Imagine our world with machines that have the cognitive capabilities of human beings. Visualize a scenario where machines act, learn and adapt like humans. Well, such intelligent automation is already a reality. Intelligent automation is one of the newest avatars of automation where machines imitate human beings. These systems possess natural language processing, speech recognition, computer vision technology and machine learning ability. Like the human brain, machines with automated intelligence can understand and analyze data. Over time, they learn from data so well, that they are able to perform tasks even better than humans.

IPA brings together the latest in technology. A suite of business process improvements and next-gen tools work in sync to enhance customer journeys by making interactions simpler and faster—automating monotonous, repetitive and routine tasks.

INTELLIGENT MACHINES MAKE PROCESSES MORE INTELLIGENT!

Intelligent machines are able to process huge volumes of structured and unstructured data quite easily. They learn from data on the go and leverage it to automate processes—making the processes intelligent with greater operational and business efficiency.

Is intelligent automation the same as IT automation? Well, the two are related, but definitely not the same. IT automation is not a niche area anymore. Mundane transactional activities that humans perform are transferred to machines and while this delivers benefits such as improved productivity, elimination of human error, and more time for teams to focus on core activities, it is clearly not enough. The idea of automation itself is changing at a rapid pace in the current fast-evolving digital world. Progressively more human characteristics are being added into machines every now and then.

Intelligent automation is the next level of automation. It possesses an additional layer of machine learning and artificial intelligence (AI) capabilities. Intelligent Process Automation (IPA) is the art of leveraging AI in day-to-day processes to take any business into the 21st century and beyond. Many organizations have already invested in IPA, and it has been impacting their business in many ways.

Consider the employee onboarding process. A McKinsey study found that IPA can reduce the cost of onboarding by 80 percent, cutting down weeks of manual work. Applying IPA in the banking sector can deliver greater efficiency. In the manual world, any oversight or error in entering details in a bank account opening form can result in the form getting rejected, or it could be sent to the right representative for rectifying the issue. Conversely, when intelligent process automation is applied, the error will not only be identified but also be self-corrected without human intervention. Such is the power of IPA!

CLASSIFYING INTELLIGENT PROCESS AUTOMATION

With automation taking great leaps, we can now classify IPA into the following seven categories, or in other words, IPA encompasses these core technologies:

1. Robotic Process Automation or RPA: It automates rules-based activities such as data extraction, document generation, calculation, and error identification in files through existing user interfaces. With a user ID—just like human employees and customers have, a robot accesses e-mails, checks files, etc. RPA possesses the ability to automate highly repetitive activities that are generally performed by human beings.
2. Advanced Workflow: IPA can automate workflows is such a way that no code is required, a simply drag-and-drop is all that is required. Here, it is possible to automate any business process—doesn’t matter if it is simple or sophisticated. A process-management software tool integrates activities executed by human beings and machines, letting users monitor processes end to end and in real time.
3. Document Generation: As the name suggests, it is possible to automatically develop documents—ones that are consistent, compliant, up-to-date and digital in nature—with just the click of a button.
4. Process Intelligence: Here, real-time analytics and insights are applied to enable management teams to administrate, evaluate and drive business process efficiency. Supervised and unsupervised algorithms learn from structured data sets to predict actions and outcomes.
5. Machine Intelligence: IPA also facilitates emotional decision-making by combining best-of-breed machine learning with natural language processing. Cognitive agents perform tasks based on learned behaviors.
6. Natural-language generation (NLG): Software engines orchestrate seamless communication between humans and technology by translating observations from data into natural language. Natural-language engines utilize structured performance data to automatically generate internal and external management reports.
7. Mobile Apps and Forms: This is one of the most widely used forms of IPA where remotely-working employees leverage mobile-ready forms and apps to capture crucial online and offline information.

GETTING STARTED ON THE IPA TRANSFORMATION JOURNEY

The good news is that IPA does not need additional heavy infrastructure investment from enterprises. In most cases, it builds on existing systems, allowing easier implementation without major changes to the IT backend and enables faster returns. A few considerations can enable enterprises to achieve transformation at scale.

1. Ensure a clear alignment between IPA and the enterprise operating model: As the first step, it is important to wisely and clearly define the role of IPA in the organization’s future operating model. Key players need to realize how IPA can work together with the enterprise’s other capabilities and approaches. The end roadmap needs to be well-articulated with all automation-enhancement opportunities laid out and owners assigned for the various tasks. This will enable business leaders to evaluate the journey at every point and drive higher efficiency in the operating model.
2. Design a holistic approach for greater impact: It may be a lot easier to implement automation projects in silos. However, a holistic approach comprising a complete suite of IPA technologies that work in unison promises greater results than those delivered by experimenting with a few IPA technologies.
3. Quickly develop a minimum viable product (MVP): Before setting out to build complex IPA-enabled data warehouses, understand that it can eat up huge investments and can take forever to finish. As with any other digitization project, choose an end-to-end development course to redesign and optimize using IPA, and then quickly work to build an MVP, the most basic version of the end product. This allows organizations to get a better idea of the final outcome and make necessary modifications right in the beginning.
4. Build momentum to derive value: An organization’s IPA journey should be able to deliver quick wins as well as long-term development. The detailed roadmap should incorporate a fundamental process redesign with robotic modules for production—one that fully reimagines the manner in which teams should work to capture value. Each team should realize how the IPA-enabled processes will work in future.
5. Integrate long-lasting capabilities and ensure sustainability: One of the best ways to enjoy the value delivered by IPA is by setting up a centrally located center of excellence to oversee the transformation journey and take care of skill building, creation of a reusable knowledge repository/library, etc. At the same time, it is extremely important to fully involve both business and functional teams in the process to build these reusable assets.
6. Judiciously harmonize change management and communication: Clear communication can help make the transformation journey smooth and efficient. Align the IPA enablement journey with the enterprise’s overall corporate strategy—managing redeployment, creating awareness, etc. It is important for employees and customers to be able to adapt to agile practices. Internally deployed change champions can help make the transformation a great success.

THE BENEFITS

The promise of value that IPA delivers is real if decision makers wisely evaluate opportunities and implement automation effectively. IPA allows enterprises to take advantage of advanced smart technologies and agile processes, enabling faster and smarter decision-making along with a host of other benefits:

• Better process efficiency with manual, error-prone processes replaced with robotic process automation
• Improved customer experience by simplifying interactions and increasing process speed
• Efficient back-office operations by reducing human errors significantly and making employees less busy
• Reduced expense and risk by lowering cost of transaction processing through simple, intuitive interfaces
• Optimized workforce productivity by automating mundane, repetitive tasks and allowing human employees to focus on creative aspects of work
• More effective monitoring and fraud detection via real-time tracking and visibility into workflows
• Product and service innovation enablement in various ways that promote customer engagement and retention

CONCLUSION

The concept of automation in the digital world is fast-evolving. A Markets and Markets Analysis points out that the BFSI robotic automation market is expected to reach USD 835 million by 2020. While macroeconomic elements continue to put pressure on decision makers, making it difficult to improve profit margins across sectors, it is imperative for enterprises to think different! IPA is the way forward. It’s time to put robots to work to: replace manual clicks with automation, simplify text-heavy communications, facilitate rule-based emotional decisions, recommend suggestions to customers, and a lot more.

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