Author: root

Federal agencies face new regulations and contract management challenges for procurement and vendor-related issues. In addition, the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) covers contract-related requests are an all-time high. Maintaining records of all the vendors and other business relationships can be exhausting. Agencies must manage these contracts efficiently; otherwise, it can open them up to several problems. Automation can be the right solution for contract management, as it can help agencies handle multiple contracts daily.

Contract lifecycle management (CLM) automation is the current industry standard to streamline contracting processes. However, with artificial intelligence in the picture, the next level is contract intelligence. Contract intelligence uses a combination of AI and machine learning (ML) to automate tasks and natural language processing (NLP) to understand the legal areas of any contract can reduce the time of the CLM lifecycle. This automation uses and provides higher contract performance while lowering the risk for the agency. This approach ensures that the intent of every contract is fully realized, from start to finish.

How is automation used in contract management?

The automation starts at the ingestion stage, where a large amount of contract information is ingested; it is compared with historical data for any correlations and patterns. These patterns help to make predictions and suggestions, making a given contract better for the organization.

Benefits of Contract Intelligence

1) Automation achieved with tools like AI and ML can help scale compliance across thousands or even millions of contracts across all agencies.

2) Contract intelligence reduces wastage and provides value by generating new insights with every transaction.

3) Quickly understand the risk and take measures to reduce the risks.

4) Fast turnaround of contract and shorter review processes of the contract.

5) Efficient maintenance of the clauses and terms across all the contracts

6) Advance search feature to analyze the terms and clauses across contracts

7) AI-based predictions based on historical data analysis

This more innovative and powerful technology will help agencies instantly analyze the contracts at one glance but also will help gain a comprehensive overview of the complete management. It acts as an initial quality check enabling legal operations to identify inconsistencies. It also helps the operations look for critical terms that might need re-negotiation before renewal and can help increase the agency’s reputation. To mitigate risk and uncover potential opportunities, now is the time for federal agencies to push the boundaries. Are you ready to improve your operations with new-age technologies that you never imagined?

Automation has existed for over a decade but has seen exponential growth with recent advances. The advances have seen significant change as there has been an increase in automation tools that replicate and automate transactional processes while improving process accuracy and speed. RPA offers the untapped potential of removing human bias and providing valuable insights that have further catapulted digital transformation. We can define automation maturity level as the extent of RPA used in the public sector, based on using data effectively to deliver citizen services while transforming and managing operational workflows. The public sector can increase this capacity and tackle its tactical priorities by using new innovative solutions such as AI, machine learning, and the Internet of Things.

Automation and Cognitive Technologies Aren’t Magic Bullets — But They Can Take You a Long Way.

The public sector has been growing, with organizations and service delivery adopting automation technologies to improve efficiency, respond to increased demands and maximize resources. However, before we jump on this bandwagon and start using automating agencies, there are a few things you need to know about automation. Artificial intelligence and RPA are essential in the public sector, how they can be used by small and large agencies alike, and why your federal agency won’t be left behind if you choose an adaptive approach.

Government Agencies Are on the Cusp of Major Transformation — Many Won’t Realize It.

We’re in a unique moment in time for public sector organizations. Government agencies are facing an aging workforce, budget reductions, new expectations from citizens, and new standards for efficiency and transparency. In recent times, technology has been touted as THE ANSWER. The popularity and use of digital tools rapidly find inroads into governments and governance worldwide. It develops operations with a series of “if/then” decision-making that handles tasks based on those guidelines, ultimately freeing up staff to focus on activities of higher value. The rapid growth of technology and AI will be a game changer and define the future of government agencies’ operations. It will also create incredible opportunities for people who work in these organizations. The good news is that there are plenty of examples where RPA has already transformed businesses and agencies; for example, The U.S. Postal Service automated 80 percent of the supplier request with RPA. The bots now run one hour daily, five days a week, processing 375 transactions with 100% accuracy.

