On our debut episode of Esker On Air, host Scott Leahy talks with Esker U.S. COO Steve Smith about the driving force behind what we do here at Esker — digital transformation. Esker helps businesses digitally transform their core processes by using Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Robotic Process Automation (RPA) to automate the manual, time-consuming tasks that waste valuable time and money.

Scott and Steve discuss what digital transformation is and what it entails, why it’s important for businesses to digitize processes today, and why now more than ever digital transformation is a necessity for businesses to stay competitive and bolster bottom lines.

Well, hi everyone. Welcome to our very first brand new podcast Esker on air.

I am your host, Scott Leahy.

I have been with esker for a little over 2 years now. I'm a customer experience advocate here at Esker. And that's just a fancy way of saying I am kind of an account manager. I work with our customers here, but for those of you who are brand new to esker. We're a company that provides business process automation.

Well, what does that mean?

It means we help to automate processes like accounts payable, accounts receivable, order management, etcetera, etcetera.

Now our companies work is based off digital transformation. And in the use of. AI or artificial intelligence and RPAI. Or robotic process automation.

We do that to help make business processes more streamlined and efficient in in this podcast episode, we are going to delve into these topics and discuss what it is, why it's important, why not more than ever digital transformation is in necessity in your business.

But overall, we're just hoping you can get to know Esther a little bit better. What we're about, who we are, what? We do this is a pretty interesting time that we find ourselves in.

A lot of us working outside of our offices and we think that esker can really help you out in these times.

To help lead this conversation here today, we're going to bring in our CEO, , kind of a digital transformation expert that we have here.

Steve, you've been with Esther here for a while now. How long exactly has that been?

I am on my 17th year right now so been here for a little while.

So, I could probably dig into Esker’s history and then give a a very brief overview of the company and things like that. But you know, I'll plug our our website here at the end of the episode, so I'm wondering if you could talk a little bit about the digital transformation of Esker in your time here and then what? You're kind of seeing outside of Esker if you could.

Well, digital transformation, when I started here was pretty much about eliminating paper and turning it into some sort of digital format.

That's not really the case as much anymore. There's still paper out there, but it's not as predominant as once was, the problem is the digital formats that it's coming in today.

I'll be it could be e-mail, EDI, whatever can create its own issues as well.

So you're now seeing new technologies like RPAI, artificial intelligence, other things coming into the forefront to help with the digital transformation process.

Right. And you know I mentioned AI RPA at the start you're just mentioning it there, what is the difference between AI and RPA and would you say that one is better than the other?

I wouldn't necessarily say that one is better than the other.

I would say that they're they're different, though, and I'm probably going to do RP a little bit of a just justice here because it basically is a macro for.

Human tasks that you know you can are very repeatable, so if it's something that you're going to.

Do over and.

Over again you can create this robot to actually mimic what a human would normally do, but if anything changes in that process, the robot will then be broken.

Because the robot is not necessarily intelligent, it's just doing and repeating the task, and that's very much for the people who've been around for a long time.

If you created a a macro in Excel.

Exact same thing, it works as long as the process remains exactly the same.

It breaks the second something changes in the process.

Artificial intelligence is far different in that it's it's really starting to mimic human thought and the processes it's it's trying to adapt and learn.

As it goes on.

And the more it sees, the smarter it gets.

So it's just continually expanding and getting better over time.

So it's it's pretty different in the way it works and the technology both have.

You know an important part in what we're doing with the digital transformation, but certainly AI is taking it to a whole different level.

So I guess you could say that RPA is no kind of end all be all it it removes. Probably some some very remedial tasks from the equation and where RPA drops off AI picks up. Is that fair to say?

I think it's fair to say, but I I wouldn't say that even where it drops off, I I think artificial intelligence just goes so far beyond that it's probably a starting point actually for many, many companies like it is for our solution really is the starting point we've just jumped beyond RPA for the most part.

Now, as a business leader, why do you think automation is more important in today's world now more than ever?

Well, we're as a business leader, you always looking for ways to reduce costs and increase efficiencies.

And clearly what is happening in the world today is even making that more important.

We're spread out.

We're not in offices as much right now and having automation in place that can help us do our jobs more efficiently and better is critical at this stage of the game and.

And it really was even before.

It's it's always important that we can get information flowing in and out of an organization quickly and and as fast as possible for our customers that we're working with and also for internal needs.

So it just is going to make us more successful as a business. It's going to improve our customer satisfaction.

It actually helps improve employee morale because no one wants to do menial tasks all day.

They want to focus on.

The bigger picture as well, so it it really is a game changer as far as you know.

How we operate in our businesses and how successful we're going to be down the road.

And now we we've talked very vaguely about AI and RPA here, but let's get specific about Esker.

What about Esker’s solutions do you feel set us apart from from the rest of the pack?

Well, we've taken taking that information and you know from documents coming into an organization and going out and we've managed to.

Automated utilizing the technologies like artificial intelligence and taking full advantage of those to really make sure it's as if as if efficient as possible.

So I think that's very important.

We also have an agile methodology that for implementation.

So we really are listening to what?

Customers, what their needs are, what they have to say because.

You could look.

At an accounts payable solution, for instance, and how one accounting organization or an accounting group within an organization operates their practices within that company can be very different from another.

And it is.

I mean we can install.

10 solutions for our customers in the AP market.

Own and it will be 10 different types of implementations so that agile methodology allows us to come in and really listen to what our customers needs are and adjust our solution to fit their methodology and their needs.

So it's they're getting the.

Greatest advantage of it?

And then of.

Course we've got, you know, integration with many of the ERP.

Players out there and certified solutions from the likes of SAP for Order Management and AP.

All very important to a customer to know that they can be confident that our solutions will integrate.

With what they have.

And so you know.

I think the purpose.

Of this podcast here is to get the word out to a lot of folks who are new to this kind of search for a digital transformation.

New to Esther.

As we end here, do.

You have any last words?

To those who think maybe automation isn't necessary.

Or it's not important enough at this time to adopt.

We certainly have had some customers who have delayed automation projects and I can't tell you since.

Uh, we started this pandemic.

How many of the customers have called our prospects have called and said, WOW, we're in a rush now to get this because we have had such a major disruption in.

Our company that.

With all of our employees now working remote.

We need to have automation in place so that they can do their.

Jobs more efficiently.

Customers who had just put in their solutions before this hit are thanking us, and they're just grateful that they have it now so.

It's sad that.

It takes something like this sometimes to point out the importance of automation within a company, but I think many are seeing it and certainly other statistics that I've read are saying that most companies are going forward, are going to be looking for ways to automate.

Solutions within their organizations, because they now understand the value of it beyond where we ever could understand it before.

Well, well, great, Steve.

Thanks so much for sharing your expertise today.

Episode one is in the books here and I'm glad we got the kind of start at the top here at Esther.

I'm sure if you want to, we'll have you on again.

Down the road, I would.

Be happy to join Scott.

At any time, well.

So thanks also to our listeners joining us for the first time here. If you're looking For more information on digital transformation in your business processes, you can find us at www.espert.com and.

So in the meantime, stay safe everyone and and we'll see you next time.