Hyper automation: An Emerging Approach with Digital Transformation at Its Core
In recent years, businesses across industries have increasingly realized the need for augmenting human capabilities. The resultant efficiency lies at the heart of digital transformation. As more sectors automate, the technologies and tools also witness a simultaneous enhancement making hyperautomation inevitable for businesses; the reason why Gartner calls it an 'unavoidable market state.'
What is Hyperautomation?
Hyperautomation amalgamates automation elements of various processes, integrating technologies such as Robotic Process Automation (RPA), its central component and automation tools Artificial Intelligence (AI), Machine Learning (ML), Data Analytics (DA), Internet of Things (IoT) and process mining. All these components push automation to an entirely new level, leading to improved processes and impactful results. Put simply, hyperautomation is the extension of automation in both length and breadth.
It is already established that organizations that gain the most from digital transformation use a wide range of highly sophisticated automation technologies. The tools and technologies that are driving the change are what embody hyperautomation.
The Difference between Hyperautomation and Automation
Automation entails the augmentation of task processes where a bot executes a variety of routine tasks. It is branched into two groups—test automation and robotic process automation. These kinds of automation bring the benefits of faster completion of processes, greater efficiency, and accuracy.
Hyperautomation is the next level of automation distinguished by an additional coat of robotic intelligence that transforms the processes and makes them even smarter. The essence of hyperautomation is advanced AI-based process automation. While automation executes from a single platform, hyperautomation encompasses an entire ecosystem of technologies, tools, and platforms.
One can think of automation as limited to the physical abilities of a robot. Hyperautomation leverages the robot's brain to execute the tasks intelligently.
Benefits of Hyperautomation for Businesses
Speeding up complex tasks
Gartner predicts that by 2024, businesses will minimize their operational costs by combining hyperautomation technologies with restructured operational processes. The pandemic has made organizations minimize spending and concentrate on operational efficiency. But the spending on digital transformation initiatives has only increased as enterprises are restructuring their workflows and business models. The result? Businesses are capitalizing on ML and AI to automate, and in the process, reduce human errors and enhance efficiency. Hyperautomation engages everyone in business transformation as it is backed by a greater degree of automation of complex work based on humans' knowledge inputs.
Employment of digital workers
RPA has been vital in the digital transformation of various industries in the last few years. By 2021, international spending on RPA is set to hit the $1.89 billion mark.
Digital workers are a result of the growth of digital transformation. They can think, analyze, and act, executing end-to-end tasks of a process. Developed using AI, ML, RPA, and analytics, digital workers can connect to varied business applications. They operate different kinds of data, analyze, make decisions, and unveil distinct automation opportunities.
Improves business efficiency
Hyperautomation imparts business decision-makers with monitoring capabilities to comprehend how they are performing by leveraging the right toolset. It allows enterprises to analyze vast quantities of data with advanced analytics that have laser-sharp precision. Thus, by streamlining complex tasks and reducing the gap between humans and technology, it enables employees to train automation tools and benefit from better decision-making.
When work that was typically done by the workforce begins to be executed by technology, the result is inevitably enhanced efficiency in business processes.
Use Cases of Hyperautomation
Banking
The banking, insurance, and financial services sector has witnessed the highest surge in RPA solutions. Hyperautomation empowers every banking process. It is ideally suited for marketing, sales and distribution, regulatory reporting, bank servicing, lending, payment operations, enterprise support, and bank-office operations. Smart automation tools powered by robust AI algorithms can track transactions and also uncover fraud activities. Many anti-money laundering solutions capitalize hyperautomation for eliminating faults and loss of business.
Healthcare
The priorities of the healthcare sector include process enhancement, compliance, and improved patient service. Hyperautomation has a great potential for the healthcare sector to deliver value-based services and advanced patient care at affordable rates. It can help in easy appointment scheduling and information monitoring of the patient.
Retail
Research by McKinsey revealed that 50% of retail activities can be automated with at-scale technology. Hyperautomation technologies can optimize payments, transport, order management, supplier and risk management, warehouse and inventory, and data monitoring in the retail sector.
Digital personnel can monitor competitive sites to notify about price fluctuations in the market in real-time. Moreover, the vast data from different sources can assist customers in analysis and better decision-making.
Achieving Hyperautomation
Hyperautomation demands the right selection of technologies and tools. As it entails a blend of technologies, businesses should be careful in investing only in the right tools. The choice of the right tool, according to Gartner, is architecting for hyperautomation. Here's how businesses can embrace hyperautomation:
Process automation Hyperautomation facilitates a streamlined connection between varied business applications and processes with unstructured and structured data, enabling businesses to make better decisions. Enterprises should drive its adoption throughout the organization and engage business departments, security, IT, and assurance functions into a process automation governance board. It will facilitate seamless adoption without the risk of making mistakes midway.
Leveraging AI and ML Enterprises should architect and strategize across a range of tool choices. Technologies like AI and ML are geared towards the freedom of a system to access data and learn automatically by analyzing its movements. Companies can collect and efficiently study a lot of data through AI and ML. Thus, they can give autonomous machines the ability to perform the processes to outline how they should be conducted.
Usage of smart tools Smart tools like virtual assistants and chatbots are an integral part of hyperautomation technology. They contribute a lot in enabling businesses to work efficiently and faster with greater focus.
Summing Up
As you can see, hyperautomation provides ways to organizations to undergo a digital transformation and set a robust foundation for innovation. The amalgamation of AI and ML with RPA has brought about this disruptive technology which perfectly embodies the phrase 'today's disruptive is tomorrow's stable.'