key considerations for organizational wide automation · let’s take an example from the car...

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Key considerations for organizational wide automation

Picking an automation platform to support your digital transformation ambitions

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Key considerations for organizational wide automation

Business transformation is back at the top of the agenda. And, as you step out of your typical weekly meeting, you have one key action point jotted down — ‘Business wide automation deployment’.

But as you start to ask industry colleagues and search the web, you come to appreciate the challenge in working out what would work best for you. It’s clear that automation isn’t a one size fits all and it’s important to run through all the considerations that will help you make the best decision for your organization.

In this eBook, we help you do just that. We’ll give you a rundown of how automation can be applied to your business and then home in on some of the specific capabilities of SaaS-based automation to help you decide whether it could be the right fit for your business.

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Automating office tasks: what it means and why it matters?

The potential impact of automating office work is vast. From scale and speed, to better customer experience and additional staff time for value added tasks, automation changes the way we work. Making processes which once consisted of many stages and multiple hand offs between staff, and turning them into a singular streamlined workflow.

Business processes have already evolved far beyond the paper-based systems of old, although many organizations still use more paper than they’d like to admit. But the many, often now legacy, software systems used to replace paper records have arguably complicated processes more.

Let’s take an example from the car insurance sector

Although customers have been able to apply for motor insurance on a website or app for years, and

many of the latest interfaces include automation such as scanning driving licences, most insurers still run contact centres in which agents spend hundreds of hours handling new customers and claims manually. Even those whose website and app capabilities are advanced frequently have multiple systems and methods for processing and handling customer data which must be completed by employees.

Digital workers can help to bridge the gap. A repetitive and time consuming process such as filling out a quote form on behalf of a potential customer on several different systems, could be done using automation. Importantly, that frees up contact centre agents to interact with customers on more meaningful topics and have the opportunity to assist them with queries or inform them about new products and services.

In this way, automation helps boost the performance of existing structures, and increase productivity of staff. At the same time it has the potential to create new ways of organising and planning work which were once deemed impractical or perhaps even impossible.

Multi-skilled digital workers can lead to a reduction of processing time in insurance by 90%, if left running uninterrupted 24 hours a day 7 days a week. 1

1 The Journal of Financial Perspectives: Insurance, Impact of Robotics, RPA and AI on the insurance industry: challenges and opportunities

What the analyst say

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An Introduction to SaaS Intelligent Automation

The business value of automationDemonstrating valueAs you are currently looking at automation as a potential business solution, you’ve probably already seen the potential value for your business. But we all know that seeing the potential isn’t the same as realising value and ROI.

As a business leader you’re no stranger to proving business value through a business case. Here are some ways in which we would recommend measuring the value of automation, covering both quantifiable ROI and the less quantifiable benefits, which all too often may be forgotten.

ROI and quantifiable benefits

Commonly, people will calculate that the current operating costs minus potential future operating costs of the automated system equals potential savings to be made. Seems simple enough. But what additional questions should you ask?

Below we lay out some ideas.

• What lies behind the operational costs? Create a list of relevant costs incurred each month and assign to headings such as FTE, infrastructure and facilities costs.

• What are the monthly, upfront and variable costs? Business costs aren’t always stable and try as you might unplanned costs can pop up. Make sure to keep all of this accountable when considering automation. For example, is that server cost annual or monthly? Could it end up being variable as you expand your automation strategy?

• Are you being robust and following the potential automation points from end-to-end? Trying to describe the steps of how a process is performed is notoriously difficult. Usually people miss out things because including them would be stating the obvious, but when working with automation nothing is obvious — you need to include every click, application and time span — process modelling won’t work with anything less.

• What are the set-up costs vs the day to day cost of running an automation program? Set up costs can vary a lot depending on which vendor you choose and ongoing ROI will be reliant on your automation usage.

• What is the cost of not implementing automation? Will you need to expand headcount or upgrade legacy IT systems? These are costs that don’t exist yet but may be in your future roadmap.



