The context of automation is critical, and to determine the right approach, you need to be clear on the outcome you want to achieve. Anurag Shah, head of products and solutions at Newgen Software, explores approaches to automation and the value of each.
The vocabulary around digital transformation continues to evolve with advancements in technology. However, amidst all the cycles and waves of technological disruption, automation continues to dominate the conversations. Only the context of those conversations may differ.
The context of automation is critical. An inappropriate application of any automation technology can adversely affect the outcomes. Many enterprises, for instance, have deployed chatbots to automate customer service. The results vary. Similarly, many have applied robotic process automation (RPA) for various use cases, from front-office processes to back-office operations, with mixed outcomes. The same holds for mobility, portal refresh, or artificial intelligence (AI).
So, when we say we want automation, we must be clear on the outcome. Chatbots, for instance, typically replace human interfaces to offer control and cost-effectiveness, but human knowledge workers perform relatively better on customer engagement in cases dealing with subjectivity. Adding AI to chatbots has elevated them to new heights, but it still depends on the volume of incoming queries and the split between generic and hyper-personalized ones.
Similarly, enterprises have modernized their portals, created mobile apps to enable self-service, and implemented omnichannel engagement to improve customer experience, only to realize that the backend operations supporting them are not optimized for the desired outcomes.
Enterprises today face the challenge of dealing with customer experience (CX), operational excellence (OX), and ongoing business innovation in an integrated manner. Especially in customer experience, the end-to-end customer journey or value chain is more important than the transient user experience or transactional satisfaction.Â
Choosing the Right Automation Approach
It’s important to ask what you are trying to achieve from automation and decide which approach suits your needs.
1. Addressing end-to-end customer journey or value chain
This is the most sought-after outcome for enterprises today and the most elusive too. The typical approach is to create a portal or a mobile app with a user-friendly interface and guide the customers through various tugs and nudges. This works to an extent but doesn’t work for multi-step processes involving constant engagement and exchange of information – which is the case most often in customer-facing processes. In these situations, the experience is broken by organizational silos (which can be found in numerous departments, functions, and systems).
A tightly integrated process that ties in holistically across the value chain requires process automation (not to be confused with RPA). A process automation platform automates workflows at different levels in the enterprise, from simple approval types to complex cross-enterprise processes, driving them toward outcomes while assisting case workers and management with oversight, guidance, and analytics.
2. Digitizing documents and managing information from unstructured content
Process automation ties the operational process, but manual processing of incoming documents, emails, portals, mobile, and various media formats containing crucial business information still poses a challenge. The costs of maintaining these ever-expanding streams of unstructured content will increase if left unattended.
This is where content services technology can help save significant time and effort by digitizing the incoming documents and media formats, automatically extracting information, and performing post-processing for direct digital consumption. This is significant because digital information can be leveraged directly for automated decisioning and routing in conjunction with other automation tools, enabling “straight-through processing.â€
3. Automating decision-making and applying intelligence
AI is termed a game-changer in automation. However, it is often ineffective in isolation. Applying AI or machine learning (ML) to automate decision-making and assist knowledge workers can yield real outcomes in conjunction with process automation and content services. Customers, for example, can receive an on-the-spot insurance claim disbursement based on a photo or video clip taken at the scene of the incident, or the enterprise can provide instant onboarding with digital KYC (know your customer) based on automated extraction and analysis of submitted identity documents. AI and RPA can also assist knowledge workers with automated insights and predictive guidance, saving their precious time while speeding up the process.
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4. Delivering omnichannel and personalized engagement
Omnichannel is often linked with mobility and front-end channels. Still, a true omnichannel experience (wherein customers can choose their channel of preference at any point in their journey without breaking it) can only happen with integration supported by process and customer communication automation. A customer communication platform ensures message delivery across channels with configurability, flexibility, and visibility.
5. Business agility through rapid application development
While enterprises strive to automate their business operations through various tools and technologies, IT still has to deliver those systems, applications, and processes for businesses to leverage. DevOps and CI/CD (Continuous Integration and Continuous Delivery) are all about various automation mechanisms that can accelerate IT delivery. That’s where a low-code application development platform comes in. With low code, enterprises can develop and deploy fully-functional processes and applications much faster than with traditional methods.
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6. Automating hundreds of processes/applications across the enterprise
One of the key reasons for digital transformation to remain elusive despite all the technological advancements is that enterprises are replete with hundreds of applications and systems with one (or more) of the scenarios described above, and localized improvements are not enough.
The challenge can feel daunting. However, enterprises can leverage a low-code platform to achieve that in a phased approach. The keywords here are “platform†and “governance.†With a low code platform that offers the functional capabilities to automate various facets of business, enterprises can start from a set of use cases and scale to achieve enterprise-wide automation.
Automation for Holistic Transformation
These flavors of automation discussed above often appear in one form or the other across the enterprise, sometimes in conjunction with one another. A holistic transformation requires an integrated approach that can cohesively address these challenges.
A digital transformation platform that combines the prevalent automation technologies – such as process automation, content services, communication management, and artificial intelligence – is a powerful lever for holistic transformation for enterprises. With proper governance, they can leverage a digital transformation platform to achieve customer experience, operational excellence, and business innovation with synergy at the enterprise scale.
Which approach to automation is the right one for your organization? Share your thoughts with us on FacebookOpens a new window , TwitterOpens a new window , and LinkedInOpens a new window . We’d love to hear from you!
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