By Roop Singh, Chief Business Officer, Birlasoft
In the modern workplace, automation is quickly becoming a staple.Due to the current pandemic and its enormous disruption to the world, most of the workforce of companies are in work-from-home mode, and tedious manual and paper-based procedures are not conducive to a virtual business setting.In the face of unforeseen challenges, today’s companies must be ready to pivot at a moment’s notice and meet the needs of their customers. Therefore, companies can no longer tolerate the setbacks of process bottlenecks, making company resilience essential to automation. Organizations have automated their processes to reduce physical contact and get larger outputs from smaller teams. Automation doesn’t just automate processes that are manual, repetitive, and rules-driven but also solves the resilience and cost aspect for an enterprise.
Today, in most of the enterprises, small or large, automation is present; ranging from subtle features in popular software applications to more apparent implementation.Automation is self-driving enterprises in many ways.Automation technologies such as Artificial Intelligence (AI), and Robotic Process Automation (RPA) among others, are doing a tremendous job of bringing change in the way we work and enhancing efficiency during the pandemic. Healthcare, BFSI (banking, financial services, and insurance) are some of the industries that have automated processes to improve customer experience and the need to improve operational and service performances, as per the situation.
Enterprises can cut down the time an employee spends on labor intensive and repetitive tasks by utilizing task-based automation tools like RPA. RPA projects can range from simple to complex, promising huge benefits while reducing cost. For example, the fallout from COVID-19 is increasing demand for robotics and automation in supply chains as companies seek pandemic-proof operations in the event of future disruptions. According to analyst firm Gartner, Global RPA software revenues are estimated to climb up to $1.89 billion in 2021, with an annual growth of 19.5% from 2020. The report highlighted that the global pandemic and recession are also forcing companies to cut costs by adopting process automation in troves,with an objective of reducing manual tasks.
A hyper automation wave is being observed among enterprises as they are focus on maximizing the potential for automation to drive digital acceleration, increase resilience, enable scale and cuts costs.Hyper automation is a response from enterprises to the pandemic, as it is bringing together different tools, technologies and techniques to amplify each company’s ability to automate more processes rapidly with better results.The automation process begins with a foundation and expands capabilities with AI which helps in discovering, process mining, analytics and, more. This means that more types of processes can be automated and optimised. Hyper automation empowers everybody in an enterprise to contribute in the direction of and benefit from automation.
A hyper automation environment allows employees to delegate work to digital twins, augment their data-processing, analytical and decision-making abilities with AI,while they focus on work that is more fulfilling, creative, strategic and value-adding.In enterprises, automation is expected to shape a new mix of jobs, talent, skills requirements, and work relationships.As per a Gartner report, hyper-automation is recognized as one of the ten trends of 2020 and forecasted that implementing these technologies will lessen 69% of the manager’s workload by 2024.While enterprises are witnessing a hyperautomation wave, it is important to skill employees with automation technology. Employees need to understand that automation is for their better good, and rid away the myth that it will jeopardize their jobs. Managers will see a new definition of their roles with less focus on management tasks and an extension of responsibility and influence.
Enterprises have more reasons to accelerate automation with increasing tariffs, rising labor costs, COVID-19 safety precautions, human safety in dangerous environments and other recent developments that highlight the fragility of global operations and supply chains. The decision-makers must increase resilience and flexibility, while lowering costs and realize that hyper-automation is a growth enabler, that drives a non-stop business optimization cycle.Analytical tools embedded in the platforms allows to track performance, find areas for improvement and measure how effectively automated processes are delivering the desired business outcomes.
The enterprises of today have a unique opportunity to excel through automation and rapidly achieve digital transformation. The hyper automation wave could be the crystal ball that leads them into the future.