“Our industry is changing rapidly. We need to be in a position to make swift changes that enable us to serve consumers and our customers as quickly as possible. We see our automation strategy as a critical way for us to stay ahead of the curve.” – Christopher O’neill, Senior Vice President Operations, TransUnion

Added value: from consistency of service to customer retention

Indirect and softer benefits of automation are often difficult to calculate. You can’t always translate the return on your investment in clear $ dollar savings. But even if you can’t give solid numbers, it doesn’t mean you can’t demonstrate the potential value added from automation. It just means you need to know where to look.

Here are a few questions to ask when considering how automation may help beyond direct ROI.

• Will automation support business expansion and growth? It is possible for automation to help deliver accelerated and sustained growth for the business? With the right platform and the ability to scale, you can setup and serve faster.

• Will automation improve customer experience and retention? Your customers’ experiences are always challenging to gauge. But as automation has the potential to cut down processing time, reduce errors and deliver consistency in service —it is certainly worthwhile looking at the plausible outcomes of automation on this area.

• Will automation make meeting my compliance goals easier? If you operate in a highly regulated industry, you know the headache that accompanies meeting your obligations. Automation can help you meet compliance to the letter and free up staff for other tasks. Without a doubt a point to bring up when discussing potential added benefits.

• Other than financial return, what KPIs can you measure? Many companies measure the time returned to employees in absence of needing to complete manual processes. You can also measure success in terms of productivity – what new projects or products could be delivered using automation?

Industry Insight



Where to start and what to apply automation to?

When a business starts investigating automation, those in charge of the project typically fall into three categories; people who already have narrow processes and tasks in mind, those who have big enterprise wide ideas about automation, and those who know its value but can’t really tell you where and how to apply it.

Not to worry where you fall here. Wherever that is, when starting out with automation it is always a great idea to cut through any confusion with a

solid automation roadmap to prioritise the right activities. This isn’t to discourage you if you have some processes already in mind or are already planning business wide automation, but to guide you towards identifying the ideal areas for automation.

While looking through the five areas automation can transform, think about movements between simple and repetitive to complex and unique tasks, or whether you should consider a pilot or proof of concept before you dive in. Most importantly, if you have something already in mind, where that would fit in your plan — if it fits at all?

1 Gartner - Predicts 2020: RPA Renaissance Driven by Morphing Offerings and Zeal for Operational Excellence

What the analysts say

‘Avoid the hype with rigorous due diligence of RPA offerings and their ecosystems. Focus on the providers’ abilities to address outcomes critical to your organization across multiple areas’ 1

— Gartner



5 ways intelligent automation can transform work outcomes for businessAutomation is all about getting the right blend of automation and human processing. In some cases, it makes sense to automate the whole process, in others it’s best to have a person in the loop. By approaching automation in this way, you can get the most out of your platform and free up your staff time to work on all the value-added tasks.

❯ 1. Manual and repetitive work

These usually require no emotional engagement and are routine day-to-day tasks. Look at tasks such as data entry, copy and paste between window applications, or anything which you can spot which is highly repeatable work. This category of work can usually can be automated from end-to-end with enhanced accuracy and at faster speeds, especially if it encompasses areas with low exception or risk rates.

❯ 2. Business critical administrative work

Administrative work in business-critical areas can be supported by digital labor. For instance, strict regulations in finance can be delivered via automation, with exceptions and outliers being handled by human counterparts. As an added bonus of this strategy, compliance staff can concentrate on being the experts they are employed to be, focusing on tasks such as interpreting new regulations.

❯ 3. Professional assistance

From people in call centres to consultants providing customer insights, automation can enhance productivity of staff and even change the way they work to placing business insights at their fingertips so they can achieve better business outcomes. What’s more, as your staff have more time to work with customers, upselling and customer satisfaction rates can be boosted.

❯ 4. Cross enterprise automation

Ask any business which processes are most likely to falter, and they are likely highlight the ones that cross departmental lines. For instance, a new member of staff starts in your office, which means an onboarding process is kicked off. Typically, this would need to pass through the hands of people spread across teams including HR, IT and Facilities. The movement of a process through so many departments can increase the risk of a disconnect or delay in the chain. Automation can make the outcome of this process more accurate, simpler and faster.

