Building the foundations of business transformation with Intelligent Automation
In today’s hectic world it is always a perpetual challenge to balance “keep the lights on” and business as usual activities with the aspirations and demands of the organisation for change, innovation and ever-increasing competitive pressures. What if we could reduce or even remove some of the manual inefficiencies that are a typical burden of day-to-day life, and in doing so improve the well-being of the user population for more productive tasks.
Delivering a better operational environment for the end users is a real benefit, but for the business the commercial savings aligned to Intelligent Automation can be truly significant, with Projected figures of £3 million efficiency savings a year
Organisational Challenges
When considering your organisation and the operational processes, procedures and policies, would any of the following resonate with you?
- Inefficient manual processes
- Disconnected siloes of data
- Different ways of tackling similar goals
- No clear visibility of status
- General lack of accountability
- Reliance on emails and phone calls
- Lack of information for insight
- Frustration across the user base
Business Transformation
The beneficial approach to Intelligent Automation can be introduced in many ways and on many levels but, like with most aspects of business transformation, true success can only be realised if the barriers of cultural change and adoption are fully embraced. Countless books and whitepapers have been written on the subject of cultural change, but a core measure of success and adoption is simply by making life easier for the end user. If, through Intelligent Automation, those business users can recognise that “hum drum” tasks can be made easier or automated completely, then suddenly cultural change no longer becomes a barrier.
The Role of Intelligent Automation
Intelligent Automation can be applied within many layers of the fabric of business operation. Simplifying the perspective of this many-layered fabric we can summarise the opportunity for, and delivery of, Intelligent Automation, into three core tiers
- Business Process Automation – automating human interaction requirements and providing that all-important information delivery layer.
- Automation of transactional and repetitive activities – the role of Robotic Process Automation.
- Systems interoperation – automated connectivity to backend systems of record.
Building the Foundation
The foundation of any Intelligent Automation activity is the process. If the process can be clearly defined, understood and, most importantly, agreed (*), then automation of that process has the opportunity to be quick, inciteful and of significant benefit to an organisation.
(*) – word of warning – do not attempt to reach agreement through a cast of thousands; experience has demonstrated that much more effective results are delivered through a select few stakeholders. Also remember, nothing is fixed in stone, and all automated processes should continue to evolve as a natural step in the goals of Process Improvement. Therefore, initial iterations of Intelligent Automation, can be easily changed.
Finally, when considering the foundations, do not think of the process as a single amorphous entity. Processes are typically hierarchical and inter-related, so breakdown your thinking into smaller chunks that can be more easily defined, encapsulated, and therefore automated.
You can read all insights from techUK's Intelligent Automation Week here
Laura Foster
Laura is techUK’s Associate Director for Technology and Innovation.
