During the DES 2018 event Daniel Garrido, our Technical and Project Director, offered attendees the vision that Serimag has regarding businesses and the implementation of this technology. And more specifically in Spanish companies where management teams seem more reluctant to incorporate it, either due to a lack of belief in its impact or due to a view of processes which is not focused on the new needs of users.

Good morning. Thank you very much for attending this talk. It’s a pleasure to be able to share with you all, and all those attending the Congress, the concerns we have regarding Digital Transformation and changes in processes.

In this talk, we are going to discuss Artificial Intelligence, the opportunities it offers us, the resistance that still exists in certain areas and the proposals we at Serimag offer to counter and overcome this resistance.

According to data from Gartner, the value derived from the implementation of Artificial Intelligence in companies during 2018 will amount to 1.2 trillion dollars, with an expected increase of 70%, increasing to 4 trillion dollars by 2022. Given this forecast, it seems appropriate to consider where we all stand on this. How do we adopt this Artificial Intelligence? How do we adopt this transformation? And, therefore, how can we take advantage of it?

Serimag is a digital backoffice. We are, therefore, an Digital Transformation agent in the field of document management, where our mission is document process automation. And in order to do this, we apply Artificial Intelligence engines developed using our own technology in order to automate all the stages and classification processes that require documents. This means automating all transactions that require documentation and that finally end up supporting our business. We work with the intention of automating all these processes.

However, in spite of expectations regarding the value that Artificial Intelligence will generate, and despite the continuous growth that we are seeing in the industry we are involved in and which seems to be obvious throughout society, this same Gartner report points out that only 23% of Spanish companies currently have processes under way that involve Artificial Intelligence or that even have them on the roadmap. Perhaps one reason for this difference between expectations and resistance is that 48% of the management at these companies don’t believe that AI will have an impact in the short, medium or long term. Not on their production processes, nor even on the structure of their organisation. This isn’t what we see. The aim of this talk is to show how, in the field of document management, Serimag can help and to finally convince you that we are faced with a great opportunity.

This divergence between growth expectations and management positioning is perhaps due, to some extent, to how we think about our own processes. This means we should reflect on the way we usually manage them and expect to manage them, and not how customers are going to ask us to manage them in the future. So, let’s think about the digital agenda that we ourselves want to establish and not the one that customers are following right now. And, therefore, where we should position ourselves if we want to continue providing all the services that they may need, both in the present and the medium term? This means understanding Digital Transformation as a necessity, as a response to those challenges that our customers are going to face; whether we are working for an end customer or for another company.

Some of the examples that we are including in production, which we are dealing with right now, and which in fact not only involve reducing the costs inherent in any process automation, but also changing our customers´ business model. This would be the case with instant contract validation. In this case we have been able to validate different types of contracts. Both the whole document itself and the signatures contained in the document in 5 seconds. An activity that used to take, at best, hours. What does this allow us? It’s not just a cost reduction, it’s not just time reduction in itself (which is always a good thing) – it’s more about changing the business model and allowing that transformation into a final contract that is of interest to us to be carried out much more effectively.

Another obvious case would be Onboarding platforms. I believe it´s difficult to think of an Onboarding system today that is not initially considered from a digital point of view. The fact that a customer can join us anywhere in the world, anytime, 24/7, is an absolute necessity right now. In this case we propose a whole set of solutions that can certainly be adapted to the different needs you may have. From mobile applications that allow you to capture those identification documents that are part of the Onboarding process, to back-end processes, cloud processes, etc. – different types of architecture that can surely be adapted to your needs. But what is the final goal we pursue and what is the difference between the Onboarding processes that Serimag is able to offer compared to others? Not only do we offer all the commercial advantages of a digital system with a response time of 10 seconds, but we can also guarantee these documents and guarantee these data. The application that we propose (and that is available for testing on Google Play: SMAAT) not only extracts information, and not only captures images, but guarantees the document type we are capturing, and guarantees the data we are extracting via OCR and via NFC. So this gives us all the flexibility of mobile Onboarding, along with the reliability of knowing that the data we are capturing is going to be securely recorded.

We could go on about how AI allows us to speed up processes, even critical processes, such as lending. A process that is likely to be more critical than the two above but which will also have to be transformed. In the end, what does the granting of a loan by a financial institution depend on? It depends on the supporting documents submitted. If these supporting documents are sufficient, the operation may in many cases be accepted automatically. Digital Transformation of the process depends largely on the Digital Transformation of document transactions. If we speed up these document transactions we can transform the business that arises from them.

The key factor in all these cases is response time, and it cannot be obtained by any means other than AI. How can we check all these documents? How can we guarantee a response time of 15 seconds if we continue to work manually and check documents one by one? How will we be able to respond to customers in the time they demand of us? In other words, AI primarily as an acceleration engine. Digital Transformation, among other things, involves accelerating processes and that’s why AI will be inevitable. The only possible way in fact, from our point of view. But it’s not the only thing that AI can offer. We are currently processing millions of documents in supporting documentation that is needed to complete contracts and transactions. But what is the other advantage, besides reducing time, that AI and Serimag can offer? A single judgement. The fact that we have a single brain that knows all the document types, that knows everything that is coming and is able to manage items unambiguously allows us to know, given a response from the system, the document that was introduced. It does not depend on the person who looked at it at the time. It doesn’t depend on the level of training they had. This level of training can be transformed into specific consultations but not into routine consultations. For that part, Serimag offers all the power of AI in order to know unambiguously what is happening with our documents. Thanks to this, we will even be able to include security systems that block transactions preventively due to lack of supporting documentation.

We have listed four processes that are just one example of what Serimag can do. We have been working in the document field for 6 years. We process over 300 million pages per year. And what we wanted to convey is that all this is changing rapidly. Those document generators who work with identification documents and who believe we can still carry on working with them through manual processes have their days numbered, from our point of view at least. We have to bring the business we generate closer to the expectations that our customers have in order to be active 24/7, anywhere in the world, and the only way to do this is through AI in the field in which we work: documents.

So what can we do? Faced with this opportunity and challenge, what can we do in the document field? We can distinguish 3 different types of organisations. Technological agents who have to supply technology to other participants in the process. Their mission must be to be up to date, be able to offer the best technology and always linked to the needs of their customers, and they need to know how to adapt this technology to the processes they have to integrate. In short, to improve proximity, technology and service. What can the document generator do? The bank, for example. In the experience we’ve acquired over these last 6 years we see they’re looking for a digital partner to accompany and advise them, not so much on the part of the business they already know inside out, but rather on the impact on the transactions they carry out. In order to take up this challenge, what do we have to do with the supporting documents?  And finally, what can we do about all those document and backoffice processes? Focus on that which will continue to be a human input: both those tasks that will take longer to be automated due to their complexity and the business logic that our previous customer will need from us, looking for a technology operator that is capable of giving us competitiveness while we maintain the logic that our customers demand from us.

Thank you very much. I hope it has been interesting. We are Serimag, we are in the Spanish Pavilion and if anyone would like more information or has any questions we are more than happy to help.

Thank you very much