Hello, my name is Minji Cho. I'm the manager of SK Telecom's
Corporate Culture Center and AI/DT COE.
At SK Telecom, I oversee carrying out RPA,
digital transformation of Corporate Culture Center and HR,
and protecting personal information of employees.
The role of Corporate Culture Center,
as most of you already know,
is human resources management,
development, employee relationships,
and things related to management support.
When you hear things like "digital transformation,"
or "AI/DT,"
it sounds very difficult. You don't know where to begin.
One might think, "I'm not a developer. I'm not familiar with tech."
People think it's hard to approach.
"That is not my work."
"That is not my area."
I think RPA can be essential in helping such people find
more suitable areas for them.
There are people who have experienced coding or developing something,
but you don't see a lot of them.
Many agents are from majors and jobs that are totally irrelevant.
That's why we educate them,
so they can learn and take part in development.
It would be great if everyone could apply these things
in PowerPoint and Excel files, organizing their work into data,
and setting up their task process. That would be ideal.
Although that's not possible,
we picked an agent from each team.
That agent takes part in development,
and we help by managing and following up on their results.
You are bound to face obstacles during the process
and the development might get delayed.
If agents are struggling
or if they don't have a clue about where to begin,
we provide technical support, so they can carry on their development.
We receive support from leaders of each group.
With their support, our agents are able to develop
things that are related to the agent's tasks
and teammates' tasks as well.
When it comes to discovering tasks and using them in development,
you might say that it's easy and not so complicated.
For the discovery and the development of other groups,
we don't have big problems.
The course went on for several months.
Three to four trainees were assigned to each trainer.
They had the chance to develop a task themselves
and we provided technical support when they got stuck.
That's how the training went. After one month of training,
the trainees were able to develop at least one task by themselves.
It got them thinking, "I can do this!"
Then they tried to find another task to work on.
Some trainees went off to find another area they can work on,
therefore coming up with a new task.
Even though the process is the same, they try it with A,
then they try it with B, which gives them confidence.
That confidence enables them to try new things.
This is how the trainees make their own tasks.
As you have mentioned,
we didn't make them figure things out by themselves.
We offered them training and even after the training,
we stayed by their side and helped with the development.
We want them to finish one task and to have a sense of accomplishment.
Once that is achieved,
their discovery and development skills are improved at amazing speed.
I've seen that happen.
Tasks are assigned to agents in each team
and their team leaders look after their agents.
The leaders check for more tasks,
and think about whether RPA could be applied in new projects.
The leaders are very helpful. Other members are only expected
to perform a task that already exists.
But when you first work with RPA, you have to think a lot.
You need to set up the process, fix incorrect data and more.
And what makes this possible
is the support from the top and the team leaders' commitment.
Those are very important.
Although our work includes simple and repetitive tasks,
a digital transformation took place after we learned RPA.
When we introduce new work or try to change the way we work,
we think about it first.
We think of a method to change the process into RPA,
and there have been some cases. For example…
I think you might know this.
On a team member's birthday, we prepare a gifticon
as a birthday present.
But every group had to prepare their gifticons by themselves.
So they had to find the birthday person,
send a gifticon to that person,
and write a slip for the gifticon since it's a non-wage benefit.
But after the process got automated,
the system keeps track of birthdays.
So at nine o'clock in the morning, a congratulatory message
and a gifticon is sent to birthday people.
Also, the system automatically and precisely records the gifticons
that are given out as non-wage benefits.
We have a company-wide RPA training that is open for 365 days.
The name of the program is "Goodbye, My Routine."
It's a wonderful name.
Anyone can participate in "Goodbye, My Routine."
We provide opportunities to use UiPath in the same system,
and learn advanced lessons for a few days, if necessary.
And we provide the company's studio asset for those trainees.
The program is designed so the agents can develop and manage.
Someone told me a story recently.
That person didn't know what to automate in the beginning,
so the team assigned a task for that person.
That's how that person was able to look into others' jobs,
which the person was unfamiliar with.
That person could learn what the teammates were doing.
RPA makes you study the process,
and you have more chance to learn because you take part in programming.
I heard that it was very useful.
A good thing about RPA is that it's time-saving.
And as I have mentioned in the example,
it helps people to go through a digital transformation too.
People can make their work into a process,
and they can also think about what to avoid,
what to change and what is new.
You don't need to change all the processes into RPA.
When you examine a process to turn it into RPA,
you might find out that all it needs is a minor improvement.
On the other hand, if you feel like you need to apply RPA to it,
you can do so.
Since this is a tool that people can use, I think it's a great advantage.
Recently, we had the chance to perform a POC with UiPath.
The topic was "document understanding."
We were using OCRs in the past to read documents
and automate them.
We applied machine learning in the process.
We wanted the program to learn the data collected from the OCR.
Once the program establishes an algorithm,
it can understand any new data that comes in
and use the data for automation.
We ran a pilot test to see if that's possible.
The RPA we've known so far
is simple and repetitive. But in the future,
it will be combined with AI.
I think we will be witnessing technological combinations
with machine learning or chatbots.
We are going to need new attempts
and new applications.
So that's what we have in mind.
Next year, we look forward to combining technologies
and coming up with automation
that is more intelligent. That's our plan.
Although it's just a plan for now,
our aim is to expand our role step by step.
That's why this year's agents will be replaced next year.
If more and more employees receive our training,
we'll eventually reach a state
where all employees are familiar with RPA just like they are familiar with Excel,
Word and PowerPoint documents.
To those who are beginning, those who are having trouble,
and those who are hesitating to start,
I'd like to give you some advice.
First, if you start dealing with RPA,
you have to know your task,
and have the ability to make a process out of that task.
Rather than depending on the tool, you need to have the ability.
Also, since RPA involves development tasks,
it's true that it can be difficult.
But I encourage you not to worry and just have a go at it.
And while you are at it, I recommend finishing at least one task
and having that experience.