Digital transformations imperative for business growth: Experts  

Robotic Process Automation and Process Mining have come to the fore during the pandemic as companies are now taking steps to move for digital transformations, experts said in a webinar on Thursday. 

In a market like Bangladesh which is now the fastest growing in the Saarc region, it's very critical for enterprises to embrace the 'Intelligent Automation' to achieve the sustainable business growth despite uncertainties like the Covid-19 pandemic.  

The experts made these observations at the international webinar and members' conference on transforming finance and accounting with robotic process automation organised by the Institute of Chartered Accountants of Bangladesh (ICAB).

State Minister for ICT Zunaid Ahmed Palak attended the conference as the chief guest.  

Mahmudul Hasan Khusru, president of ICAB, delivered the welcome speech at the event, while Dewan Nurul Islam, past president of ICAB, presided over the members' conference as the session chair.

Speakers said the role of technology and its integration within organisations are evolving at a faster pace. The ever-increasing regulatory changes and compliance functions are reducing the speed of work done by employees. 

This has resulted in the adoption of the robotics process automation to manage the compliance functions in a better manner than employees, they added.

Robotic Process Automation (RPA) is a technology that allows anyone to configure computer software or a robot to emulate and integrate the actions of a human interacting within digital systems to execute a business process. 

RPA bots utilise the user interface to capture data and manipulate applications just like humans do. They interpret, trigger responses, and communicate with other systems in order to perform a vast variety of repetitive tasks. 

Experts said exports, banking penetration, and electronic payments have grown multi-fold in the last two decades and we have reached the stage where it's essential to embrace technologies like automation, RPA, and process mining to create the platform for sustaining the hyper-growth of business.

Some of the largest enterprises from Bangladesh like Dhaka Bank, Expo Group, Berger Paints, Mutual Trust Bank, SQ Group have already started using RPA/Intelligent Automation as a part of their digital transformation.

Speaking at the event, Zunaid Ahmed Palak said the world is becoming data and technology-driven increasingly. 
Robotic process automation is employing smart software robots (bots) that identify and copycat human interactions with core legacy systems, along with web and other desktop applications to execute processes, he added.