World Trade Center in association with Institute of Management Accountants, USA conducted an online session titled ‘’Transforming the Finance Function with RPA’’. Ms. Loreal Jiles, Director of Research – Digital Technology & Finance Transformation, IMA, USA was the speaker.

Ms. Jiles at the outset cleared the popular myth that all functions of Finance can be automated by Robotic Process Automation(RPA).She cited a recent survey by IBM, according to which, 120 million workers in the world's largest economies may need to be reskilled as a result of automation. She explained the capabilities of RPA to mimic the human behaviour while processing documents, entering data, generating reports, send emails etc. Ms.Jiles detailed the functions of components of the RPA software - Bot Manager, Robots and workflow design module. She mentioned that 94% of the accounting and auditor jobs in the US are likely to be impacted by automation. She also corrected various misconceptions regarding RPA. She explained the three different models of RPA operating models, centralized model, decentralized model and federated model. Ms.Jiles stated that selecting and prioritizing the functions to be automated is crucial and stressed on the fact that not all tasks are to be automated. Ms.Lata Murli, Manager- Corporate Outreach, IMA India moderated the discussions. Over 160 participants attended.

Dr. Bose K. Nair, Vice President, World Trade Center and Dr. P. Ravindranath, Regional President - South India, IACC also spoke.