The takeaway from every article, business seminar, or sound bite about the Automation Journey and Hyperautomation is the same. It’s the question on every business owner’s lips – what can automation do for us?
If done right, much more than you think.
Let us take you on the Automation Journey. We will define the buzz words, break down the steps and provide you with the questions you should be asking when interviewing an automation developer.
What is Hyperautomation? And, why is it better?
The focus of Hyperautomation is to automate as many of the repetitive business tasks as possible, using advanced technology to identify and define the tasks to be automated.
The Gartner Glossary defines it this way:
Hyperautomation is a business-driven, disciplined approach that organizations use to rapidly identify, vet, and automate as many business and IT processes as possible. Hyperautomation involves the orchestrated use of multiple technologies, tools, or platforms, including:
- Artificial intelligence (AI)
- Machine learning
- Event-driven software architecture
- Robotic process automation (RPA)
- Business process management (BPM) and intelligent business process management suites (iBPMS)
- Integration platform as a service (iPaaS)
- Low-code/no-code tools
- Packaged software
- Other types of decision, process, and task automation tools
Whoosh, lots to unpack there. It’s automation, but fancier…. smarter… supposedly easier. We’ll break it down for you.
What is Automation?
Simply put, automation is changing tasks that have been done manually by a human, into processes that can be done by a system. That can be a robot, a process, or a program. Automation has been used in business since the 1950s when General Motors installed Unimate, an industrial robot on their assembly line at a plant in Trenton.
Now automation can be carried out by software that runs in the background and won’t disrupt your daily workflow at all.
Robots and AI systems are built to receive and understand information. They can perform any tasks that they learn.
Hesitations to starting your Automation Journey?
Some companies consider automation as disruptive, but in fact, it improves the way you do business. 75% of companies believe automation will be vital to delivering goods and services in the future. It makes employees’ lives easier and happier, and it is far less prone to error than any human. Historically, we’ve seen how companies that resist change, such as Nokia did, simply get left behind.
Let us introduce GENIE, an AI-powered process intelligence platform. (Using all the newest fanciest tech that Gartner asked for.)
We will lead you on your Automation Journey. Through digital transformation, Process Discovery, choosing which processes to automate, and building the task maps to export to the automation developers. We will also show you our powerful accelerators that use the data we have collected to help you manage your team and make data-driven business decisions.
Digital Transformation is changing the way we work
Every few decades, the world of work changes. 30 years ago, not everyone had a PC or laptop at work, never mind at home. Fax machines were still used as a method of communication until around a decade ago.
Remember when everything used to be written down? Each company had a policy of keeping documents for a number of years. Reams of paper were stored; it was easy to lose things and difficult to find the information when needed. When we realized we could, we moved to storing everything on our computers. That was much more efficient. However, we had to convert everything into something that could be read on a computer.
In the modern sense, Digital Transformation still means getting things off of paper and into the cloud. But it also means finding where you have out-of-date technologies still in use that are slowing your business down.
Intelligent Process Discovery is part of the core function of GENIE. In this phase, our software is installed on users’ computers to track their actions. Take your digital transformation efforts to the next level with the Improvement Accelerator. You will see how they are completing the tasks, where the inefficient technologies or processes are, and get suggestions on how to improve them.
Data, Data, Data. You have it, but are you using it?
Data is the cornerstone of any organization. No matter what kind of business or industry you’re in, you need data. Companies have been collecting data since business began. Think of a local shop in a small village. They probably wrote down orders for different customers and kept them, repeating them on a weekly basis. Nowadays, some companies have more data than they know what to do with. The Global Datasphere is estimated to be 175 ZB by 2025 (it’s currently around 33 ZB!).
We can all appreciate the importance of customer data and product data, but process data is a valuable company asset that is often overlooked. One of the problems is that most process data is unstructured or not captured.
Taking time to capture and analyze this process data can take a lot of time for humans. But with AI Process Discovery, the possibilities open up. Trends that weren’t visible before can change how the company does business. This can allow organizations to make money from new revenue streams that may not have been recognized previously. Your data is being used for business intelligence, not lost, or simply being stored on a hard drive, or in the Cloud.
The Automation Journey and the GENIE Accelerators
Each phase on your way to Hyperautomation is handled by a different module of the GENIE platform. See the summary of each here and follow the links below to the full blogs on each area.
CORE: Process Intelligence – Why it’s vital for C-level Leaders
The Core of GENIE’s software is focused on tracking and analysis. Our focus is GENerating Insights for Execution. Getting you the data that you need to make meaningful business decisions.
Once the software is installed on users’ machines, it begins tracking their actions. The AI identifies what your team members are doing regularly, and these user actions are then assembled into tasks and processes.
