Why is Hyperautomation Important to Scale Automation More Effectively?
The term “hyperautomation” first appeared in October 2019 on Gartner’s list of strategic technology trends for 2020, and again in 2021. Gartner defines hyperautomation as “a combination of tools, including robotic process automation (RPA), intelligent business management software (iBPMS) and AI along with the sophistication of the automation (i.e., discover, analyze, design, automate, measure, monitor, reassess) to enable AI-driven decision making.”
How is hyperautomation different from regular automation?
Hyperautomation goes beyond just automating tasks. It creates a backbone for automation tools by harnessing the power of multiple technologies like Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML) with Robotic Process Automation (RPA). Simply put, RPA is restricted to automating predefined and repetitive tasks. Hyperautomation, on the other hand, works across inter-functional boundaries and uses an additional layer of intelligence to come up with the best strategy for performing those tasks.
Hyperautomation works on a microjourney. Each step in this microjourney is based on a smarter, effective, and hyperautomated approach to expedite the processes and achieve specific business goals. It also allows business and IT teams to collaborate and integrate the right tools and augment them with various automation tools for seamless, streamlined results. This helps organizations overcome the limitations of relying on a single automation tool, enabling them to automate any tedious and scalable tasks.
How does hyperautomation help scale automation?
Let’s understand this with an example. Manual invoice processing at a large scale is a repetitive task which often results in delayed and incorrect payments. Leveraging RPA organizations can minimize the need for human intervention by automating the invoice processing and delivering faster and error-free outcomes. However, RPA hasn’t automated the entire process. So, using a hyperautomation model that integrates different technologies further automates the invoice processing. From reviewing the invoice for compliance using ML to automating the checks performed by managers with a decision modeling software, hyperautomation helps to automate the end-to-end invoice processing with minimum manual intervention.
Let’s discuss some of the reasons why hyperautomation acts as a perfect tool to scale automation.
1. Acceleration and Automation of Complex Processes
Robotic Process Automation (RPA) technology enables machines to automate repetitive, rule-based tasks. However, rule-based RPA does not suffice in automating more complex tasks which require cognitive reasoning. Hyperautomation allows the addition of a robotic intelligence layer derived from integrating technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning (ML), natural language processing (NLP), and optical character recognition (OCR). These technologies combined together enable rule-based bots to comprehend human speech, convert images to text, and identify patterns from the available data sets. This in turn supports automation of more complex work that requires knowledge input.
2. Deployment of Digital Workforce
Marrying RPA with cognitive intelligence helps create an intelligent Digital Workforce. Such a combination can automate repetitive tasks to augment employee performance. These Digital Workers act as the change agents of hyperautomation with the ability to connect to various business applications, work with unstructured and structured data, analyze data to make smart decisions, and discover new automation opportunities. Deployment of Digital Workforce empowers every constituent of the organization—people, process, and technology. This helps to automate and contribute to the transformation and bring true organizational change.
3. Integrated with the Power of Artificial Intelligence (AI)
RPA+AI make the essential ingredients of hyperautomation. Leveraging an evolving set of Al technologies, hyperautomation has the capability to rapidly identify and automate all possible business processes. From managing the full cycle of automation on a large scale to discovering automation opportunities and measuring the ROI, integration of AI differentiates Digital Workers from others who follow standard automation approaches.
4. Advanced Analytics for Actionable Insights
RPA is limited to structured data for analytics. Hyperautomation technologies are endowed with powerful analytical tools and capabilities that can handle both structured and unstructured data. This helps organizations access and analyze data that has traditionally been inaccessible to gain important actionable insights. Advanced analytics also helps to measure and demonstrate the ROI of automation and its impact based on business outcomes specific to an organization.
5. Business process management
One of the most important components of hyperautomation that unlocks maximum potential for an automated enterprise is business process management (BPM). For organizations new to automation, introducing new digital tools into their business processes can be challenging. For such organizations, BPM is considered as the foundation on which any successful automation strategy is planned, built, monitored, and improved.
Benefits of Using Hyperautomation
Some of the major benefits of leveraging hyperautomation are as follows:
Flexibility and scalability
Since hyperautomation incorporates and works on a multitude of automation technologies, organizations are not restricted to rely on the limited benefits of a single digital technology. This allows organizations to achieve scalability and flexibility in their business operations.
Improved employee productivity
By automating time-consuming and complex tasks, hyperautomation helps employees to be more productive with minimum time and resources required. This allows them to add more value to their roles and responsibilities in the organization.
Seamless integration of digital technologies
Hyperautomation enables organizations to seamlessly integrate a myriad of digital technologies across their business processes and legacy systems. This allows better access to data and communication for all the stakeholders in an organization.
Improved ROI
Leveraging the powerful analytical tools and capabilities of hyperautomation organizations can optimize the deployment of their resources, boosting revenue and reducing costs.
Workforce engagement
As a new age technology, hyperautomation speeds up a range of complex manual daily processes of employees, escalating the quality of the work. This ensures amplified employee satisfaction, engagement, and enthusiasm.
Creation of a digital twin of the organization (DTO)
By automating and uncovering inaccessible data and processes, hyperautomation helps with the creation of a digital twin of the organization (DTO). A DTO helps organizations discover previously overlooked interactions between processes, functions, and key performance indicators to improve risk assessment, accelerate new product development, and enhance the production line’s reliability.
Scale automation to drive end-to-end digital transformation with hyperautomation
To meet the growing demands of the market and customers alike, brands across the globe are moving towards automation. Automation enables streamlined and personalized interactions and helps to scale up improved customer experiences (CX). However, there are no automation tools that can automate all aspects of human labour. So, if your company has already automated processes and tasks leveraging RPA, then hyperautomation is the next step in your automation journey. Hyperautomation brings together several components of process automation along with tools and technology integration to amplify automation and unlock the maximum potential of automation.
How ACL Digital can help you on your automation journey?
ACL Digital leverages in-depth expertise in traditional Robotic Process Automation (RPA) and other technologies such as AI, ML, NLP, and OCR for business rules and workflow driven environment. We use intelligent, smart, self-learning software robots to automate end-to- end business processes with in-built cognitive elements to help enterprises keep at pace with the rapidly changing business landscape. Contact us today to know how we can accelerate your automation journey for rapid digital transformation.