BFSI Sector Managing Data with Automation Services

The market generated revenue of $2.9 billion in 2017, which is projected to become $10.9 billion in 2023. AaaS enables business organizations to form a virtual workforce that can perform multiple tasks with improved efficiency, at a low cost. With the deployment of virtual workforces, the need for human intervention is eliminated.

Moreover, the surging adoption of new-age technologies in the banking, financial services, and insurance (BFSI) sector has led to the increasing utilization of automation solutions. The BFSI sector generates a large amount of data, which is now being documented and analyzed with accuracy by utilizing automation software. Moreover, the adoption of AaaS in this sector reduces the time taken for documenting, accounting, invoicing, calculations, and other important but daily and routine functions. These advantages result in the streamlining of BFSI operations and improvements in the efficiency of the overall system.

The type segment of the automation as a service market is bifurcated into rule-based and knowledge-based. In 2017, the rule-based bifurcation held the larger market share due to the deployment of automation programming solutions to automate various tasks that do not need high cognitive abilities and are least complex. Moreover, the knowledge-based category is exhibiting rapid growth in the market owing to the better ability of knowledge-based automation solutions to deal with high volumes of unstructured data.

This is why the BFSI sector is generating a high demand for automation in compliance, credit card approval, customer service, fraud detection, invoice digitization, mortgage processing, report build-up, know your customer (KYC) integration, account closing, and ledger update processes. Additionally, the AaaS software finds wide application in the retail and consumer goods industry, as it offers better customer service and curtails lead times for products. Besides, these solutions provide better cost control, higher productivity, and enhanced process control.

In 2017, the North American automation as a service market generated the highest revenue due to the advanced service industry, high IT expenditure, presence of large enterprises, and technological developments in the region. According to P&S Intelligence, the Asia-Pacific (APAC) region is expected to showcase the fastest growth in the market in the forecast years. This can be attributed to the expanding service industry, particularly in India and China, economic development, growing digitalization, and rising adoption of novel technologies.

These enterprises across the globe are looking to reduce workforce across the globe for making operations more efficient. In order to achieve this, businesses are making use of automation as a service (AaaS), as it allows organizations to form virtual workforce. The technology is capable of performing various tasks with efficiency and eliminate the need for human intervention. The technology further offers high scalability and decreases operational cost by 25–50%, since virtual workforce has the capability to work around the clock. Attributed to the growing need for ease in doing business, companies are increasingly adopting AaaS.

Different business processes make use of AaaS, namely human resources, IT, finance and accounting, finance and accounting, operations, supply chain, and customer service. Among these, the sales and marketing processes are increasingly being integrated with AaaS as there is a high requirement for manging billing processes and engaging the customers among other works. Large enterprises utilize AaaS more as they have various complex processes that need to be automated in order to save time and decrease redundancies and errors, which occur frequently while handling tasks manually.

A number of industries, including travel & tourism, banking, financial services, & insurance (BFSI), hospitality, telecom and IT, media and entertainment, manufacturing, transportation and logistics, energy & utilities, healthcare, retail & consumer goods, and government and defense, are widely adopting AaaS for automating their processes. In the past, BFSI made the most use of AaaS for automating processes including invoice digitization, customer service, mortgage processing, compliance, credit card approvals, know your customer process, fraud detection, report build-up, ledger update, and account closing. Moreover, the retail and consumer goods industry is also predicted to make considerable use of AaaS for offering better service to customers and reducing lead times for products.

Globally, North America made a substantial usage of AaaS in the past, which is particularly ascribed to the expanding service industry in the region. In addition to this, the presence of many major companies, increased IT spending, and technological advancements are also driving the adoption of AaaS in the region. Other than this, the Asia-Pacific region is predicted to emerge as the fastest growing AaaS market in the coming years. This is because of the growing services industry in countries such as India and China, economic development, rising digitalization, and adoption of new technologies.

In conclusion, the demand for AaaS is growing for greater ease of doing business and rising adoption of virtual workforce.

In recent years, key AaaS solution vendors have started to adopt measures such as geographical expansion, product launches, and mergers and acquisitions to gain a competitive edge over each other. For example, in May 2018, Micro Focus International plc introduced Vertica 9.1, a new variant of Vertica, with additional features including the separation of computer resources from data storage and simplified operations, to enable clients to curtail costs of their cloud infrastructure. Further, in July 2018, Accenture plc acquired Kogentix to strengthen the Accenture Applied Intelligence services in North America by utilizing the AI and big data services and solutions offered by Kogentix.

Thus, the advancements in technology and quick digitalization of several industries have augmented the demand for AaaS solutions globally.