Contrary to what some may think, this concept encompasses all technologies that enable business processes to be carried out with minimal or no human intervention and is more relevant than ever. With the emergence of new technologies such as generative AI, digitisation and augmented reality, the possibilities for automating more processes are expanding. In other words, the scope of what can be automated grows as new technologies are adopted by society.
Benefits of automation
Often, when we think of automation, we see it only as a tool to reduce costs and replace manual tasks done by people. However, its benefits go far beyond simply generating savings and efficiencies. Automation brings significant improvements in three key areas: process quality, speed and capacity, and in many cases improves people’s lives.
Quality
Let’s start by talking about quality. When we automate a process, we incorporate the knowledge and experience of the most expert people in the organisation into the solution we develop. This ensures that the digitisation process is always performed exceptionally well. This is difficult, if not impossible, to guarantee when different people execute the same process, as it depends on their knowledge, skills and moods at the time. It is therefore important that the solution to be implemented is designed by the best experts in the organisation and ideally built in a multidisciplinary team together with the developers.
Speed
In terms of speed, the improvement is evident with automation, with automated solutions typically reducing process execution time by more than 95%. In addition, process capability undergoes a dramatic change. Often, companies cannot have enough people to handle all the requests in a process, which impacts the speed of service delivery and problem resolution for customers. Automation makes it possible to overcome this limitation and execute the process for all cases regardless of the cost or time it would take. For example, for quality control, which is typically done by sampling, automation allows each and every element to be evaluated at multiple stages of the process.
Despite the benefits, it is often argued that the lack of applications or a suitable architecture prevents companies from initiating automation strategies. However, it is not necessary to have highly modern enterprise systems or architectures to start automation. While it is true that better architecture can facilitate the automation of complex processes, I am confident that regardless of a company’s situation in terms of its application evolution, there is much to be gained by initiating an automation plan.
It is a good idea to start with an important but not too large process so that the benefits generated will have a significant impact and stimulate interest in further automation projects. These results will generate the resources and wins needed to drive a more robust automation strategy.
Conclusions
In summary, automation is an essential tool for improving the speed, quality and capability of business processes that is available to all companies. There are fewer and fewer processes that cannot be automated, due to the emergence of new technologies and their adoption by society. If we want to improve productivity, which is a fundamental requirement for driving economic growth, automation is not an option, it is a necessity.
