SEUNG-HEON BAEK: Hello, good morning and good afternoon.
I am Seung-Heon Baek from South Korea.
Today, I'd like to introduce RPA of the NACF, National
Agricultural Cooperative Federation, who
has been with UiPath career since the first stage of IP
[INAUDIBLE] back in October, 2019.
NACF is a group company with the three major business sectors,
and supports agriculture and livestock businesses
with more than 1,000 member companies as shareholders.
In Korea, initiative RPA has been introduced
as a successful IP case for companies
with the federal business models.
Today I would like to talk with Mr. Yeonseok Choe, who
is in charge of NACF [? RPCOE, ?]
about why NACF chose RPA, and how
RPAs are contributing to the digital transformation of NACF.
Hello, Mr. Choe.
YEONSEOK CHOE: Hello, Mr. Baek.
SEUNG-HEON BAEK: I heard that the vision of NACF
RPAs that not only your employees,
but all of your members are not left out of the digital world.
From now on, please introduce us to NACF RPA strategy,
unique deployment methods, and RPA roadmap.
First of all, the company form and structure
might be somewhat unfamiliar to those listening today,
could you briefly introduce NACF?
YEONSEOK CHOE: Yeah.
NACF.
The National Agricultural Cooperative Federation,
it is [INAUDIBLE] way.
And we have 1,118 members of all the communities,
and two million people work together with them.
The NACF's main role is to develop services
and supports them, and the RPAs, the one with the [INAUDIBLE]..
SEUNG-HEON BAEK: It's amazing.
Two million individuals and 1,118 members
are shareholders of the company.
Now can you explain the background or challenges
behind the digital transformation at NACF?
And I would appreciate if you could
explain how you approach it.
YEONSEOK CHOE: Before introducing our RPA,
we couldn't to start the digital transformation very well
because of the diversity.
First, the worst [INAUDIBLE] economy, business,
mutual financing, and the extension, and so forth,
work are so different.
The other diversity was about that the community's business
time, [? orbit ?] time, [? world ?] time,
and combined one.
And the last diversity is about the digital technology, RPA,
AI, and the big data.
They all use different language and infrastructure.
So after a long term investigation,
we've developed four approaches, nationwide participation,
and improve the overall capability
by bench marking each other, and accelerate real benefit
with the real needs from the users,
and the last one is maximize synergies by common tasks RPA
development.
SEUNG-HEON BAEK: To me, it seems the more creative way
of approaching have been used to maximize their participation
and synergy of all employees and members.
So I'm sure NACF failures must be different from others.
What is the core value of NACF IP?
And what different ways do you use to achieve it?
YEONSEOK CHOE: According to these four approaches,
we set all new values.
First, the focus on the real voice from the users.
And this is quite different with other companies,
because others usually focus on the number of tasks or saving
time.
With this value we set up to [INAUDIBLE] or benefits
to our members.
And the other one is about the communication platform
for digital transformation.
So we built a portal system that anyone
can participate in this district transformation.
The last failure is about user experience,
to make them really feel that these top benefits.
So we built NH Future Innovation Center for people's experience.
SEUNG-HEON BAEK: So three words definitely seem important,
these are benefits, anyone, and experiences.
You are going to explain the details in this, am I right?
YEONSEOK CHOE: Yeah.
SEUNG-HEON BAEK: OK.
First of all, you said there are 1,118 members in the country.
How can they use RPA effectively?
YEONSEOK CHOE: It is about the operation model,
and we thought about it a lot.
First option was decentralization,
it could lead to active participation
from all over [INAUDIBLE] Korea, but it cost a lot.
The other option was centralization,
it would be very cost effective, but it
couldn't lead the people's active participation.
So we developed a third option, the centralization
with the portal system, and we call it NH type RPA, yeah.
SEUNG-HEON BAEK: Oh, very interesting.
Generally, RPA portals are concerned
at the expansion stages.
However, NACF introduced it from the beginning
for Nationwide IP spread and user convenience.
Could you elaborate on the portal,
so that the audience today can understand it?
YEONSEOK CHOE: Yeah, this is the main page
over the portal system.
It has main three functions.
First one is the proposition menu,
anyone can propose any ideas for the RPA development,
and others can share ideas and discuss and improve the ideas.
The other function is bot store.
After our task development, they ultimately
will be unloaded into the bot store.
And the last function is my bot.
Employees could use the RPA task in the bot store
just by putting the RPA task into my menu.
And actually, the bot store is similar with the Apple app
store.
SEUNG-HEON BAEK: Oh, it's fun to use it like Apple app store.
I want to use it as well.
How about feedback from employees using the RPA portal?
Is there a function to evaluate the automation experience
as well?
YEONSEOK CHOE: Yes.
As I said, it's very similar with the Apple app store,
so both store displays the RPA tasks
according to people's ratings and people's popularity.
It is very convenient for the employees.
SEUNG-HEON BAEK: Now I became very curious.
