Are we making the most of our existing automation investment?
How can I better utilize my resources (both human and silicon)?
What can I automate next?
These are some of the questions posed by those who have started their intelligent automation journey, and companies offering process orchestration are working to answer them.
All organizations strive to achieve digital transformation in line with their business goals. Going digital allows the business to respond to rapidly changing environments. Digitization allows businesses to streamline processes, optimize use of their resources, get better control over operations and accurately forecast future requirements. The past few years have seen massive growth in the adoption of technologies that organize and process information from a physical format to a digital one (OCR), automate repetitive rules-based processes (RPA) and report business metrics in a real-time and actionable format (BI).
Solving the RPA-human Handoff
Mid-way through the last decade, RPA first offered software robots that could assist human workers with mundane, repetitive tasks and free up time for humans to focus on more complex, subjective work. Industry 4.0 has embraced RPA to drive cost savings and achieve greater productivity. The RPA market was estimated to be $2.5 billion in 2021 and is expected to grow tenfold by the end of the decade. Organizations now have dedicated control rooms and centers of excellence to manage, monitor and govern their bot workers.
While RPA technology is growing and adapting to the requirements of different industries at a rapid pace, some organizations are facing the challenges that come with managing a hybrid human-bot workforce. Workflows between bots and humans that lack clearly defined hand-offs can create bottlenecks and process breakdowns. A hybrid workforce that lacks a system for managing work hand-offs simply cannot deliver on SLAs.
Optimizing bot resources
Another challenge is the optimization of resources. Automated bot resources are expensive to deploy; they yield expected ROI only when optimally utilized. This creates pressure on the process owners to consider automation for only those processes that have minimal variations. Processes that have a high degree of variability are often excluded from consideration, leaving business teams with fewer opportunities to deploy automation and gain process efficiencies.
Process orchestration is the coordination and monitoring of workflows as they move from start to finish. Process orchestration encompasses humans, bots, chatbots and applications that process work as it moves through its various modules. By deploying a process orchestration platform, businesses can bring elements of their operations together, achieve visibility across all teams and ensure that technology and employees are aligned.
Coordinating people and automated processes
Consider three processes for the HR recruitment team: background verification, hiring and onboarding. Automating one or more of the tasks involved in these processes may make a specific activity more efficient, but it may not necessarily improve the turnaround time of the overall process. Coordinating the people and processes with a process orchestration platform will ensure that there is no time lost between the handoffs that need to be made and the deviations that need to be escalated to the attention of process owners to ensure the process keep moving.
Deploying a technology-agnostic process orchestration platform like Enate can help business operation teams centralize governance, enable seamless work handoffs, create end-to-end visibility and ensure optimal workforce utilization. It simplifies work and resource handling with transparency, making it an ideal investment for distributed teams.
ISG helps companies understand and navigate the rapidly changing automation market and prepare their work, so they get the most out of their automation investments. Contact us to find out how we can help.
About the author
Birad Bhatt
Birad Bhatt is a Consulting Manager with ISG’s automation practice. He works on deploying RPA and process orchestration solutions for clients and writes about his views/insights on a regular basis.
