Being competitive, resilient and adaptable in the constantly evolving digital market is triggering the need for a fully automated enterprise. 

To enhance operational efficiency, accuracy and compliance across its highly regulated and complex workflows, leading biopharmaceutical company Amgen Inc. has kickstarted its fully automated dream with the help of partners, such as Cognizant Technology Solutions Corp. and UiPath Inc., according to Navin Rekhapally (pictured, right), associate director of information systems, digital, technology and innovation, at Amgen. 

Cognizant’s Mariesa Coughanour and Amgen’s Navin Rekhapally talk to theCUBE about the need for a fully automated enterprise.

“Fully automated enterprise has been a vision,” Rekhapally said. “With the advancement of AI and everything, we are finding those missing pieces and all the technology improvements. We are looking at product vendors like UiPath and what partners like Cognizant can bring some accelerators to the table. Ultimately, Amgen delivering what it does, the drugs that the patients need, which in most cases are very serious illnesses that we target.”

Rekhapally and Mariesa Coughanour (left), head of advisory, NA delivery and mindshare, Cognizant automation and gen AI practice at Cognizant, spoke with theCUBE Research’s Dave Vellante and co-host Rebecca Knight at UiPath Forward 2024, during an exclusive broadcast on theCUBE, SiliconANGLE Media’s livestreaming studio. They discussed the competitive advantage of being a fully automated enterprise. (* Disclosure below.)

Partnerships as a stepping stone toward a fully automated enterprise

Since user interface and human machine interaction plays a critical role in automation, partnerships come in handy, according to Coughanour. These collaborations play a critical role in the realization of a fully automated enterprise through solutions, such as agentic automation. 

“You have AI now, gen AI, agentic automation,” she stated. “This is really the next evolution. We continue to empower the operations team to be able to do automation and what I call digital productivity because that encompasses everything we’re trying, but also how we partner with folks like Amgen, being able to work with them on what is next. There is the people element, there is how do you evolve the governance of these programs, how do you think about reusables, so that you can really streamline how we also deliver this.” 

To improve process efficiency, end-to-end automation is top of mind for Amgen. This is because this solution will enable the company to become a fully automated enterprise, leading to benefits, such as the delivery of products to market faster, Rekhapally pointed out.

“I lead the intelligent automation platforms in the company that includes RPA, process intelligence and several other platforms,” he noted. “With the advent of AI and technology, we are really looking at end-to-end automations right now where we can look at the business process from the start till the end and figure out what technology fits so that we are able to contribute in a meaningful way to the mission that Amgen is serving that ‘Every patient, every time.’”

The long-term goal should be scaling the usability of automation features. This is key to ensuring sustained benefits, innovation and adaptability based on the growing need to bridge the gap between business and technology, Coughanour stated.

“I’m thinking 2025 and maybe even a little beyond,” she explained. “There is of course AI, agentic, all of that’s coming into play, but I think really the important one is how do we integrate that technology together, because all of this has to play nicely in these organizations. It has to do so in a way that does make sure there’s compliance, that there is risk addressed and controls in place, but ultimately also that we do drive to value at the end of the day.”

Here’s the complete video interview, part of SiliconANGLE’s and theCUBE Research’s coverage of UiPath Forward 2024: 

(* Disclosure: UiPath Inc. and Cognizant Technology Solutions Corp. sponsored this segment of theCUBE. Neither UiPath, Cognizant nor other sponsors have editorial control over content on theCUBE or SiliconANGLE.)

Photo: SiliconANGLE