You mentioned NACF Future Innovation Center earlier.
For what purpose did you make it and what do they do?
YEONSEOK CHOE: It is for employees [INAUDIBLE]
to experience and it is located at the first floor
of the main building, and it has four facilities.
First one is RPA control tower that monitors RPA operation
and performance, and robot room is for the robot PC security.
And the office room and RPA lab is for people
to gather together, share ideas, and actually try
their RPA ideas.
SEUNG-HEON BAEK: It's not just a control tower.
You have a lab where all the employees
can automate their own ideas.
This is great.
Now, I have some questions.
How satisfied are employees with the automation
of the past year, and what changes are really
taking place in your company?
YEONSEOK CHOE: After RPA institution, we took a survey
and it scored 95, a very high score.
And I got some good feedback from the employees.
Some people had to come early in the morning for their job,
but RPA substitutes that task and they
don't need to come too early in the morning.
And some people could avoid the heavy workload
for a short time.
And also, RPA code helps the IT system development.
RPA could do some roles among the IT systems and MS Office
products like Excel, PowerPoint, and so on.
SEUNG-HEON BAEK: So to my knowledge,
when you start a new project within the company,
you're always thinking about any synergy you can
create with your RPA, right?
YEONSEOK CHOE: Yeah, right.
SEUNG-HEON BAEK: OK.
It's very interesting for everybody to benchmark.
How can you get members across the country
to experience RPA and enjoy its benefits?
YEONSEOK CHOE: Yeah, many benefits.
And I want to introduce real voices from employees.
They said, I believe we can secure more working hours.
We also cannot catch on with important work due
to the massive work load in a specific period of time.
I think we can effectively utilize the RPA portal.
SEUNG-HEON BAEK: So could you explain to us
how to expand your coverage across the whole country?
YEONSEOK CHOE: Actually, we visited eight communities all
over Kora and we try to cover more business and business
activity, to solve diversity.
We discovered the main tasks and we
are going to develop RPA project next year.
And also, we are going to visit another 20 communities
in November and December.
SEUNG-HEON BAEK: Great.
So far we have heard about NACF RPA
strategy and differentiated approaches, so far.
Now I want to know about how strategically NACF could
move forward with RPA.
Could you explain it to us?
YEONSEOK CHOE: Now we are in 2020.
The agenda is annual [INAUDIBLE]..
So we are trying to get more members
to use the RPA technology.
Actually, we are presenting the prize
to the employees who submit best ideas.
Next year is hybrid year.
And you can use it, also some people develop it.
So we are going to educate some people for developers.
For 30 year is anyone can develop it,
we hope everyone using also develop it.
Also, we are going to make new price named developments
champion it that year.
SEUNG-HEON BAEK: So you're going to start with the user
level, where all the employees come up with ideas
and then develop them as developers by 2022, right?
YEONSEOK CHOE: Right.
SEUNG-HEON BAEK: OK, so we'll be able to see many champions
within the NACF by 2022.
From the technology perspective, how do you
prepare for future RPA of NACF?
YEONSEOK CHOE: RPA portal will do the main [INAUDIBLE] today.
And I'm thinking I'm going to connect
RPA with other technologies, like OCR, AIN, Checkbot.
Actually, we're trying with OCR technology
with RPA about the people's identification or people's
certificate.
SEUNG-HEON BAEK: The cornerstone of NACF RPA
appears to me is IPA Portal.
We'll look forward to the success of NACF
building this to help workers and applying new technology.
How is NACF RPA roadmap for [INAUDIBLE]??
Could you share your story with us?
YEONSEOK CHOE: We developed three year roadmap in 2020 just
for introduction, and this year for [INAUDIBLE]..
We are focusing on just major corporations
and some communities.
The next three areas for expansion
we hope all agricultural and livestock communities use it,
and regional HQ will lead this change.
The third year, 2022 is for stabilization.
I hope all the member of the association
lead this change themselves.
Also, I'm going to adapt other intelligent technologies
the end of the year.
SEUNG-HEON BAEK: So today we've heard great stories
about RPA [INAUDIBLE] and strategy of NACF.
Mr. Choe, thank you so much.
Finally, can you get companies with the federal business model
some tips on the success of RPA, based on your experiences?
YEONSEOK CHOE: I can summarize the NHRK success
with three sentences.
Provide the platform for RPA experience.
Secure a path for communication.
And establish support and cooperation systems
at the company wide level.
SEUNG-HEON BAEK: Dear audience, as you've heard,
any service different from traditional enterprise IP
and its IP strategy and approaches.
With most NACF in UiPath career first started RPA,
we dreamed that 100,000 robots would be used by NACF employees
and members.
We've already taken the first step,
and from now on we are going to run well together.
I hope everyone who heard the NACF RPA story
today will cheer for us.
Thank you Mr. Choe for telling us
a great story of NACF RPA today.
And thank you all for listening to NACF RPA story.
Thank you so much.
Bye.
YEONSEOK CHOE: Thank you.