❯ 5 . Creation of new products/services

As the adoption of intelligent automation matures, companies are looking to create new products and services that fully exploit the capabilities of a digital workforce. Advanced practitioners are applying the technology in new processes to carry out work that goes beyond the capabilities of a human only workforce. This means previous limitations around aspects of work such as speed, time or accuracy, are removed. Instead completely fresh thinking about how automation can compliment business structures and outcomes is being realized.



Seven simple questions to ask when starting out with automation. Now that you’ve seen the potential areas in which automation can be applied to transform business outcomes, here are a few simple questions so you can step back and look at the bigger picture of how to apply automation. They follow the above ideas closely and are designed to help you get a clear idea of what could be achieved and make sure you create a cohesive journey.

❯ What processes are the most critical for the performance of your business?

Where are the highest value pressure points on your business performance?

❯ What are the processes that are currently taking up the most time for your people?

Which teams are spending time on repetitive tasks? Are they facing challenges in completing the value-added tasks you’ve been requesting for months? How much of their time is using the best of their abilities?

❯ What proportion of these processes could be automated?

Should you go full automation or part automation? Does the technology exist to handle your target process? Can it be easily process mapped? Are there regular exceptions involved?

❯ What would the impact of automation be on these processes?

What is the risk involved in automating these tasks? In how many – if any points does it require human involvement? Should these processes always have a person in the loop?

❯ How will this automation affect the workforce?

How much time will automation give back to your workforce? How will this change the content of their daily work? What tasks will people be free to dedicate their time to? How will this impact your business? Does it require a rethink of the structure of your departments? If ‘X’ role changes, what does that mean for ‘Y’?

❯ Are you thinking about automation deployment with long-term in mind?

Are you thinking with the end in mind? Have you thought about what you want to achieve in the short term and what you want to achieve in the long term?

❯ Are there any services or products you could create or upgrade with automation?

What services could you run 24 hours a day 7 days a week? What could you run at machine speeds? Could you connect processes which once seemed impossible? What could your people achieve with the support of automation?



Essential considerations for selecting an automation platformThe extent of benefits brought by automation can only be realized with the careful consideration when selecting a platform. As a business leader, it is essential to analyse key areas such as technology deployment, resourcing strategy and platform capabilities. By taking each of these in part you can build a clear picture of what would work for your business.

As you start examining your options, it’s worth focusing discussions around the resources you expect to dedicate to automation. Do you have all the in-house capabilities to manage all the elements needed to support a successful programme?

Infrastructure

Do you have an IT team on hand to take responsibility for building and managing the infrastructure on which your automation runs and which is able to manage regular upgrade rollouts of your chosen software? Will they be on hand to ensure your platform remains available all the time and put in disaster recovery plans to cope with any outage? Has enough budget for the required infrastructure been added to your business case?

If this is not feasible in-house it might be worth considering the idea of working through an IT services partner. Alternatively, a Saas-based automation platform will transfer all the responsibility for running the platform to your provider.

Skills

In conjunction with underlying IT support considerations, understanding the human and operational commitments to managing the

automation is key. What level of skills will be required to build and manage the full lifecycle of your automations? Depending on the technology you choose, you’ll need to consider whether specialist programming skills are needed or not. Business friendly management and development tools will allow you more flexibility of resourcing. Outsourcing automation development remains an option but factor in how that will impact the speed of your scaling strategy. Consider the overall cost impact of different approaches to skills resourcing.

Capabilities: uTake time not to overlook the long-term strategic needs of your automation platform. All too frequently, businesses can think about using automation tactically to resolve a very specific issue in one department and confine the capabilities needed to that single initial use case. Based on experience, it’s important to consider how automation can work its way into your business and support multiple processes in the medium term. Think about how many processes require intelligent skills such as the ability to read, interpret and extract — with tasks such as invoice processing, email triage or customer channel expansion. Will the areas in which you deploy automation be constrained by not having access to these skills? Ensure your choice of platform or technology either includes or can easily add intelligence as your automation strategy matures and be clear on how much you need to budget for additional functionality.



What are the benefits of SaaS Automation?Flexible Pool of Digital Workers to work anywhere at scale

Software as a Service (SaaS) is business software which is hosted on third party servers (in the cloud) and accessed by users via the internet. Even when users are not logged into the software, it can run tasks 24/7. This makes it ideal for automation delivery and you’ll find that many automation vendors provide some product elements in this format but very few deliver a full automation service using SaaS.

