Syntel Rolls Out Robotic Automation Platform

Syntel has introduced a groundbreaking robotic automation platform that can reduce costs and downtime for customers by eliminating repetitive manual processes.

The Troy, Mich.-based company, No. 40 on the CRN Solution Provider 500, hopes SyntBots will in the next year catch on with many of Syntel's 30 largest customers, which account for nearly 95 percent of the company's revenue, according to Ram Singampalli, head of Syntel's managed services organization.

"We have taken automation to the highest level possible at this point and time," Singampalli told CRN. "Our goal is to gain market share through this toolset."

[RELATED: Syntel Sues Cognizant For More Than $6 Billion After TriZetto Acquisition]

The platform increases the speed at which companies can transform their business and IT into a truly digital operation by automating every phase of a business' standard operating procedure, Singampalli said.

The company expects SyntBots can lower business operations costs for end users by 30 percent and downtime by roughly 70 percent.

"We are actually quite excited that this has the power to be a disruptive force in the marketplace," Bharat Desai, Syntel's chairman, said during the company's earnings call.

SyntBots can be applied to everything from application uploads to unit testing to end-to-end monitoring, Singampalli said, boosting productivity and improving quality by shortening the feedback loop.

The company also has focused on using autonomics to stream analytics of sensor data from the Internet of Things, Syntel Chief Operating Officer Rakesh Khanna said during the earnings call.

There is no standard licensing fee for SyntBots services; pricing instead depends on the level of services utilized, Singampalli said.

SyntBots has generated interest from both existing and prospective Syntel customers, Singampalli said. The solution provider has thus far been focused on testing the platform with existing companies, he said, but now considers itself ready to introduce the platform to new customers.

Syntel has rolled out SyntBots in its own data centers and to a half dozen customers over the past six months as part of a pilot program, Singampalli said. Syntel currently has 116 active clients, according to a company spokesman.

Components making up the platform's underlying toolset, though, have been in development for nearly a decade, Singampalli said.

"We believe we have a certain advantage because we probably have been a lot more focused on innovation internally and created these capabilities over the years," Nitin Rakesh, Syntel's president and CEO, said during the earnings call. "I think everybody is at a slightly different maturity curve."

NEXT: How Insurance Carriers Can Benefit From SyntBots

SyntBots has gained the most traction within the banking and financial verticals, Singampalli said, though there has been interest from other verticals, such as manufacturing. Banking and financial services are Syntel's largest verticals, contributing more than half of the company's overall revenue.

For instance, Khanna said that the company has used automation to build use cases and Internet Protocol (IP) around what the insurance carrier of the future would look like. The company also is helping customers implement some of those solutions, according to Khanna.

"I think we are the first ones off the blocks," Rakesh said. "We definitely think that this isn't just a defensive play."

SyntBots will provide Syntel with both one-time installation revenue as well as recurring revenue, with the latter stemming from getting into new technology streams and developing more of a services-based portfolio, Singampalli said.

Though margin on SyntBots solutions are initially expected to be relatively low, Singampalli said the platform is expected to drive higher margin in the long run.

Despite Desai saying it's too early to know what kind of contracts SyntBots customers will sign, he expects the solution to drive significant value to customers from their current contract structures.

"The SyntBots launch really gives us a first-mover advantage and a leg up to bring a lot of process automation and technology robotics-associated changes to accelerate delivery," Khanna said.

Syntel has traditionally focused on large enterprises, Singampalli said, and SyntBots is expected to play almost entirely in that space as well. Though SMBs could likely benefit from SyntBots' monitoring and customization offerings, he said those businesses are not a part of the picture at this point.

PUBLISHED FEB. 24, 2015