T RANSFO RMATION
BUILDING A BETTER BUSINESS WITH BOTS Neeti Mehta Shukla is at the forefront of business transformation by Reon Suddaby
Neeti Mehta Shukla’s (Class of 1992) journey to Silicon Valley success began with a cup of coffee. In 2003, six years after graduating from Bond University with an MBA, after earlier completing a Bachelor of Commerce, Ms Shukla and her husband Mihir launched robotic process automation (RPA) company Automation Anywhere from the guest bedroom of their house. The couple marked the occasion with a cup of coffee and it was only when Mr Shukla returned to the bedroom that he saw they already had their first customer – within minutes of the company being launched. That first customer was based in Australia and their purchase set Automation Anywhere on a path to becoming a leading RPA company, now valued at $US6.8 billion. Automation Anywhere has its global headquarters in San Jose, California, offices in 40 countries and a client list including ANZ Bank, University of Melbourne, Dell, KeyBank, Sprint, Northampton Hospital and Humana, among others. As someone who has blazed a trail in the business world and who last year joined the Bond Business School Advisory Board, Ms Shukla is keen for others to follow their own path. | 30 |
RPA allows users to create custom software bots with Automation Anywhere technology that automates manual, repetitive business and IT processes. The bots, which utilise artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning, can be configured to perform tasks assigned and controlled by the user. Automation Anywhere has deployed more than 2.4 million bots since its inception. Ms Shukla, a coder since the eighth grade, says Automation Anywhere grew in the same way as many technology start-ups – from wanting to solve a business problem. “Automation was a very difficult thing for most companies to do. You had to hire a bunch of engineers, take two years to document the process, code through it and by the time you do this everything had changed and the automation no longer is valid. “We really wanted to bring automation to the end user and simplify it in a way where it could be easily and quickly deployed to increase productivity and business resiliency.” As an entrepreneur, Ms Shukla is enthusiastic about RPA and its ability to transform business and people’s lives. “A bank can now approve a mortgage in as little as five minutes or less, versus the original two to three weeks or one month that a person had to wait. In the healthcare industry, who doesn’t want those test results instantly? Bots can take care of manual, repetitive business processes, giving valuable time back to human workers to be innovative and creative.” In a year that has seen the world rocked by the COVID-19 pandemic, Ms Shukla says it is crucial for businesses to adapt and transform. “Any business that is stagnant won’t last very long. Every business has to be on its toes to pivot as fast as it can, transform as fast as it can, keep its inherent strengths and lose its inherent weaknesses as it keeps growing. The more resilient and more agile a business is, the better it will survive, the better it will thrive.
