Hyperautomation. A thing of the Future or Necessity?
A company that does not grow is one that quickly lags behind its competitors. However, it is not worth groping in the dark and taking on newer activities, hoping that one of them will eventually bring profits. Development also involves the observation and optimization of current processes, as well as their transformation and the creation of new ones, opening new business opportunities. Such an approach is offered by Hyperautomation, which combines advanced technology and business processes into one whole. It allows you to look at the company more broadly and look for competitive advantages where you have not noticed them before.
Good to know:
In the “Top Strategic Tech Trends for 2021” report, we can read about the 9 most important strategic trends that we should implement in our companies now in order to be able to effectively respond to changes in society, the economy and sales in the future. One of them is hyperautomation, which will become the driving force of business, a key factor in the elimination of errors and an opportunity to reduce costs.
Automation vs hyperautomation – what’s the difference?
We most often meet the concept of automation where work is repetitive (not to say – boring). People are not so good at handling tasks that require repetition of the same activities over and over again. Even if these are simple e-mail-style tasks, most of us cannot stay focused long enough and we end up making mistakes that would never happen to us on a single activity.
The task of automation is to help people wherever the process is already developed, known and repeatable – – regardless of whether it is manual or mental work. Robots (usually tools based on RPA technology) take over a narrow range of tasks from us, and then accelerate and optimize their performance. They don’t know the concept of boredom, and their concentration doesn’t drop, so they work more efficiently and don’t make mistakes.
However, while automation is the solution to certain kinds of problems, hyperautomation is the entire business strategy. It doesn’t only focus on the automation of ineffective activities, but on the search for completely new and more efficient processes. Hyperautomation combines the enormity of new technologies to eliminate errors, optimize work and accelerate operations, and as a result generate new business opportunities.
Use the power of new technologies
Hyperautomation is a strategy focused on the maximum use of available technologies, as well as on the inclusion of all newly emerging automation solutions in your company structures. Of course, this is a theoretical approach, because in practice it is primarily about skilfully combining and using the opportunities offered by new technologies.
The hyperautomation strategy shows that, in the future, the trend will no longer be the optimization of business processes, but their total robotization. At the moment, this does not exclude the use of other methods of process automation in the company, such as BPMS platforms, but it tends to the theory that in the future we will entrust all automation activities to self-learning robots.
Good to know:
Hyperautomation can be a strategy on which an enterprise will base its digital transformation process. Dedicated robots allow you to collect data from various systems, improve the work of existing solutions, integrate, automate processes and digitize data. If you want to effectively eliminate manual actions and reap the benefits of transformation, you should be interested in their possibilities.
What technologies does hyperautomation use?
- AI (Artificial Intelligence) – artificial intelligence and its algorithms;
- Business Intelligence and BIG DATA – data collection and analysis;
- Event-driven software and EDA – applications based on event-driven architecture;
- RPA (Robotic Process Automation) – robots that perform simple and repetitive processes that do not require a human factor;
- Machine Learning and NLP (Natural Language Processing) – fields aimed at deepening the understanding between man and machine;
- No-code or low-code applications – techniques for creating applications with little or no coding;
- Systems for interacting with customers – broadly understood as chatbots, voicebots and taskbots.
The closure of all these technologies is one of the most recent branches of artificial intelligence, i.e. HITL (Human in the Loop), whose task is – in a nutshell – to teach machines to function better and more efficiently in the human world.
What are the risks of hyperautomation?
Where there are benefits, there are always risks. Automation with the use of advanced technology practically eliminates human errors, but only on the condition that it is well-designed by… humans. In the pursuit of the benefits of hyperautomation, it must not be forgotten that the human being is still the key element, without which the entire process will not bring the desired results.
From the point of view of the company, this means, inter alia, the need to invest in specialists in new technologies, analysts and programmers. Hyperautomation also involves the complete elimination of manual work, so it can be dangerous from the point of view of employees and thus arouse reluctance among the organization. However, it is worth remembering that its goal is not to reduce jobs, but to increase the productivity of the team. Relief from repetitive activities will allow you to focus on tasks that require creativity or specialist knowledge that no artificial intelligence can handle.
How many steps are you from hyperautomation?
Before your business is fully automated, there are a few things you need to do first. Remember that hyperautomation is a strategic decision, so be well-prepared for it:
- Audit and optimization of business processes
It is not worth automating unoptimized activities (outdated, ineffective, overly complex, etc.), so in the first place you must focus on the elimination of unnecessary processes and unnecessary IT infrastructure. - Selection of technologies and systems
At this stage, you already know exactly what processes are taking place in your company, so you are able to assess which activities are suitable for automation. Note that robots alone are not enough – – you need to turn on AI elements to be able to use the collected data effectively. - Orchestration of tools
Hyperautomation is based on combining various technologies into one fluid whole, therefore, its last step is to build connections between all elements.
It may seem like three steps is enough to enjoy a fully automated company, but in fact, each of them is quite demanding. In addition, the hyperautomation strategy does not assume the end of the work – – the above-mentioned elements only allow for the implementation of the discussed approach to the company. However, in order to reap its benefits on a permanent basis, it is necessary to constantly optimize operations, analyse data, draw conclusions and introduce new technologies that will be taking on further tasks.
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