Birad Bhatt is an Automation Delivery Manager at UST Global, a technology company that provides end-to-end digital solutions and services to global organizations across diverse industries. In his 15-career, Birad has developed specialized expertise in Robotic Process Automation (RPA) project management and product support, designing and implementing digital transformations for various Fortune 100 to Fortune 500 companies in banking and financial services, healthcare, logistics and supply chain, energy, retail, and manufacturing sectors. He is a recognized senior consulting business automation expert, known for his innovative initiatives in process re-engineering and digital road map implementation, overseeing functional teams worldwide.
In his current role, Birad leverages his advanced academic education in accounting and finance to conduct feasibility studies and assessments, and contributes to business strategy initiatives for his company and his clients. Based on his analyses, he deploys tailored RPA and process orchestration solutions that advance enterprise goals, while achieving cost reductions and gains in efficiency and revenue. In designing automation solutions, Birad collaborates with cloud-based and on-premises business application teams, and oversees teams of RPA developers to demonstrate, configure, and implement automations. He has mentored and trained internal and external teams on RPA development and automation management.
Birad received a bachelor’s degree in Managerial Accounting from the University of Mumbai (India), and an MBA in Finance from LaSalle University (Philadelphia, PA, USA), and is a Certified Management Accountant (CMA) affiliated to IMA’s Houston chapter. Additionally, Birad is a Blue Prism Certified Robotic Operating Models (ROM) Architect, and holds multiple technical certifications related to the field of intelligent process automation. His dual focus and expertise in finance and technology give Birad a unique ability to understand business objectives and balance sheets, and customize automation solutions that optimize operations and financial performance.
Q: Birad, let’s start with your career path: how did you transition from your finance background to the information technology field, and specifically RPA?
A: All through my undergraduate education and Master’s degree program, Management Information Systems (MIS) was a subject that I loved. After getting my MBA, I was employed with the Process Improvement team of a supply chain and logistics company. This assignment gave me the opportunity to work on process re-engineering projects which involved identifying process specific challenges, scientifically measuring bottlenecks and applying systemic solutions to address these needs.
When the process improvement team was looking for volunteers to work on process automation, I signed up, and that is how I segued from process improvement to process automation. Personally speaking, working at the crossroads where business operations meets technology has been a very satisfying experience.
Q: You’ve led RPA projects across several industries, from finance to logistics. What core principles do you apply when designing automation strategies that can be adapted across such diverse sectors?
A: One can say that all business operations, irrespective of industry sector or domain, consist of three parts – work coming in, work getting processed, and work getting handed off downstream. RPA is technology platform agnostic and can be designed around the specific needs and business applications that are used by individual business teams, thus, the key aspects of building an automation roadmap for any organization involves identifying automation opportunities, creating a business case, choosing the right tool or platform for automation, change management, and aligning on project success criteria. Close coordination with the project sponsor team is needed to clearly outline the above points before project kick-off. In my experience, RPA implementations have been very successful in record-to-report, order-to-cash, and procure-to-pay domains of various industry sectors.
Q: With your background in both business management and technology, how do you integrate business metrics into the design and success criteria of RPA solutions?
A: Automation projects will not find favor with business executives in the absence of a clear business case. The first step towards automation for any organization is the “assessment” phase, in which business operations are reviewed for automation feasibility. Perceived reductions in operational cost and gains in operational efficiency are translated in dollar figures and compared with the investment required for automation deployment, and a 5-year roadmap is presented to the Clients at the “assessment” readout. Based on first-hand experience, I can confidently say that in most cases, the gains far outweigh the investment.
Q: What other key performance indicator (KPI) metrics do you factor in to your implementations to better enable clients to measure value in terms of return on investment (ROI)?
A: Automation platforms come with built-in features that can track various process- specific metrics and provide structured reports around average handling time (AHT) for transactions, business exceptions, and system usage. These numbers can then help the business teams to plan any future enhancements to the automations and build confidence around the reliability of their BOT workers. The type of industry also drives the selection of the automation product they will invest in; for example SS&C Blue Prism found favor with banks and financial sector clients due to its increased focus on features related to data security and encryption.
Q: How does your financial academic experience enhance your communications with your company and client leaders, and your ability to design automation solutions that meet their business objectives?
A: My education and experience provided me with a level of familiarity about how business processes are setup, and the inherent challenges associated with those operational domains. When you start speaking the same language as your client/audience, it builds a level of confidence that encourages them to open up about their requirements. This is critical to deliver solutions which address immediate issues and lay the groundwork for future opportunities.
Q: Can you walk us through a particularly challenging automation project and how your team overcame the technical or organizational hurdles involved?
A: Each and every project that I have worked on had its own set of challenges, and contributed towards my growth as a professional in the field of automation. A recent use-case that I worked on was for a client that wanted to upgrade its automation infrastructure while building more BOTs for their existing bot-farm. The challenge was to ensure that the upgrade happened without impacting the function of existing business-critical automations in production, and that new BOT development was done on upgraded infrastructure. Coordination was required at multiple levels on the Client side to create a project plan which addressed infrastructure upgrade, migration, and new automation development and implementation. A “phased” migration approach was adopted to ensure that any automation that did not function as expected on the new infrastructure could be rolled back to previous set-up to ensure a disruption-free transition. The project was challenging in terms of ensuring that diverse process owners were aligned and provided their support and inputs on a timely basis.
