While digital transformation becomes an integral part of enterprise strategy, there are various hurdles that need to be overcome in the process. Adopting new age technologies and making changes to existing processes and practices comes with challenges. Let’s take a look at some of the challenges Robotic Process (RPA) and Intelligent automation are posing today, and how industry leaders are overcoming them.
Strategizing
New technologies pose many challenges as there are “unknowns” that make strategy development difficult. Here are some factors that enterprises must consider:
- It’s all about the competitive-edge. So, the one that automates first will have an advantage over the rest.
- It’s always better to start small. Enterprises that start off with pilot projects and iterate with agile development have been more successful than those who directly adopt an enterprise-wide adoption. This is because large scale roll outs pose more challenges, complexities and uninformed decisions.
- Have a single decision-maker that is authorised to make all quick and important decisions to ensure there are no halts and the projects continue at a good pace.
- Build a team that consists of both technical and business experts who will be responsible for decision making and execution. Rope in legal experts as well at an early stage to ensure compliance and legal issues are addressed. This team will also evaluate, keep track of progress and make recommendations whenever necessary.
An agile approach, starting small but being quick with a key decision-maker. This is the best way for enterprises to strategise and address challenges.
Talent acquisition
Onboarding the right set of people who have the required skills and knowledge is essential while adopting new technologies. Business understanding, technical skills and expertise in guiding the enterprise in the right direction, all of these factors come into play. Consider contracting, partnerships, upskilling as well, apart from hiring AI and RPA experts. Today, there are plenty of platforms that allow application development with minimal coding knowledge. Exploring low code MXDPs for AI, RPA and BPM can be practical and cost effective models. Keep hiring capabilities of the organization in mind and pick transformation efforts that don’t involve drastic learning curves.
Return on investment
Predicting and determining the effectiveness of these technologies and arriving at a perfect ROI model can be fairly complicated. With one-time investments vs subscription based models and different vendors with drastically different models that could be based on automation, the software or the platform that manages it, prediction gets complex. Apart from expenditure, calculating savings and revenue generated also need multiple factors to be taken into consideration. ROI cannot be based on the number of employees that the technology can replace. The personalized and efficient service enabled by these technologies, and the impact they have on EX, CX as well as the overall enterprise productivity also need to be considered for calculation.
So, realistic expectations and a more broad analysis is required today. Move beyond trying to determine an accurate ROI model. Instead, get started, and let use cases measure ROI and decide if large scale adoption is viable for the enterprise.
The right pick
Selecting the right vendor and use case is a very important step. There are multiple vendors offering the same services and various use cases that come into the picture as well. The best way to go about it is to determine the features that the enterprise will prefer and benefit from like AI, ML, IoT, cloud deployment etc. Next, talk to the vendors and have a use case discovery session. After this, get proof of concept from various vendors to evaluate the RPA application. During this process, it’s important to ensure maintenance, monitoring and review of the automated processes.
Cultural shift
Adopting new technologies isn’t always easy for all. Many people are afraid of change and the possibility of losing their jobs. So, a people-centric approach is important. Understanding of the possible impacts this technology can have and ensuring people get the right message as well, is critical. Asking employees about their pain points and explaining to them how automation can benefit, will ease the process.
What’s best is to consider platforms that easily integrate with current working habits of employees. A UI that’s easy, friendly and helpful without any threats, will enable seamless change management. Host sessions where the workforce is educated on new technologies like RPA and intelligent automation. Highlight its benefits and minimizing the myths that surround technology will certainly enable clarity and smooth transitions. Take a look at the Neutrinos platform that insurers are leveraging on for RPA and other digital transformation initiatives.
Reference: https://automationhero.ai/blog/rpa-and-intelligent-automation-challenges/