Government and public sector organizations can leverage automation for the following activities:

1. Data digitization: By converting physical data into digital data, agencies can provide services that fulfill citizens’ expectations.
2. Data migration: Can help governments run crucial administrative processes across from a centralized locus, thereby enhancing data-driven processes and eliminating errors
3. Communication with the public: Enhanced communication channels can help in information dissemination to citizens, peer-to-peer sharing of data, and co-creation of solutions
4. Public opinion analysis: Automatically extract relevant information and help analysts derive actionable insights.
5. Healthcare management: Manage public records of healthcare and vaccination information, communicate with citizens about healthcare updates, and generate timely reports for Government action during health crises.
6. Public security: The security can enable the safe storage of citizens’ sensitive data, such as their Social security numbers, license numbers, tax IDs, and other sensitive information behind layers of security.

The Path Forward for Public Sector RPA and Intelligent Automation Is Governed by Rules, Processes, Data, and Analytics, All together!

Automation, leveraging artificial intelligence (AI) and other technologies, has opened up new possibilities. In the real world, people working with technology can deliver the most outstanding value if the automation aligns with their vision and purpose. A clear strategy and implementation plan can effectively manage digital transformation. Not to forget, this will bring datasets together and insights that would not previously have been possible. So rules, processes, data, analytics, and good governance can get relevant, significant, and proportionate changes.

We believe intelligent automation will change everything about the public sector, radically rethink how these agencies deliver services to the public and find newer ways to tackle national, regional, and local issues.

Source:

“RPA Streamlines Payments, Powers Efficiency.” Cognizant https://www.cognizant.com/us/en/case-studies/postal-service-robotic-process-automation

With the world embracing its new norm of vastly accepting flexibility at the workplace, businesses are spearheaded toward changing work dynamics. The pandemic taught us to attain maximum productivity within four walls, and organizations have continued to succeed in this remote culture. Public Sector is not far behind. Government employees embraced digital tools to facilitate remote work when their offices reopened.

As rightly said, ‘The future is remote,’ with digitalization conquering the world along with Intelligent Automation (IA) and Artificial Intelligence (AI), the workforce now focuses on flexibility. With the pandemic, many businesses had to ensure all employees had every resource to work efficiently from home; although it was tedious, we all adapted well for two long years. The information the federal workers deal with is crucial and needs no additional flub; instead, a structured approach. A survey conducted by Accenture in early 2021 shows that the fastest shift to the road of effectiveness is digitization; even then, some agencies have not been able to adapt to this fully. The remote working culture has been thrilling and challenging. Remote work accompanied by next-gen technologies like AI and IA has its positives and negatives. Here are a few points of discussion:

Time management – While working from the office involves time on the commute, remote work helps to stay away from these distractions and saves time. This flexible future for government work can improve employee morale as it gives time to deal with other things. If allowed to be in a hybrid system, most federal workers could complete jobs faster, as automation takes care of the daily tasks, allowing federal workers to be flexible and more productive in less time.

Work-life balance – No doubt remote work opportunities can offer work-life balance opportunities. For example, a federal worker could acquire different skills or pursue a hobby while doing his or their job remotely; this keeps up his or their morale. The Office of the Revenue Commissioners in Ireland (Revenue) is a use case. Receiving a vast three million customer service calls a year, John Barron, CIO at Revenue, took this as an opportunity to integrate AI into his workforce. In just the first six weeks of initiation, 50-60% of calls were handled entirely by a voice bot. Employees not only got a chance to focus their efforts on tasks that can help them grow in and outside the workplace, rather than answering calls all day.

Increased employee loyalty – Federal workers are bound to be loyal, and there can be a decline in resignations if the work environment is wholesome. Although working from home can dampen an employee’s creativity as there is less human engagement. With some simple programming, the monotonous, repetitive tasks can be fully autonomous and can make employees happier when their day-to-day projects are intriguing. Why use human intelligence on redundant tasks when automation can take up this role?

Effective decision-making – Imagine a specific decision that needs to follow a traditional method, especially in the age of zoom meetings and digitized collaboration. Wouldn’t it be time-consuming? Of course, it will. Imagine an automated system set to specific rules that links data to decision-making, equipped with a feedback process that continuously self-learns and self-corrects. This system is IA at work. Having an artificial assistant inform you when it needs human revision for difficult judgment calls rather than pouring over volumes of issues by hand sounds nice, right?

Save Resources– Automating data storage processes is moving towards a green system. According to the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, the transfer of widely used software applications to the cloud would reduce energy usage by 87%. With remote working culture, all organizations encourage and support reducing the carbon footprint. Intelligent automation in the small world can help the agencies’ sustainability efforts.

