Human-centric Digital Transformation powered by Connected Automation

By Sateesh Seetharamiah, CEO- Edge Products, EdgeVerve Systems Limited

The pandemic has shown enterprises the importance of resilience and business continuity. Disparate and challenging competition, growing consumer pressures, dynamic markets, and the need for constant innovation are driving a new paradigm of enterprise transformation. For success, enterprises must deliver exceptional customer and employee experience. Connected Automation, a nuanced approach towards intelligent automation, is essential to this transformation.

From reimagining enterprise-wide process transformation to delivering measurable automation results, our experience of supporting 400+ large-scale enterprises across multiple industries, in their digital transformation journeys has shown us that Intelligent Automation is a critical enabler for growth and innovation. Industry reports suggest that the potential economic impact of automating knowledge work could exceed USD 600bn by 2025.

Despite these positives, a range of issues prevents enterprises from extracting the full potential of Intelligent Automation. Lack of a multi-dimensional approach towards value creation has led to tactical initiatives executed in silos, preventing enterprise-wide impact. Debate on centralized versus democratized approach rages in every enterprise, leading to disconnected strategies.  Finally, from a change management perspective, while Intelligent Automation remains a top-down transition, adoption at every level of the hierarchy is the only way to deliver tangible results in the long term.

It is here that Connected Automation, a human-centered holistic approach, can help ensure that enterprises automate end-to-end processes supported by data and cutting-edge intelligence. To derive sustainable value, organizations need to build capability to deliver personalized customer journeys on a foundation of hyper-efficient execution. This would reshape the enterprise to tap human expertise for empathy and innovation while leveraging bots for productivity and quality.

Connected Automation assists enterprises forge deeper connections between Processes, Data, and People.

• People – Wider connection of people into automation journey through low code platforms for citizen developers and enterprise personal automation assistants.
• Process – Stronger connection of processes into automation journey through end-to-end process orchestration through workflows and auto-automation.
• Data – Deeper connection of data into automation journey through contextual data discovery and intelligent document processing and advanced insights.

This fundamental change in RPA planning will enable enterprises to create a culture of continuous improvement, intelligence, and efficiency designed to provide resilience and improved performance. Our experience has shown that automation is most successful when adopted as an enterprise-wide transformation program. Scaling automation needs ease of use and greater levels of control. By decentralizing the control of technology and making it accessible to non-technical people, enterprises can convert each employee to a transformation evangelist, accentuating the scale of Intelligent Automation and the effectiveness of change management. So often, enterprise technology is a topic for closed circles, for people “in the know” to discuss its impact, development, and implementation. The evolution of low-code and no-code platforms means that the status quo can change. In addition, it ensures that non-technical users play a significant role in automation design and deployment.

Consider the case of citizen developers. By enabling employees to design and develop automations that improve their efficiency and productivity, organizations hand the control of technology back to the people it affects the most, and the early results are staggering. Citizen developers can scale the automation footprint by over 70% while reducing manual effort. Empowering employees to build automation programs allows them to become authors of an enterprise’s transformation journey instead of mere actors in a broader strategy. With Connected Automation, employees can now help organizations move from process discovery to design and deployment, all while making their roles more strategic, as bots customized to their requirements take over complex asynchronous processes.

While efficiency, agility, and innovation are its apparent benefits, perhaps the most substantial advantage of Connected Automation is its ability to start a culture of Intelligent Automation. Enterprises can co-create their transformation story with a non-technical workforce, offering faster scale and quicker results. In addition, Connected Automation provides a range of impactful features that touch every aspect of the enterprise value chain – process orchestration, auto-automation, complex document processing, automation analytics – making it a strategic enabler for enterprise growth.

The true impact of Connected Automation lies in augmenting humans to drive strategic enterprise growth. Connected Automation is making the vision of human-centered automation a reality.