Arvind is responsible for product development. He has over three decades of experience in software development and engineering and driving business model transformation strategies for Global and Indian start-up companies. He is recognised by the Indian Tech community builder. Prior to Newgen. He was CEO of Pariksha labs and had also led product development teams at Polaroid. Adobe, monsoon multimedia and movico technologies. Arvind holds a bachelors’ degree in computer science from IIT Kharagpur.
The quest for automating business processes for improving efficiency and bringing about optimization continues. What’s new in the equation is the shift in focus from efficiency to digital transformation, driven by the need for delivering a differentiated customer experience.
In 2022, Forrester predicts that existing process improvement platforms will converge and be challenged by new AI-led entrants; investment to address global worker shortages will be prioritized; and to address the future head on, enterprises will embrace an automation fabric to fuel extreme innovation.
There are two key takeaways from here- 1. Automating in silos will not suffice;businesses need to set in motion enterprise-wide transformation in a cross-functional manner by ensuring end-to-end automation of applications and workflows 2. A plethora of new-age technologies—robotic process automation (RPA), artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning (ML), process mining, low code platforms— are making significant strides in the automation space, making it way more complex for enterprises to chart their automation journey.
To move ahead, enterprises need to step back and look at their organizational automation journey needs through an integrated and holistic lens.
Journey Towards Hyperautomation: New-age Automation Technologies That Must Be on Your Radar
The automation industry is undergoing rapid evolution. And business leaders are under a constant dilemma, deliberating on the right set of technologies that can cater to their end-to-end automation needs faster as well as future-proof their organization. However, truth be told, in the automation space, one single tool cannot accommodate all automation needs, nor can it replace the human workforce.
Gartner says that in the post-covid world, as organizations are forced to accelerate their digital transformation initiatives, they will require more IT and business process automation initiatives. Enterprises need to automate as many processes as possible by leveraging disruptive technologies and doing it fast. And this makes hyperautomation a business imperative today. In fact, the worldwide market for technology that enables hyperautomation will reach $596.6 billion in 2022.
Technologies enabling hyperautomation:
BPM: A staple in the automation space, business process automation platform can help businesses seamlessly orchestrate complete processes by connecting systems, tasks, people, bots, and more. This brings about improved collaboration between stakeholders in a dynamic, remote environment while significantly improving the speed and quality of services.
RPA: It enables last-mile process automation with intelligence. RPA works very well with workflow automation technologies. It can be implemented as a part of process workflow to automate a repeatable task, removing human intervention. RPA can help reduce turnaround times, improve productivity by automating repetitive mundane tasks, and bridge operational silos. Bots can also be trained to eliminate process bottlenecks by intuitively routing issues to the right users for resolution.
AI andML: Under the AI/ML umbrella, cognitive technologies such as natural language processing (NLP), pattern recognition, sentiment analysis, and sequence labeling can infuseintelligence into processes. When these capabilities are deployed along with RPA, it can bring about process efficiency and accuracy. AI-enabled bots can perform intelligent tasks such as data processing, making it an indispensable part of hyperautomation.
Process Intelligence: Along with cognitive technologies, process analytics and content analytics can help enterprises evaluate their processes and operations by identifying bottlenecks andvariations. This can help to weed out inefficiencies, track the health of and optimize business processes.
Low Code Platform: Gartner says that the needs of business-driven hyperautomation will be one of the top three drivers for low-code adoption through 2022.Low code platforms can significantly speed up the delivery of business applications by automating a significant chunk of the development process. And their visual, drag-and-drop interfaces and reusable components make this possible. It also reduces the time to maintain and upgrade the existing integrated technologies and can also be leveraged to model rapid automation.
Actionable Agenda: Consider a Platform Approach for Hyperautomation
Looking at all of the hyperautomation-enabling technologies in isolation is a recipe for disaster. What enterprises need is a holistic technology strategy in place to integrate and operationalize each of the parts as a whole.
A unified digital transformation platform combines hyperautomation technologies – intelligent BPM, AI, ML, process intelligence—and low code capabilities, enabling enterprises to ensure end-to-end automation of their processes(intelligently and fast). It offers the most fool-proof and future-proof strategy to ace the hyperautomation journey.