Practical Guide To Begin Your Intelligent Automation Journey in 2019

IBM recently released findings from a survey it did in partnership with NRF, that shows the growing importance of Intelligent Automation. The survey found that “intelligent automation capabilities could help increase annual revenue growth by up to 10 percent. Another Survey conducted by Avanade, studying responses from over 800 C-suite executives across 8 countries; it was discovered that 85% respondents believe that deploying intelligent automation is crucial to staying as a business leader in the respective industries.

Beyond these surveys and studies, it has been an observation that the traditional ways of managing processes and operations is going through a paradigm shift. The new way focuses more on the change management that revolves around automated tasks and the way an employee engages in this kind of an environment. As the emerging technologies, especially with the likes of intelligent automation demonstrate their transformative potential, enterprises of tomorrow are taking note and preparing for the future.

But just how exactly does the preparation look like?

Before we get into that, let’s begin with the essentials to initiate the intelligent automation journey for organizations:

1. The Competitive Advantage

In a research report titled : Amplifying Human Potential, a survey conducted by Infosys comprising of 1600 decision makers working in large organizations across the world, it was found that the most influencing factor for companies adopting an AI solution was to have a competitive advantage (28%). Keeping this in mind, there is a need to rethink the long term vision.

2. Dark Data Aware

Say what you will, but the first step in the automation journey begins with understanding what dark data is and what it could mean in the organizational context? Realizing the significance of dark data, and then taking the necessary steps by setting measurable goals is the best course of action for a company to get started.

3. Let’s take that First Project

It is often with the will to initiate, that the rest of the things falls in line. Similar is the case with intelligent automation as well. The first project in many ways has a far reaching effect overall for the company in the forward direction. It opens up possibilities, brings to the surface hidden potentials and getting the project off the ground has a rich learning curve in terms of enhancing the business processes. So, if the thought has been on your mind for quite some time, initiate a discussion and get to that first project, it’ll be all you need to find out the impact of IA.

4. Buy-In from internal Stakeholders

In order for step 3 to reap fruitful execution, it is important to get all the internal stakeholders of the organization on the same page or at least help them see the bigger picture. This is crucial as there can be a likelihood, that the decision makers may be missing out on something and this shouldn’t affect the organization’s growth plans.

Once the essentials are taken care of, we need to answer some questions for ourselves. A self assessment goes a long way in bringing more clarity to define the steps for the IA journey.

Self Assessment Questions:

1. What is your long term vision with business goals you want to achieve?
2. What are the steps in the Intelligent Automation Journey that you plan to undertake in 2019?

Step 1: ___________ Step 2: __________ Step 3: __________

Step 4: ___________ Step 5: __________ Step 6: __________

3. Plan for your First Project

3 KPI’s for successful project: a) __________ b) ________ c) __________

Value for each KPI, deadline for the project and the estimated revenue?

4. Identify the processes to be automated:

PoC Process name: ______________

Teams Involved: ________________

Managers: ____________________

5. What is the technological infrastructure required?

Post the self assessment follow the mentioned steps to begin your IA journey:

1. Identify the Process to be automated.
2. Draw the process design on a spreadsheet.
3. Create a process journey flow chart, including all the steps, conditions and tasks which are directly or indirectly part of the main process.
4. Add process parameters with default values at the very end after all the process tasks.
5. Define the key metrics and begin defining the process from the perspective of Intelligent Automation.

Some use cases that has seen a widespread adoption across industry:

a) Invoice Processing

b) Insurance Claims Processing

c) Loan Processing

d) Handwritten Application Forms Processing

e) And more..

Our intelligent automation technology is capable of delivering results for use cases across domains, industries and functions. To find out how these processes can generate an increase in productivity + revenue connect with us.

~ Written By Amyth Banerjee (AI Prospector, Cere Labs)