Enhancing the Efficiency and Effectiveness of End-to-End Processes
26th & 27th April, 2022 | Free PEX Network Online Event 

Dr. Anand Kulkarni

Director of Operations Process Automation Elsevier

Agenda Day 2

9:00 AM Discussion - Encouraging automation-friendly company culture: Change management with Elsevier and MaxLife Insurance

Automation is a process that can be intimidating to employees for a variety of reasons, from fears around job security to reluctance to adopt new business practices. A key element of process excellence teams is encouraging an atmosphere of security and collaboration through company culture. Here, Dr. Anand Kulkarni, Director of Process Automation at Elsevier, meets with Arpita Saha, Head of Business Process Automation at MaxLife Insurance, to discuss the challenges of change management and share how they have approached this delicate issue, ensuring a company culture open to automation. 

  • Change starts at the top – setting the right expectations of automation program with senior leadership
  • Positioning automation program as a strategic initiative rather than a short term cost reduction project
  • Using communication plans to increase employee change readiness

11:00 AM Developing a Centre of Excellence to increase the value of Process Excellence with Elsevier

Elsevier opened their Automation Centre of Excellence in 2018 and two years ago the CoE was re-branded as the Process Automation Centre of Excellence (PACE) with a new approach of making it more employee-focused in order to scale and accelerate the pace of automation across Operations. The CoE has gone from strength to strength, delivering over 100 automation solutions using RPA, low code Business Process Management platforms and machine learning saving 100,000 hours of employee time allowing them to focus on higher-value added activities. In addition, the automation solutions have improved turn-around times and accuracy of processes, reduced supplier spend and enabled insourcing of a variety of business processes.

Director of Operations Process Automation, Dr. Anand Kulkarni, shares his experience and lessons learnt from growing Elsevier’s process automation CoE. Key topics include – how to

  • Define and align CoE success measures to business priorities
  • Collaborate with IT to position automation technologies in company’s existing technology landscape
  • Create trust and transparency for employees to embrace new automation technologies
  • Establish the culture of collaboration and rapid cycles of experimentation to continuously test new automation technologies and improve CoE operating model and achieve scale and speed