A hyper-automation solution is a combination of software applications or platform that combines software ‘bots’ AI, ML and other technologies to automate end-to-end processes and tasks that people regularly perform within an organisation.
Bots are programmed to follow processes and work independently ‘unattended bots’, alongside your employees ‘attended bots’ to enhance their work or ‘smart bots’ using AI/ML to make informed decisions, with referral to human experts where uncertainty exists. The combination of technologies within a hyper-automation platform permits full human-bot orchestration, scaling RPA beyond simple process automation.
The benefits of hyper-automation are varied and offer several competitive advantages. The bots can interface with front-office, back-office and employee productivity applications, accomplishing routine tasks faster and more efficiently than human operators.
While still a relatively new technology as the software develops and new capabilities are created and integrated, hyper-automation will offer correspondingly greater benefits.
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Benefits Of Hyper-Automation
The benefits of hyper-automation are various and continually developing as automation, AI software and other applications advance. Currently, these ten main themes are among the top benefits of this emerging technology.
1. Productivity Improvements
Productivity improvement is possibly the principal benefit for most organisations. Hyper-automation frees your employees from repetitive, mundane tasks to focus on higher value-add activities to improve individual and organisational productivity.
Bots are reliable, working 24/7/365, consistently following the approved process, working accurately, eliminating errors. Applying process simplification and continuous improvement in their programming the bots can perform an increasing number of routine tasks, extending your workforce even further.
2. Customer Satisfaction
Because hyper-automation bots perform processes and tasks faster and more efficiently than individuals, your business will experience a higher speed of operation, fewer errors leading to increasing levels of customer satisfaction. With many low-level customer interactions conducted automatically, your customers have an enhanced experience, leading to greater customer satisfaction and increased loyalty.
3. Cost Reduction
Hyper-automation is about improving resource utilisation, freeing up employee time to focus on higher-value activities, reallocating mundane, repetitive, high-volume tasks to resources positioned better to complete the action more efficiently and effectively.
On a task-by-task basis, any activity undertaken by a bot costs an organisation less as a bot is considerably cheaper than an employee and typically more productive. Bots work 24/7/365 across multiple processes, significantly increasing savings than a like-for-like alternative.
Evaluate the return on investment (ROI) for a proof-of-value/proof-of-concept or ongoing activity through a total cost of ownership lens: licence & maintenance cost, human costs, the errors, the lost time, the increased value add activity and productivity.
4. Improved Scalability
Hyper-automation systems drive process optimisation, maximise resources utilisation whilst providing flexibility. Scaling a team of bots is significantly quicker and easier than scaling an employee team.
For instance, a set of automated processes handled by bots can be duplicated and tweaked to achieve a similar but slightly different set of actions.
Also, bots’ activity can be prioritised and reallocated responding to fluctuations in demands across the organisation. Increasing the number of bots to cover increased demand is simple, with all the bots following the exact process with no errors - ensuring your business meets its customer commitments – no lengthy recruitment or training delays.
As AI and ML capabilities increase, hyper-automation will offer scalability across increasingly complex areas.
5. Enhanced Resilience
A well-governed unit of virtual workers greatly expands your workforce. Trained bots can complete various tasks across multiple processes allowing the bots to flex based on process demand and service levels.
This virtual team are ‘hard working’ - 24/7/365 - and don’t require any office space. Employees integrate into the process, acting as escalation contacts for the bots and at critical points where human decision or input is needed.
Businesses can get more done with hyper-automation. Taking this benefit by refocusing employees on customer value-adding activities increases organisational productivity and business growth or as an efficiency gain and reduced costs.
6. Upgraded Workflow Management Analytics
There are many workflow analytics tracking systems for monitoring individuals – but the platform can’t track an individual as well as an automated process.
Activities and timelines can be monitored down to a minor task of the smallest time increment to track the hyper-automation platform and individual bot’s effectiveness.
Continuously measuring the hyper-automation platform’s activities, its planning and governance can be increased – by SMART metrics. As the solution expands across your business functions and the capability of the software increases, analytics will need to evolve to monitor a more complex virtual world. However, the system will still be able to track performance with complete authority.
7. Compliance
The hyper-automation benefit of advanced governance has three levels:
A hyper-automation platform with a robust governance framework. Creating a well-considered governance framework is a crucial step in the effective deployment of a hyper-automation platform.
