today at marketing@jiffy.ai.

Great people make great workplaces, and great workplaces make amazing products.

December is typically a reflective time of year for most people and this year is – by far – no exception. Indeed, the pandemic and our response to it gives us further reasons to reflect, offer thanks, and look forward with hope.

This year, JIFFY.ai announced our Series A funding, received incredibly positive client reviews, and most importantly, managed to create real success stories for several clients reeling from the pandemic’s impact. 

As I write this article, we’re also very excited to be finishing off the year on such a positive note because our workplace has been voted as one of the best, most trustworthy workplaces in the Great Place to Work Survey 2020. 

Every year, more than 10,000 organizations from over 60 countries partner with Great Place to Work® Institute for assessment, benchmarking and planning actions to strengthen their workplace culture. Great Place to Work® Institute’s methodology is recognized as rigorous and objective and is considered as the gold standard for defining great workplaces across business, academia and government organizations.

Specifically, the metrics around the pride we take in what we do and the camaraderie we share are truly heartening. The free-flowing conversations, the honesty, the friendships we build at work – whether online or in person – these are the things that truly matter to us. While it is often hard to quantify great culture, we’re pleased to report that we’re building a true family here at JIFFY.ai.

From the days of our company’s inception, our leadership team has made building a people-driven culture a key tenet of what drives us. And in the year of the pandemic that forced us to connect remotely and often figure things out over a video call, a culture of putting people first has only gotten stronger. 

Being nimble on our virtual toes has been an unprecedented challenge, but when it comes to service, every team member has found it in themselves to rise to the occasion and do what would have once seemed impossible. These attributes are reflected in our high ranking in the Trust Index score, and we couldn’t be happier!

To many more years of changing the world of intelligent automation and remembering to do it with a smile! The JIFFY.ai team wishes you a safe and happy festive season ahead.

Companies that recognize their employees as their greatest asset and invest in people first go longer distances. Human Resources in many companies has become a key strategic partner to the C-suite, helping to spearhead digital transformation across the organization to not only drive value but also to support the attraction, retention, and engagement of a happy workforce. Focused transformation within the HR practice itself can also drive efficiency and improve employee attraction and retention. More HR leaders than ever before are looking at themselves and their teams as a critical starting point for employee experience excellence, digital transformation and innovation within the business.

Cases in point (and there are many) are Google and Microsoft, which are both highly people-oriented in terms of the opportunities they provide to their employees and how seriously they value engagement as a metric.

Technology has helped the HR function immensely, both to achieve efficiency and to make processes smoother. Particularly for growing organizations, HR technology can ensure all stakeholders, as well as potential new talent, receive a consistent, excellent experience.

Creating Capacity For The Real People Work

HR leaders today have a tough job, indeed. Massive job losses and pay cuts are being reported across the board and managing the people function is twice as challenging as ever. In the post COVID-19 reality, employee experience is going to be extremely important, and significant. Not only is it important to protect and engage internal stakeholders, potential talent will closely watch to see how a company’s people are treated before making a decision.

The strategic and thoughtful use of technology and tools can free up time for professionals to focus on tasks that need true hands-on attention. One of the key points of resistance to technology adoption is that it might replace the need for people. Yet, the reality is that technology helps take over routine, repetitive, cumbersome tasks and allows people to focus on areas that need a more well-rounded approach to problem-solving.

The same goes for using technology in HR.

What was once an unending stack of paperwork or an unending stream of digital documents to move along through a process can now be automated. Some of the areas with the highest need for automation in HR include employee onboarding, data management, employee offboarding, payroll management, and talent acquisition.

For one of our clients, Jiffy.ai has been able to manage the regular churn and process over 600 contractors per cycle in a fully automated manner. The entire employee onboarding and offboarding process can be automated using intelligent automation, too, ensuring at each step that the process is not only seamless but also human. In the context of employee data management, automation can help accomplish what would ordinarily take at least two people working for 1 hour per employee. For a luxury real estate firm, Jiffy.ai has created tremendous value by automating processes for a 400% reduction in manual effort.

This is time best spent in quality people interactions. The New Now will see a rise in the need for managing not just the work people are doing but having a greater pulse on their wellness and emotional state. HR managers will be called upon to bring teams together by showing each individual the path to their growth and the synergies with the big picture of the organization. All this will need human time and energy.  

HR And Automation In The Context Of Remote Work

If there’s one thing the pandemic has done for the New Now, it is to accelerate the process of technology adoption. While employees now work from locations as diverse as the size of the team itself, management teams have had to adjust to a completely new way of reconciling performance and rewards and getting their bearings on what is actually going on.

Indeed, many companies are reeling under the pressure of circumstances that change every week, maybe sooner, and the C-suite is reacting as strategically and as swiftly as possible to keep their businesses open.

In this context, delegating not just performance management but also the entire onboarding process to a technology tool is one great way to free up time and the much-needed headspace to work on complex decision-making and have meaningful interactions. Jiffy.ai has successfully implemented automation in HR for a leading global audit and consulting firm. Here’s what we have been able to do for them:

• Moving contractor interactions to a web interface
• Making communication smoother and more efficient with Exchange mailboxes
• Automating the onboarding process entirely

As a result, the firm has been able to achieve these significant outcomes:

• An increase in the onboarding capacity to 100 contractors per month
• A sharp decrease in onboarding time from 3 hours (manually) to 17 minutes (when using RPA)
• 16 of the 20 core onboarding processes are now fully automated
• An onboarding process that runs 24X7 without the need for, or with minimal, manual intervention

Here’s a simple example of what a manual HR process would look like when automated, and the savings on time that can be expected as a result.

The role of HR has never been more critical than it is now. New tools and applications can aid HR leaders immensely in making this shift for their organizations. By relegating processes to automation and shifting its focus to its people, HR has an opportunity to help their entire enterprise not just to survive change but to be able to thrive in it.