The popularity of Intelligent Automation is increasing as it has proven to deliver enhanced productivity, speed, quality, improved business outcomes. In terms of the collaboration between digital workers (or robots) and human workers, Gartner suggests that organizations should adopt a human-centered approach to automation, focusing on augmenting rather than replacing human workers. This involves designing automation solutions that consider human needs and behaviors, promoting collaboration between human and digital workers, and providing opportunities for upskilling and reskilling to support the workforce of the future.
While IA is a promising technology, however, underestimating the total cost of ownership and not considering the right approach to set up a collaborative workforce may lead to understating or overestimating the benefits. Whether you’re in the planning stage of your automation journey, or you have already begun to implement intelligent automation across your organization, there are a few ways by which you can maximize the effectiveness of your workforce. A collaborative workforce, that consists of human and digital workforce, allows the organizations to achieve better results by allowing digital workforce to focus on repetitive, mundane tasks and human workforce focusing on complex, creative and decision-making tasks that require human judgement.
An SS&C Blue Prism Financial Services customer, for e.g., had started with SS&C Blue Prism 8 months ago with a vision to automate 200 processes, focused on customer experience and hours returned to the business, in 12 months. This was a challenging task, and it was critical for the customer to lay the right foundations in the very beginning. The Partner team and Blue Prism SS&C team worked closely with the customer to take the below approach into consideration, and 8 months later the customer has a fast-paced, benefits oriented, and an environment that fosters and attracts talent. In these months, the customer has been able to automate 180 processes with a 200K hours returned to the business. Here are some of the tips to their success -
- Develop a Comprehensive Automation Strategy: Before implementing IA, it is essential to develop a comprehensive automation strategy that outlines how a business intends to use IA. The first step in creating an automation strategy is to identify business objectives that automation can support. The objectives can include anything from reducing cost, increasing productivity, increasing customer experience, these are just examples, the Intelligent Automation team needs to ensure that all the benefits are captured and tracked. Once there is an understanding on the objectives, the next step is to identify the processes that are suitable for automation. With a clear understanding of the suitable processes, prioritization of the processes that will yield the most benefits is critical. Post prioritization of the processes, develop a roadmap for implementation that outlines the steps required to implement automation. It is also important that the strategy also takes upskilling of the employees as the automation technologies require skills. This will ensure that your employees can work seamlessly with the technology.
- Encourage Collaboration and Communication: Collaboration and communication are critical to promoting IA acceptance among employees and for a successful digital workforce set up. Start by involving the employees from the very beginning by educating them about the benefits of IA. From this stage, keep the two-way communication channel by soliciting feedback from the employees and address their concerns around the technology and encourage collaboration between employees and digital workforce. The organizations should invest in providing adequate training to employees on IA, it will help employees to learn how to work alongside the technology. Lastly, lay emphasis on using various communication channels to keep the employees informed about IA’s benefits and progress through newsletters, success stories, intranet etc. This will help build awareness and will encourage acceptance in human workforce.
- Measure and Analyze Performance Metrics: To get the most out of your unified workforce, it's essential to measure and analyze performance metrics. This includes tracking key performance indicators (KPIs), such as productivity, efficiency, and customer satisfaction. By analyzing these metrics, you can identify areas for improvement and make necessary adjustments to optimize your digital workforce's performance. Hence, identifying the performance metrics at the very beginning in your automation strategy is critical as it will allow you to analyze the data to determine the effectiveness and success of the program. This will further allow you to identify the areas of improvement and will be crucial to keep the program on track and aligned with overall business goals and objectives.
- Embrace Automation and Artificial Intelligence: By embracing automation and AI, businesses can enhance the capabilities of IA, increase efficiency, and improve accuracy. Automation and AI technologies can work together to automate complex tasks, improve decision-making, and provide valuable insights to improve business processes. to automate even more complex tasks. Some of the areas where AI can assist includes - Data Processing, Cognitive Automation, Natural Language Processing, Predictive Analysis. This will help businesses maximize the benefits from their digital workforce.
References
- https://www.mckinsey.com/capabilities/mckinsey-digital/how-we-help-clients/robotics-and-automation
- https://www.insightsforprofessionals.com/it/software/human-vs-digital-why-hybrid-workforce-future
- https://www.lumapps.com/digital-workplace/digital-workplace-benefits/