Although there are some issues like security as a growing number of remote workers means a vastly distributed network with numerous access points, fortunately, zero trust architecture is a way forward that will vet every digital interaction. 2-way or 3-way authentication, i.e., can further enhance security. To avoid the human error that primarily causes the security breach, if more efforts can be put into training and changing workforce management, this issue can be dealt with efficiently.

According to a report by CISCO, as of July 2022, 58% of federal employees are working from home five days a week, and 52% are satisfied with the current remote work arrangement. In this technology-driven world, getting ahead and staying ahead, the benefits mentioned above can help us weigh both sides of the coin of evolution in the workplace. Remote or hybrid work certainly brings a lot more to the platter and can be improved from time to time with newer technologies. All this brings us to the conclusion that ‘The future is hybrid’ With so many job opportunities, it doesn’t matter which part of the earth you may be all you need is a set of skills, secured systems, and proper remote working structure to embark on this journey.

“Artificial Intelligence: Paving an Easier Path for Remote Working.” AI Paving the Way for Remote Work | IEEE Computer Society, www.computer.org/publications/tech-news/trends/remote-working-easier-with-ai.

“Automated Decision Making.” Oliver Wyman – Impact-Driven Strategy Advisors, www.oliverwyman.com/our-expertise/insights/2016/aug/automated-decision-making.html.

A Real Conversation Starter – Accenture. www.accenture.com/_acnmedia/pdf-96/accenture-hps-ira-creds-d5-final.pdf.

Truly Human Automation – Accenture. www.accenture.com/_acnmedia/accenture/redesign-assets/dotcom/documents/local/1/accenture-truly-human-automation-manchester-metropolitan-university.pdf.

“Uncovering the Environmental Impact of Cloud Computing.” Earth.Org, 30 Sept. 2021, earth.org/environmental-impact-of-cloud-computing/.

Cisco_Hybrid_Work_in_Government_Survey_Report_FINAL, Cisco, July,2022

https://www.cisco.com/c/dam/m/digital/elq-cmcglobal/OCA/Assets/Federal/Cisco_Hybrid_Work_in_Government_Survey_Report_FINAL.pdf

Benefits and Advantages of Cloud Computing

Local servers are a thing of past now. You may want to choose just one backup for emergency rather than having number of servers saving the same data. Cloud computing is the future these days undoubtedly and it is going to change how we do business. It can be compared to a powerhouse meant to run a business efficiently, hence the reason for its popularity.

1. Lesser Issues:

Cloud based computing services may appear complicated to a layman’s eye but in reality, it poses meager issues as compared to server based solutions. There are companies whose sole job is to make cloud functional at all times, therefore they run cloud service on its servers dedicated to just this cause.

It is much more trustworthy than a local server.

2. Saving money with Cloud:

If a bug is noticed in a system, be assured that the company maintaining cloud network is looking for its solution. But if it happens to be your remote server than you may like to file a complaint with technical support staff or have an engineer come down to your locale to fix it up.

A normal server owner may let a small issue let go by but these issues snowball into a major breakdown if not fixed in time costing time and money to the company.

In the longer run, cloud based IT solutions helps in saving huge money provided you don’t take services of tech support teams to fix issues from time to time.

3. Require Lesser Capital:
One of the most difficult parts to run a startup business is to create capital to run your business and have your employees paid at the end of the month. Servers will cost a fortune to buy, run and maintain and thus adds to the working cost of the company.

On the other hand, cloud computing is less expensive than running a server. You only pay for storage required by you per month. It is also less hassle to upgrade your systems with the latest software patches as is done automatically by a cloud running company. You save money on fancy hardware upgrades and extract purely what you desire.

4. Enhances Team Collaboration:
With help of cloud computing, team collaboration also increases. In a study, it was revealed that seventy-nine percent of companies get requests from potential clients to procure more cloud applications to encourage collaboration for want of file sharing. Cloud computing is carving a niche for itself in the business sphere. Cloud computing is meant for file sharing and connectivity. It helps one team to edit files and share them in real-time across the globe. The team can operate as one from anywhere in the world.

5. Decrease Carbon Footprinting:
Reducing carbon footprint with cloud computing is as easy as it gets. Cloud computing demands less physical space than installing servers allowing the companies to reduce their data centers or maybe remove them completely.