Hyper-automation can reduce your non-compliance risk. Attended bots can support your employees when they perform higher-risk actions, ensuring they follow a predefined process and complete all tasks in a compliant way. Full monitoring of Unattended bots generates an audit trail on all tasks.
Hyper-automation can help govern your systems. That is, it can continually monitor systems and processes. Just as people audit and oversee governance now, an automated system can scan and highlight any suspicious activity in an enterprise infrastructure that does not comply with the governance framework.
8. Non-Invasive Technology
Hyper-automation is a low-risk non-invasive technology - a low-code business automation software platform overlaid on existing systems. Bots can access, follow processes and undertake tasks in front-office, back-office, and employee productivity systems as an employee would. The bots can access data in legacy systems without the need for complicated integration.
Aided by a hyper-automation platform, a business’s legacy IT infrastructure is significantly more responsive and agile than an infrastructure that lacks programmable hyper-automation tools.
9. Better Security
While few, if any, software has perfect security, a hyper-automation platform has several advantages over an employee team.
A complete audit log of all bot interactions – recording any potentially risky activity.
Handles sensitive data without the risk of treating it incorrectly.
It never forgets to lock its screen when it’s doing something else.
It never forgets to log out, and the system can set bots to time out.
10. Staff Retention
A digital-first organisation looks at every manual business activity and asks, ‘Can a machine do it better, faster and more accurately?’ It models the end-to-end processes, putting the employee in charge and supplementing them with bots and other automation technologies for maximum efficiency.
Having a people-centric approach, allocating mundane and repetitive tasks to bots releases your employees to undertake more interesting and engaging work. Freeing employees to work more closely with customers and your value chain to drive innovation and productivity gains.
Improving your employee experience and making work more stimulating, motivating, and appealing will lead to better staff retention.
All these benefits combine to provide organisations that implement hyper-automation a sizeable performance advantage over their competitors that lack automation. Hyper-automation technology can reliably, consistently, and accurately perform a vast array of essential business activities, creating a more dynamic and responsive organisation to meet customer demand.
How Hyper-Automation Works
Common business processes take too long - hyper-automation helps turns complexity into simplicity.
Hyper-automation is applicable across all industries and business functions where there is a high volume of repetitive manual tasks.
Implementation Challenges Of Hyper-Automation
Research suggests that around 70% of transformation initiative fail to deliver their benefits case. As leaders, we know the importance of digitisation, but successful implementation can be a different story. Common pitfalls include an absence of accountability, poor employee engagement, insufficient management support and inadequate cross-functional collaboration.
Five factors for success:
Focus on business outcomes – hyper-automation scales RPA beyond simple process automation, creating numerous opportunities to reduce organisational drag, cut process debt, streamline your business and improve organisational productivity. Remove productivity obstacles to optimise profitability and improve your customer experience. Follow our partner’s quick start programme, and one bot could be helping you improve productivity within four weeks.
Make automation part of a more extensive process simplification – more products, more initiatives, more platforms and faster expectations make today’s business environment increasingly complex - simplification has never been more critical. Cut through the complexity with process optimisation, simplifying how your organisation operates, delivering more straightforward, responsive and robust customer experiences.
Create a culture that appreciates automation – changing the nature of work through process and task automation - frees your employees to undertake more meaningful, engaging and value-adding activities. While this is exciting for many, it can be daunting for others. As a leader, you need to support, encourage and empower your people to operate within this new digital-first framework.
Develop an integrated, holistic plan - To fully capture the many benefits of hyper-automation, businesses must employ proper governance, careful planning, and a well-structured design leveraging AI and ML capability. Operate a cross-functional governance framework that monitors and continually improves digitisation, optimising processes, revises/repurposes digital workers (bots and algorithms) and retires legacy systems as capabilities improve.
Measure ROI consistently - Measure your hyper-automation initiatives using a total cost of ownership lens: licence cost, human costs, the errors, the rework, the lost time, productivity gains and new higher-value work.
Can you afford for your competitors to follow a digital-first approach and optimise their people potential first? To find out how optimiseNRG and our preferred hyper-automation partner can help you benefit from hyper-automation, contact us.
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