SaaS is low-touch IT because it’s hosted in the cloud and all software updates are completed remotely and as part of the subscription, so customers always have access to the latest functionality. The flexible and scalable nature of cloud is inherent in SaaS offerings. With cloud you can spin up an instance anywhere in the world, so you can scale automation up whenever you need to. With rising and falling

business volumes an ever-present challenge in a volatile economy, a SaaS-based environment makes it easy to add additional capacity at short notice to cope with peak periods before dropping back down to standard levels.

While there are clear benefits to cloud, many companies raise concerns about data security. However, SaaS platforms are usually highly secure and hosted on the servers of companies such as Microsoft which have stringent security measures.

It’s becoming a simple choice in a bid to stay competitive. SaaS will get you up and running faster, with all software automatically updated and infrastructure covered, bundled up in a single subscription. Running your business applications, including enterprise automation, is just easier with SaaS.

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A Digital Workforce for Every EnterpriseA digital workforce for every enterprise

So, you’ve seen a step-by-step guide on how to start out with automation and what it can do for you. But, what does Blue Prism Cloud offer?

Blue Prism Cloud offers a fully integrated, SaaS-delivered intelligent automation platform, built for business users. This flexible platform gives organizations of all sizes instant access to a scalable pool of digital workers with pre-integrated AI skills and a full suite of automation lifecycle management capabilities designed to help you accelerate and scale your automation strategy smoothly.

From day one, customers enjoy the benefits of advanced intelligence built into the heart of the platform. Under one single subscription, Blue Prism Cloud includes:

❯ Interact

Web forms for human-in-the-loop tasks

❯ IADA

Intelligent orchestration technology to ensure full utilization of digital workers

❯ AI Skills

Our digital workers come fully - equipped with intelligent skills such as reading, writing, understanding and sentiment analysis. Ensure your choice of platform or technology either includes or can easily add intelligence as your automation strategy matures and be clear on how much you need to budget for additional functionality.

❯ Hub

A productivity and lifecycle management tool for automation CoEs providing full utilization analytics and management of your digital workforce.

❯ Wireframer

An automation development wizard that cuts the time of development of new automations by 70% while ensuring best practice principles are followed consistently.

And, if you need to add further specialised features on top of the wide range of capabilities included you’ll find the leading AI tech to choose from in the Blue Prism Enterprise Digital Exchange. You can easily connect to the DX to address the vast array of niche use cases within your business.

Whether you are a smaller, mid-market company or a large corporation, you’ll share similar top level goals and requirements – faster growth, quicker set-up and potential for scale. From the start of your journey through to a mature automation programme, Blue Prism Cloud has the knowledge, technology and experience to help manage your automation journey and release wave upon wave of value.



© 2020 Blue Prism Limited. “Blue Prism”, ”Thoughtonomy”, the “Blue Prism” logo and Prism device are either trademarks or registered trademarks of Blue Prism Limited and its affiliates. All Rights Reserved.

If these capabilities sound like a good fit for your business, get in touch with us to today to see how we can help you do more with our intelligent digital workforce.

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About Blue Prism Cloud

Blue Prism Cloud delivers an artificial intelligence (AI) driven intelligent automation platform that enables organizations to accelerate their digital transformation journey by swiftly extending the benefits of automation across the enterprise. Our award-winning Software as a Service (SaaS) platform simplifies scaling, giving companies access to a pool of cloud based intelligent digital workers that can perform the repetitive, time-intensive tasks that slow people down. By integrating this digital workforce with their human teams, companies can intensify their focus on growth and achieve a step change in efficiency.

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Blue Prism Cloud gives organizations access to next generation AI-enhanced intelligent automation capabilities coupled with cloud-based flexibility. This SaaS offering completes our goal of offering enterprises a full choice of deployment options within the most comprehensive RPA portfolio available today. Our goal is to expand and simplify access to the most advanced intelligent Digital Workforce on the planet.

Terry Walby, CEO and Founder of Blue Prism Cloud

key considerations for organizational wide automation · let’s take an example from the car...

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