RPA: The Strategic Key to Unlocking Digital Business Transformation

Advancements in technology during this digital era have created both significant opportunities and complex challenges for modern businesses. In the 2000s, the rise of Customer Relationship Management (CRM) systems transformed personalised customer support, enhancing customer satisfaction and fostering loyalty. At the same time, the proliferation of social media platforms revolutionised customer interactions, reshaping how businesses engage with their audiences and market their offerings. By the 2010s, the widespread adoption of mobile apps empowered businesses to connect directly with customers through their smartphones—further boosting engagement, delivering personalised experiences, and unlocking new channels for marketing and sales.

Indeed, the challenges of digital transformation are often not in gaining access to adopting the technologies—but in the ability for businesses to design and implement practical digital business models. Quoting the words of Kane, Palmer, Phillips, Kiron, and Buckley (2015): “Strategy, not technology, drives digital transformation…Instead, it stems from how companies integrate them to transform their businesses and how they work”. This indicates that firms must develop competencies in leveraging digital technology for broader strategic goals. Developing such digital consciousness is at the heart of transcosmos’ priority. 

With nearly six decades of experience in front- and back-office outsourcing services across 32 countries and regions, transcosmos faces both exciting opportunities and innovation dilemmas. In recent years, Robotic Process Automation (RPA) has emerged as a transformative trend in the outsourcing industry, automating routine, repetitive tasks traditionally performed by humans.

While RPA offers enhanced efficiency, accuracy, and cost savings—enabling firms to position themselves as technological leaders—it also challenges the traditional outsourcing model. Automation reduces the need for large human teams, eroding consistent revenue streams tied to headcounts. Additionally, RPA’s maintenance and licensing costs are often lower than revenues generated from human-intensive projects, creating a tension between adopting cutting-edge technologies and preserving traditional business value.

Leveraging RPA for Innovation and Adaptability

The Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) industry, in which transcosmos operates, is one where resource optimisation and efficiency are central to the success and sustainability of operations. However, the traditional siloed structures that once boosted productivity on specific tasks often impede the flow of information and ideas required for innovation and adaptability. In breaking down these silo barriers, transcosmos has partnered with Cyclone Robotics to streamline and optimise its end-to-end business processes, which aims to align interdepartmental efforts towards collective goals over isolated departmental achievements. 

“At transcosmos, we are committed to integrating digital BPO service to deliver exceptional value to our clients. By integrating Robotic Process Automation into our operations, we’ve not only achieved significant efficiency and precision but have also empowered our teams to focus on innovation and higher-value tasks. This collaboration with Cyclone Robotics aligns perfectly with our vision to harness automation as a strategic enabler, driving us closer to redefining business processes and setting new benchmarks in the outsourcing industry.” said Toshio Tozaki, the Managing Director of TRANSCOSMOS (MALAYSIA) SDN. BHD..

By leveraging Cyclone’s RPA as a key driver to re-engineer its critical business processes, especially the Quote-to-Cash in the sales department, Procure-to-Pay in the procurement department, Hire-to-Retire in the HR department, and Acquire-to-Dispose in the asset management department, transcosmos is creating a culture that encourages innovation and teamwork. The optimised and streamlined workflows have, in turn, freed up human capital, allowing the company to focus on higher-value activities like reimagining business models to adapt and thrive in the ever-changing outsourcing landscape. Moreover, through the activities, employees gain a first-hand insight into how advanced technologies can serve as both sustaining and disruptive forces, shaping legacy systems and driving the creation of more resilient business models in the digital landscape. 

The experience and a deeper understanding gained equip transcosmos teams to anticipate and address the opportunities and challenges their clients might face as they embrace these transformative technologies.  The essential value of modern outsourcing service providers extends beyond cost reduction, efficiency, and accuracy—factors increasingly handled by automation. By concentrating on areas where human expertise remains irreplaceable, such as complex problem-solving, strategic decision-making, and delivering personalised customer experiences, outsourcing companies can differentiate their services and elevate their role to become strategic and indispensable business partners. 

RPA and AI for Global Strategic Impact

As a critical component of its transformation journey, transcosmos Malaysia (TCMY) became the testing ground for digital business services development—a function vital to transforming the traditional transactional outsourcing services to provide a higher-value business partnership to the clients. Through collaboration between TCMY and Cyclone Robotics, the Digital BPO department emerges—leveraging RPA, Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Large Language Models (LLMs) to develop innovative solutions tailored to emerging business needs.

The synergy between transcosmos’ extensive expertise in diverse business processes and Cyclone Robotics’ proficiency in robotic process optimisation creates powerful, streamlined workflows that clients can seamlessly integrate into their own operations. As a first step, the Digital BPO focuses on re-engineering business processes originally designed for human teams into optimised workflows tailored for RPA. By doing so, processes that previously varied due to differences in team structures and capabilities can be standardised, leveraging the consistency and precision of robotic systems. This standardisation not only enhances process efficiency but also improves the reliability of automated operations. 

While automating business processes, Cyclone Robotics’ RPA also enables data extraction from legacy systems that lack modern export and integration capabilities—many of which are outdated. This ensures that clients who are not ready to transition to new systems are not constrained by the limitations of their legacy infrastructure. By collecting data from various systems within the organisation, RPA facilitates the creation of a unified dataset. This integrated view provides a holistic perspective of the company, enabling more informed strategic decisions and allowing leaders to assess their impact across different departments.

Historically, senior management and other stakeholders not directly involved in daily operations often faced challenges in gaining a clear understanding of ongoing activities. When problems arose, they depended heavily on input from operations teams, who frequently lacked the strategic perspective needed to align solutions with broader company objectives. This disconnect often hindered the ability to make well-informed, strategic decisions. With the enhanced capabilities enabled by the synergy between Cyclone Technologies and transcosmos, the digital BPO service seeks to transcend traditional transactional services, evolving into a true value-driven partnership with clients.

By automating routine, repetitive tasks, transcosmos enables its workforce to focus on higher-value activities that directly contribute to the company’s long-term growth and success. The process standardisation and optimisation exercised aims to bridge this gap by providing greater transparency and reducing variability across workflows. This increased clarity empowers operational teams and senior management to collaborate more effectively, driving better decision-making and overall organisational performance. This strategic deployment of advanced technologies has enabled transcosmos to achieve a new level of operational efficiency while staying agile in this dynamic market.  

Conclusion: RPA as a Strategic Enabler of Digital Transformation

Digital business transformation has become essential for companies to adapt to the ever-evolving technological landscapes and market expectations. The partnership between Cyclone Robotics and transcosmos is a prime example of how RPA can serve as a strategic enabler of digital transformation. What began as a pilot project to streamline business processes in Malaysia has expanded into a global initiative that spans multiple departments and regions. This transformation highlights the potential of RPA not just as a tool for efficiency but as a strategic growth and innovation driver.

As transcosmos continues its journey towards full digital transformation, the company is well-positioned to lead the way in hyper-automation, demonstrating the vast potential of RPA to align business processes with overarching strategic goals. Cyclone Robotics remains a key partner in this journey, providing the expertise and solutions that allow transcosmos to unlock new opportunities, drive operational excellence, and stay committed to innovation.