How can AI-powered Process Automation Catalyze Digital Transformation?

“Digital adoption has taken a quantum leap in the last two years both at the organizational and industry levels.”

– McKinsey study

The world we live in has dramatically changed in the last two years. In just a few months, the pandemic has brought about years of change in the way organizations across all sectors and regions do business. A recent IBM study found that the COVID-19 crisis has accelerated digital transformation initiatives among 59% of organizations, while 66% of organizations were able to complete their previously shelved digital transformation initiatives.

The new realities brought about by the Pandemic have made it essential for organizations to embrace new digital technologies that can transform business processes, catalyze performance, ensure quality and optimize resource costs. Traditionally, it would have been impossible to attain all such goals simultaneously. However, recent developments in automation and cognitive technologies have made it all possible. Automation presents organizations with new choices about how to get work done, with some work becoming fully automated, other work is divided among people and machines, and some other work being performed by people but enhanced by machines.

The Growing Need for AI-powered Process Automation in Workplace

For many years, organizations have been weighing the pros and cons of implementing automation in the workplace. There has been a stigma surrounding automation that it will replace humans in the enterprise outright, and ultimately put most employees out of work! AI-powered automation enables organizations to implement automation while still maintaining the crucial ‘human’ aspect of the ‘human plus machine’ equation. Such automation allows organizations to remove as many manual touchpoints as possible, minimize unnecessary downtime and risk of manual error, and continue utilizing employees for higher value strategic tasks.

In a world where most organizations are strapped for resources, encounter the ebb and tide of demand, face financial uncertainties, and remain uncertain around how the future of work will be defined, there is an overwhelming need for implementing the AI-powered process automation. Such intelligent technologies can help resurrect business results in the short-term while preparing a base to thrive in the long-term.

Drawbacks of Traditional Business Processes

The rate of technology evolution in the last couple of years has been phenomenal. In fact, according to McKinsey “consumer and business digital adoption vaulted five years forward in only about eight weeks.” Today, new advancements in automation technology are enabling organizations to remove the limitations and bottlenecks involved with traditional business processes. It is enabling organizations to transform their processes and mitigate the below-mentioned challenges faced with traditional business processes:

• Process Complexity and Variability: In many organizations, especially those with offices spread across multiple countries or regions, there are variations of the same business processes between sites or business units. Such variations are caused by local practices, location-specific management, and other causes. However, the variations in business processes can create a chaotic situation in the long run. AI-powered automation helps organizations establish standardization so that there is uniformity everywhere and enables seamless management.
• Resource Intensive Processes: In times when cost reduction and resource optimization are the buzzwords, manual processes are simply not efficient enough. Such processes rely on a large team of in-house employees who perform mundane tasks to ensure process efficiency. The need for human intervention can be greatly minimized with the help of AI-powered automation. It allows organizations to optimize their resources better and get more done with less.
• Error-prone Processes: While accuracy is a driving factor for most business processes, whether it is regulatory compliance or business analytics, most manual processes are inefficient and prone to errors. Error-prone processes put organizations under a lot of risks, and these risks can be mitigated with the help of AI-powered automation which employs pre-set norms to perform rules-based tasks with zero errors.
• High Cost of Operations: Business cost reduction has remained an elusive goal for business owners, especially in times when the economy is still reeling from the torment inflicted by the COVID-19 crisis. Traditional approaches that have a high reliance on human employees inevitably lead to a high cost of operations. New AI-powered automation technologies enable organizations to automate time-consuming front- and back-office operations with data. It allows the organizations to place their resources directly to the business processes where they can add value to the business growth.
• Unengaged Employees: Rules-based and mundane tasks can impact the personal development of employees. Employees who spent most parts of the day performing repetitive and no-brainer tasks have no scope for showcasing their talent and improving personal skills. As a result, manual processes can lead to a high attrition rate. With AI-powered automation, organizations can automate their processes allowing the brightest minds to directly contribute to the betterment of the organization and attain personal growth.
• Lack of Agility: In the fast-changing business world, organizations that are ready to adopt new transformative technologies and address their business problems at the earliest are the clear leaders. Organizational agility is not a choice anymore, it is a compulsion in the present situation. Organizations have to stay future-ready and automation allows them to do so. It is a scalable and robust technology whose popularity will only grow with time.

How AI-Powered Automation is a Digital Transformation Enabler

“The worldwide market for technology that enables AI-powered automation will reach $596.6 billion in 2022, this is up from $481.6 billion in 2020 and a projected $532.4 billion this year.”

– Gartner

Indeed, the COVID-19 crisis has shifted AI-powered automation from an option to an essential implementation for business survival. It is empowering organizations to accelerate digital transformation to match the challenges of a post-COVID-19, digital-first world. Many business leaders view automation as an important enabler in their quest to resurrect and thrive amidst the economic and market uncertainties. AI-powered business process automation allows organizations to enjoy the below benefits:

• Injects more velocity into cumbersome business processes, enabling organizations to get more done in less time.
• Removes various bottlenecks and siloes in a business process, allowing complete transparency and streamlining.
• Delivers resource optimization and the extra workforce can be placed to address other high-value business tasks that need human intelligence.
• Eliminates risks with human errors and ensures compliance adherence.
• Augments human capabilities, enabling employees to complete tasks quicker and better.
• Frees the top management who can focus on strategies formation.
• Fetches great revenue by decreasing cost.
• Optimizes processes for efficiency and agility.
• Improves employee satisfaction and minimizes attrition rate.

How to Identify Ideal Processes for AI-powered Automation?

One of the first steps in the automation journey includes selecting the best business process to automate. When choosing the right process, the goal is to look for traits that will ensure successful results. Here is a small checklist of aspects that make a business process ideal for automation:

• High volume and repetitive: Choose processes that account for high transaction volume and routine processes that run periodically (daily or weekly).
• Rule-based: Select standardized processes based on predictive rules that drive decision-making.
• Mature and stable: Pick processes that are well documented, stable, and with predictable operational costs.
• Low exception: Avoid automating low variation scenarios in the activities that could lead to different handling of procedures.
• High ROI gains: Choose processes that involve hours of tedious work, so that employees can be freed to do more value-added activities.
• Not subject to methodology changes: Avoid automating processes that may undergo fundamental changes to interface or configuration in the short term.

Ready to Transform Processes with AI-powered Automation?

By now you know that AI-powered Process Automation is the unavoidable future of business operations. Let us introduce you to, BeatBlip an AI, RPA, and DevOps powered process automation solution. It is a robust and feature-rich automation tool that empowers organizations to bring efficiency and transparency into their business processes. As a matured platform, BeatBlip is packed with leading-edge features and functionalities that can be leveraged to automate not only mundane, repetitive, rule-based tasks but also highly complex and cross-functional processes. It is a proven solution that has been helping businesses automate their processes.

Request a Free BeatBlip Trial and get started on your Business Process Automation journey!