Zurich Insurance: Why and how Robots are joining Finance Controller Teams

From Markus Steiner, Delegate Switzerland of the International Controller Association

Mr Deepak Subbarao, Lean and Digital Transformation Manager at Zurich Insurance, will speak about their robotics programme for Finance at Controller Conference Switzerland on 25 September 2018 in Zug.

What is the name of your robo friend from your team? And why did you choose him?

Internally we call him/her «R2D2», the most famous robot known to us even before software robotics became widespread.

Zurich runs Automation and Robotics since several years in Business and Controlling. What have been the drivers and major milestones?

The business users are always looking for ways to focus on value adding work rather than repetitive manual tasks. We want to get most of the work done in reasonable working hours especially during closing periods. The point of automation and robotics in particular is to work together with humans so that humans can focus more on analysis and actual controls.

How mature this is support to your finance function today?

We are in middle of the journey, there are many ways to further continuously improve and support finance function. The point is to look at the problem first and then decide which automation would work best (is automation even necessary!). We are working on helping business users to develop the skills so that they can identify opportunities and also develop some automation. We want business users to be self sufficient.

What trends and technologies will have the most impact on Management Reporting and Analytics at Zurich?

The technology landscape especially in Robotics and Cognitive automation is moving fast. We are seeing advances and improved capabilities on a daily basis. The technology is available today so that management can get required information and data on demand rather than at pre-defined intervals as was usually the case. The rapid advances in analytics is helping to understand and focus on «what-if» scenarios much faster and earlier than ever before. The combination of Robotics, process mining, Cognitive Automation and Analytics will have a positive impact on reporting and analytics in coming years.

Further information on the conference and the registration link can be found here.

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