Q: Given the rise of AI-driven tools, how do you see the relationship between traditional RPA and more intelligent automation evolving?
A: Advances in AI and cognitive technologies will sharpen the claws of Robotic Process Automation and increase its reach to work areas which were previously considered “subjective.” A simple example would be the processing of handwritten forms and documents with the availability of optical character recognition (OCR) features and platforms that can read handwriting with a high confidence level. Organizations are increasingly using local large language models (LLMs) that are trained on organizational data, and which operate within the firewall to triage customer emails and other documents. Agentic AI solutions will provide better answers to business managers resulting in improved output and service to end customers and users.
Q: You have particular expertise in designing RPA and intelligent automation solutions for the banking industry. How is automation changing the way banks operate from functional and compliance perspectives?
A: Banks have embraced automation in a big way; from retail banking to tax operations and accounting, technology has changed banking operations for the good. While chat-bots and virtual agents are widely used in front-end operations, document processing, RPA and AI-based forecasting and prediction models are used for middle and back office domains. I have personally designed and deployed automations for use-cases related to tax compliance for NRA and FATCA reporting, audit compliance, and functional reporting. The respective teams gained significant savings in operational cost and improved compliance by investing in automation.
Q: Many companies struggle with change management during digital transformation. How do you ensure that cross-functional and cross-cultural teams stay aligned and engaged throughout these transitions?
A: Adopting automation and working with BOTs requires a learning curve. Many times people are just scared of using technology, and there is often a cautious and guarded approach around the use of new technologies. The three things that are most important for effective change management are as follows:
1) Leadership support: the business leadership should clearly articulate their vision for innovation and digital transformation.
2) Stakeholder involvement: the process owners should be involved in automation design and development. This will create a sense of ownership and provide them with an idea of how the solution will solve everyday business problems.
3) Training: hands on training around using the automation effectively, and proper understanding of what the automation can and cannot do will ensure proper synchronization and hand-off between human and BOT workers.
Q: What trends or innovations in automation and digital transformation are you most excited about in the next three to five years?
A: The coming together of RPA, AI, and ML is called “hyper-automation.” The focus is no longer on just the automation of tasks, but overall operational optimization. Generative technology is slowly but surely getting embedded in applications that range from customer service to software development to data analysis. RPA solutions are moving away from working at a GUI level to making API calls and “talking” directly to the target applications to get work done faster. Hosted RPA solutions can scale to handle operational spikes without any control-room intervention. It is going to be very interesting to observe how these synergies will impact and transform the way businesses will operate.
Q: How has your certification as a Blue Prism Developer and ROM Architect influenced your approach to RPA solution architecture and implementation?
A: I have found that getting trained and certified on a technology platform like Blue Prism was valuable in tangible and intangible ways. While the technical education taught me how to design, develop, and implement the technology effectively, the certification provided additional benefits, such as better job prospects, increased professional credibility, and opportunity for continuous learning.
Q: In your current role, you conduct feasibility studies for automation opportunities. What are some common indicators that a process is a good candidate for automation?
A: Innovation in the field of AI and ML is pushing the boundaries of automation use-case scenarios; activities that were previously considered out of scope are now acceptable use cases. Identifying opportunities for automation requires structured interviews with process owners and observation of process steps. At a high level, what you should look out for are activities with:
1) Large volume of repetitive transactions
2) Rules-based decision making
3) Structured digital inputs.
One must also assess the technology roadmap for the organization and ensure that target applications are not going to be replaced or redesigned in the near future. The availability of test environments and test data is another important point to be considered while identifying prospective automation candidate processes.
Q: Training and upskilling are a big part of your responsibilities. What strategies do you find most effective when building automation capability within client or internal teams?
A: Training citizen developers (non-IT employees) is something that I have enjoyed and has given me a lot of satisfaction in my professional role. Any organization that is serious about digital transformation and adopting automation should find a technology partner that can provide them with a roadmap that is aligned with the corporate vision. This partnership will help the executive leadership get an understanding of the current scenario and help connect digital initiatives with business outcomes. Initial projects can be started using partner resources to prioritize quick wins and build confidence in the capability of technology platforms, along with encouraging permeation of a digital culture across the rank and file. Encouraging citizen development involves providing comprehensive training, access to sandbox environments (that provide a safe, isolated testing space where non-technical users can learn, build, and experiment with IT applications and tools without affecting live systems or data), governance framework, and on-going support.
Q: Finally, for professionals looking to follow in your footsteps, what combination of skills and experiences do you believe are critical for a successful career in automation and digital transformation?
A: An automation professional functions at the crossroads of business and technology domains. To succeed in the field of automation design and digital transformation in this space, you need business acumen, design thinking, and analytical skills, along with technical knowledge of RPA platforms and scripting languages, and an understanding of agile and DevOps methodologies. I believe that leading by example and communication skills are also essential. Whether working with internal enterprise or external client teams, the ability to collaborate with team members and company executives, and oversee projects and people effectively, will be critical to success. In today’s business applications, understanding how to drive organizational change management is as important as having advanced technical expertise.