Fewer servers mean that fewer resources are utilized. Cloud computing offers enhanced ability to share files and fewer requirements of printouts between team members resulting in saving the planet.

6. It’s Always On:
With cloud computing, you don’t have to remember to save an important file on a pen drive as everything is on the cloud. Sometimes flash drives don’t work properly and emails don’t get sent timely but with oracle cloud applications, you don’t have to worry as your data is accessible all the time round the clock.

7. Perfect Work-Life Balance:
Cloud computing offers a reliable work-life balance. Cloud is always on and helps in collaboration. Cloud computing also assists in maintaining a great work-life balance among your employees.
Employees get the freedom to work from anywhere and anytime which allows them to run home to attend to their children or run errands for the house. It allows them to spend quality time with their children while enjoying a tropical locale yet do their job via cloud computing.

8. Enhanced Security:
Better security is being offered by the cloud. It provides better security than local servers. You don’t have to fret about losing data because of a natural disaster such as an earthquake destroying your server rooms. There is far greater flexibility in working via the cloud than with physical servers. Safety is one of the biggest advantages which cloud-based computing services offer.

You can let go of your worry of a breakdown at your physical server center if you have switched over to cloud-based computing. There are various cloud providers who also go a step ahead and create backup data adding redundancy to the remote servers. Such measures help prevent the loss of data at any stage.

Cloud providers offer more security protocols than anyone would probably do on his local server. Such stringent measures make the security airtight and foolproof.

9. Control Over Documents:
Easy control over documents via cloud computing: It is important to maintain document control when you want to run a successful business. You can never know what might just happen to the document if it falls in the wrong hands. Security is important and all employees are sensitized on the subject but with paperless documents which are being accessed centrally over the cloud, administrators can review the security in a simplified manner.

10. Easy Implementation:
It allows you to conveniently decide which document to choose and which to be edited, shared, or viewed by the selective users out of the lot. It offers real-time sharing preventing the floating of thousands of versions of the same file leading to confusion. One copy of the document is easy to manage, review and edit and there are cloud-based IT solutions doing just the job for you.
Easy implementation is the forte of ORACLE cloud applications.
It seems like a herculean task when you think of beginning to use a cloud-based service. But it is just a piece of cake.

11. Convenient M&A Activity:
M&A activity is also facilitated by them. Cloud computing promotes swift changes enabling two completely different companies to integrate as one much faster. Traditional computing methods will take ages while migrate applications or remove data centers before these two different companies begin to run on one single IT stack. Such convenience and ease of doing work have catapulted cloud computing to the center stage. It has become the backbone of the growing IT industry and a favorite method of doing business with start-ups mushrooming all over the world.

12. Reduces Environmental Impact:
Fewer data centers mean less impact on the environment. Collectively such actions will save the environment. Companies that are into sharing resources are also improving their green ratings.
It also enables the latest software applications easily available to every customer no sooner than they are launched in the open market. These upgrades fix new features directly into workers’ hands, hence enhancing their productivity. Software updates are launched very frequently and cloud running company incorporates them as soon as possible, to prevent any virus/malware attack.

13. Increased Speed to Market:
Many companies run their business model on the philosophy that their product should reach the market more quickly than their competitors, just to have an edge over them and reap profits. With the advent of cloud computing, the stakes have got much higher.
For instance, some cloud companies deliver custom-based IT solutions to their clients by manufacturing innovative products as well as services. This ultimately helps them in enhancing the production in a matter of weeks as compared to months earlier.

14. A Level Field:
For small business houses, cloud computing offers major benefits as it enables them to compete as equals with renowned business houses. It gives SMEs an added advantage by granting access to latest software and applications which otherwise would be exorbitantly expensive.

15. New Software:
Competition is critical much more today than it ever was. The companies are vying for the top slot and making advancements in innovation, market appeal, and security to attract business. It is about getting more facilities with less dollar investment. Software’s enhancements and immediate upgrades are released on a routine basis to cope up with the competition.

Conclusion:
Cloud computing is offering a greater advantage when compared to traditional physical servers. 85% of companies/enterprises have incorporated it in their business in the past few years. To migrate to a cloud-based system has become affordable and easy since last year. It is a sure-shot way to save time, resources, effort and money in this emerging business cloud world.