Your Scorecard then tells you which processes have high automation potential and which ones need process improvement before they can be automated.
The Command Center presents a company-wide snapshot of user activity and efficiency. You can see who is working where and on what. As your automations or process improvements are implemented, you will be able to see your bottom line go up, company-wide, per department, or per work group.
GENIE’s Core will provide:
- Company-wide oversight, presented in a dashboard you can actually read.
- Peace of mind knowing all your processes are being tracked.
- Up-to-date progress toward KPI’s by region, department, or workgroup
- User data in the background without disturbing their workflow
- Suggestions on ROI on future improvement projects
Process Improvement Made Easy with GENIE’s Improvement Accelerator
Not all of your processes will be ready for automation. The number one cause of failure for automation initiatives is poor definition and standardization of processes. We recognize how vital business process improvement is to the success of the Automation Journey and built an accelerator to help.
In GENIE’s Process Improvement Accelerator, you will be able to see detailed task maps including all of the current variations in your company. For each, you will be able to see the time that path takes and the costs it incurs. It might be that your original process from your old SOP is still the most efficient. Or, it could reveal one of your staff found an ingenious shortcut that has not been updated to the rest of the team.
With HR data and labor costs added, you will be able to see the projected savings generated by getting everyone on the new ideal path. Meaning you can calculate the ROI of changes before you implement them.
Tracking implementation is another area where GENIE’s data shines. In 2 clicks and an email, you can generate the new SOP and training docs to roll out the new process to your staff. You can then track their progress with the new process and see your efficiency increase.
Read more about how GENIE’s Process Improvement Accelerator works here.
Beyond Process Discovery- Using your data for Employee Enablement
Now that you have improved your processes, the next step in your Automation Journey is improving the employee environment in your organization. Your employees are the source of the variations in your company. Often, they are generated by employees working around location-specific challenges. The user data collected by GENIE include information about connectivity, outdated equipment, or system issues that can be resolved to increase efficiency.
The user data also allows you to more easily manage outsourced or work-from-home teams as you can actually see what they are doing. Our platform tracks idle time and time spent on meaningful task work. It allows you to track your star players and see where additional training is needed.
Compliance and Annual Reviews
The SOP and PDD’s generated by GENIE are sufficient for most SOC2 compliance requirements. Turning weeks of compliance work into a few clicks.
GENIE’s data also gives you real statistical performance data to make annual reviews easier. You can know how efficient a particular staff member’s performance is compared to last year’s, to their teammates, and to the rest of the company. You can see where they follow the process well and where they are deviating from the guidelines.
Read more about GENIE’s Employee Enablement Accelerator here.
The Automation Accelerator – the heart of your Hyperautomation success
Here are the bits you have been looking for. Now that we have defined and improved your processes, you can choose which process to automate first.
Let’s start with the Scorecard. You can see the highly automatable task and those that still need improvement. This hit list tells you where to focus and which tasks to dig into first.
Once you enter the Tasks tab you will be able to see the actual automation potential score which gauges how easy it would be to automate this task. We also assign it an overall score to each task. This takes into account your potential ROI on this automation. For example, a task can have an automation potential of 90, but if it will only save you $200 per year it may not be worth automating.
Build Your Automation Pipeline with Scale in mind
Choosing one small automation to start with sounds good. But small projects often don’t justify the cost of the software licenses and get disregarded as a failure. Taking a holistic look at your enterprise allows you to find chains of processes that when automated together create the synergy that makes for big impacts.
A 2-week pilot with GENIE’s platform typically uncovers $250k to $500k in potential ROI from automation across an organization. Get more details about our Automation Accelerator – the heart of your Hyperautomation success here.
In the Task tab, you can refine your processes to determine which variations you will keep and which you will standardize. Once you are satisfied with your task maps GENIE will export all the data needed for automation. We can also track the implementation and give actual ROI data. For a deeper look at the “how’s” check out our full blog here.
If you are ready to jump, the first step in your Automation Journey is a discovery call – Book one here.
Hyperautomation and GENIE AI
The goal of Hyperautomation is to automate as much of your business as possible with the fanciest tech available. GENIE has all the fancy tech, but we advise a slightly more measured path. Rather than get it all! Our platform is designed to focus you on the automations that will give you the highest return, in dollars and in company morale.
Our focus is on customer success and getting the most out of your automation and process improvement efforts. We take a holistic approach, being a tool that helps you run your business, track EVERYTHING, and make the best decisions possible.
We are here to help. Fill out the form below and we’ll reach out to set up a call to see what solutions we can build for you.
