At the recent Hyperautomation Solution Showcase, we invited Dan Ternes, Asia Pacific Chief Technology Officer, Blue Prism to discuss how to Revolutionise Operations, Materialise Innovation and Realise the Future of Work. The following is a brief summary of what he shared with us.

To hear Dan elaborate further on how the value proposition of RPA is evolving, you can watch his session now, on demand or register to attend this upcoming webinar he'll be featured in: The Automation Fabric is your key to Digital Transformation taking place November 23, 2021. 

RPA is a new approach to an age-old problem: how do you optimize processes? With robotic process automation (RPA), organizations can train “robots” to perform routine repeatable tasks just as a human would. 

Though RPA has the potential to deliver tremendous ROI on its own, when combined with AI and/or other digital process automation tools (i.e. workflow orchestration, natural language processing (NLP), OCR, etc.) it can deliver business value in new and profound ways. 

In light of these innovations, organizations are starting to rethink how they approach RPA and hyperaution. Instead of simply just automating high volume repetitive processes without much additional thought, organizations are asking themselves, “can I get more value if I use RPA to solve a business problem instead? How can I use this new infinite workforce to solve problems we once thought unsolvable?”

In fact, a few years back Blue Prism worked with a process automation CoE at an agriculture conglomerate. Though they had much success automating routine processes, they found that the business was hesitant to bring them more complex projects because they didn’t fully understand what automation was capable of. So, in response, they changed their name from “Process Automation CoE” to “The Problem Solvers.” 

RPA and the Future of Work

Though many forward-thinking organizations were making sizable investments in RPA and IA before the COVID-19 crisis, the pandemic certainly pushed them to accelerate and expand their automation strategies. 

One of the biggest issues before the pandemic was skepticism. While some people within the organization may have been thrilled about the prospect of RPA, many were unsure as to whether they could trust RPA to take over mission critical processes. As a result, RPA tended to be sequestered in corners and only applied to certain, non-essential processes. 

However, as the pandemic raged on, RPA proved itself to be an effective solution for overcoming many of the challenges companies were facing at the time. For example, many companies experienced an unexpected surge of customer service requests in the early months of the pandemic. As they couldn’t magically hire hundreds of contact centers workers right then and there, RPA and other automated solutions such as chatbots proved themselves to be invaluable for managing the ebbs and flows of customer behavior during an uncertain time. 

At the same time, the pandemic highlighted many of the shortcomings workers routinely face in the modern workforce. The great resignation of the past six months have shown that workers expect more from their employer: more work/life balance, more rewarding work, more flexibility and more collaboration. 

RPA and Hyperautomation helps organizations balance customer demands with employees needed by eliminating mundane manual processes and replacing them with seamless digital experiences. 

Key Considerations for Hyperautomation Success

Even Dan admits, digital and AI implementations are hard. A significant portion of implementations do fail.

His advice on how to avoid that fate? To start, he recommends, “Reassess where you want to start. Think about hyperautomation from the onset. This doesn’t mean you have to start with your organization’s thorniest issue but start where the value lies.” In other words, choose your processes wisely. You want to automate processes that are simple enough to, well, automate, but are important enough so that people will pay attention.

Secondly, “How you deal with the outputs is just as important as the algorithm that sits in the middle.” One of the benefits of RPA and hyperautomation are enhanced data and analytics. Ensuring that data outputs are used strategically is also essential to maximizing success. 

Third, and perhaps most importantly, focus on the “how.” All too often, companies focus on what RPA can do. However, how you implement RPA is really key to delivering value. 

Want to learn more? Register to attend The Automation Fabric is your key to Digital Transformation Webinar taking place November 23, 2021.

This exclusive webinar will center around how automation is helping businesses like yours drive a differentiated digital transformation strategy to increase efficiency and will feature candid perspectives from:

• Leslie Joseph, Principal Analyst, Forrester 
• Blue Prism’s CTO, Dan Ternes
• Tina Short-Tupaea, Head of Intelligent Automation at Fonterra 
• Vincy Leung, Head of Enterprise Architecture at the A.S. Watson Group 
• Vanessa Corbett, Product Owner, Intelligent Automation at the ASB Bank.