Successful data management can be a driver for business growth. Intelligent CIO discovers how Taiger is helping enterprises in the Middle East maximise its potential.
The successful management of data offers the opportunity for valuable insights that can lead to successful commercial activities. Taiger, a Knowledge Process Optimisation company that is expanding its operations in the Middle East, enables enterprises across all industries to manage unstructured data and go paperless through its AI-driven cognitive offerings.
Intelligent CIO speaks to Neil Briody, the company’s Vice President for Sales for the Middle East, about the role of AI and Knowledge Process Knowledge Process Optimisation in helping enterprises realise the full potential of their data.
What can you tell us about Taiger for those who may be unfamiliar with the company?
Taiger is a Singapore- based company and we’ve recently opened an office in Dubai. We use Artificial Intelligence to automate very complex systems and procedures within different organisations.
It’s all about understanding data, and the meaning of that data, and then using it in an operational efficient manner to provide cost savings for organisations and improve customer service by automating what would typically be manual tasks.
Can you tell us what Knowledge Process Optimisation is?
Knowledge Process Optimisation (KPO) is essentially how I describe what we do. It’s about taking what typically would be very laborious, very costly manual processes and automating those processes. So KPO works internally with organisations to operate more efficiently and helps customer facing services become much more efficient, easier to access and easier to use.
So, what you’re doing is enabling companies to manage unstructured data?
That’s a very key point because there are a lot of solutions out there that can process data. We’re probably the only company, because of our underlying AI technology, that works very well on unstructured information. That’s real high value to organisations because that typically is the type of information which takes a very, very long time to process.
For example, we’ve done some projects for financial organisations where, because of the manual interaction they have and processing around unstructured information, they could potentially take 25 to 30 days to process a corporate loan application.
Because we analyse the unstructured data in a very intelligent way, we understand the meaning of that data and make sense of it. So, we can reduce the processing time down from 25 to 30 days to three or four days. That’s a significant cost saving for the organisation, because it may cost them, $40 to $50 to process an application. We can bring that cost down into single digit value, which is obviously highly cost-efficient for them. The flip side of that is that they can then offer faster onboarding processes to their customers, which gives them a competitive advantage.
How long has the company been operating in the region?
We’ve been in the region for about 12 months. We’ve had delegations come over from Singapore to meet with local government agencies, and that’s been sponsored through Enterprise Singapore. Post this, a strategic decision was made back in January, to set up operations here within the UAE. I joined at the beginning of June.
So, over the next 18 months there will be significant expansion here within the region. And we’ll look also through potential government subsidies to have a centre of excellence around our developments and engineering, particularly around the Arabic language capabilities of the product.
Are there any countries the company will focus on?
The UAE and Bahrain – purely because of historical connections that we’ve had. Obviously, the way the market is rapidly evolving in Saudi Arabia that’s probably the next big industry we will target.
In terms of your customers what are their key requirements?
Predominantly, it’s all around operational efficiency, providing improved customer service and cutting costs, Artificial Intelligence is going to be a key driver for countries to achieve their Smart City initiatives.
How can CIOs increase the efficiency of their enterprises?
It’s about identifying where the inefficiencies lie within their organisation and discovering which ones are costing money. By implementing our AI technology, they can gain significant savings.
Again, it all comes back to proven customer service, operational efficiencies and driving the Digital Transformation programmes that I’m sure are at the top of the agenda for all CIOs in the region.
Can you tell me where the company was set up?
We originally started in Madrid, Spain. Our CEO did a PhD in Artificial Intelligence, advanced Natural Language Processing, Machine Learning, semantics and developed four or five patents that are now incorporated into our solution.
A decision was made to move the headquarters to Singapore. The reason being is that the Singapore government were actively encouraging investments in these cutting-edge technologies. They wanted to create a centre of excellence within Singapore, drive investment, bring knowledge into the local workforce and give students the option to be trained in these very advanced technologies. That’s obviously going to have a knock-on effect within the Singapore economy.
