How To Avoid Missing Out On The Benefits Of Hyperautomation

Intelligent Automation (IA) is making possible a revolution in how knowledge work gets done. Hyperautomation is when IPA gets applied enterprise-wide to deliver better synergies across functions.

And it’s delivering results.

You’re talking about them with fellow IT pros. Reading about them in industry publications. Seeing their impact at the competition. Those results are inspiring you to act.

IPA automates knowledge work by mimicking the capabilities of workers with software and other tech. When those capabilities are brought together to address complex end-to-end business issues, both the business and its customers reap the rewards — from front- to back-office and everywhere in between.

So how can your organization avoid missing out on all the upsides of hyperautomation? And what can you do to help ensure everything that can be automated actually is — effectively and at speed?

Why Do Automation Efforts Fail?

Seven Things You Can Do to Stop It

Here are seven things you and your business can do now and in the future to make the most of the automation opportunities ahead. Naturally, there are more. But these make a strong foundation to build upon across the digital operations landscape.

1. Start with the right process.
   

   Choose the right process(es) to begin your IPA efforts. Not all automation efforts are created equal. Some are too small, provide too little upside or simply aren’t visible enough to come first and serve as proof of concept. Only prioritize automation projects that can make a big enough business impact.

2. Define what success looks like for your project and your organization.
   

   Too many IPA efforts fail because no one is able to agree on what success should look like or when it’s actually achieved. You can’t cross the finish line unless everyone can agree on where it is. And that goal line — that set of desired business and operating outcomes — will be different for different business processes. Decide upfront what they are for each process you set out to transform. Define those goals according to their impact on actual customers, not merely in terms of costs cut, processes transformed or work simplified.

3. Commit to effective change management.
   

   Skepticism and resistance can quickly turn into fear and active opposition. Don’t let it. If you make the right case about a project to the right people — properly aligning interests and incentives — you can nurture the right level of engagement throughout the project’s life cycle. But that never happens by accident. It’s got to be intentional. Choose a communications and change process that will work for your business.

4. Expand the scope of transformation.
   

   Isolated, discrete task automations have limited impact. And, most often, they fail to make a difference that can actually be felt by the customer. But if you set your sights higher — and take on whole processes and workflow sequences that connect into one another — you’re more likely to reach the level of business impact needed to have a material impact on your enterprise’s success. When you do, you’re also more likely to give an automation effort the potential impact it will need to justify a budget.

5. Establish the right governance.
   

   Every IPA project deserves to be managed well. But with multiple projects underway, there’s no substitute for good governance. Establish the framework for how decisions get made across projects, where accountabilities lie and who takes responsibility for what. You’ll be sorry if you don’t.

6. Never underestimate the importance of data.
   

   Data fuels intelligent process automation — and the ultimate results from any automation effort. And since 80% of all data in the work world is unstructured, your ability to use that type of data effectively is the key to automating the greatest volume of work. Do you have the cognitive analytics technologies in place to help you work effectively with your data?

7. Stay the course.
   

   Finally, keep up the fight. Resist the temptation to give up. Count on it: that exact temptation will come, likely more than once during your efforts. Make sure that when it does, it also goes without incident. The longer automation efforts go on — and the greater their number — the more success is achieved. And the more quickly those successes come. New trends like the democratization of AI, technology convergence and the use of IPA to actually implement automation are helping businesses scale their efforts.

While all of this might seem like a lot to consider, the truth is: each of these actions lie within your power to deliver. It’s simply a matter of choice, prioritization and resourcing.

You Don’t Have to Do It Alone

What’s even better? You and your business don’t have to do any of this alone. With business and technology so intertwined today, enterprise success only comes from a mindset forged in the trenches of solving tech challenges.

Embrace that fact. You simply cannot transform an organization or brand without a hybrid approach that fully integrates both business demand and technology sophistication. You know that amazing, novel technologies are now at your fingertips. But what you sometimes don’t know is just what business changes to prioritize and achieve with the technology.

For the business, it comes down to answering these questions:

• What projects should be prioritized?
• How can we deliver the results we’re looking for?
• Who can we trust to both tell us the truth and join us in the trenches?

Today’s tech-savvy business leaders are looking for partners to not just deliver, but to help them decide where to make their next, strategic operating investment.

At Sutherland, we partner with you to provide a pragmatic and practical view of what your business can accomplish using the right technologies in the right way. And we help you anticipate what to expect along the way. Our perspective on business transformation and hyperautomation comes from working in the technology trenches right alongside our clients.

If you would like to learn more, let’s talk.