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Robotic process automation, or RPA, has seen a meteoric rise in adoption by businesses of all sizes and industries. The promise of automating tedious and time-consuming tasks to free up employees for more valuable work has proven too great for most companies to resist. However, many organizations find themselves at a loss when it comes time to actually implement an RPA system. That’s where implementation partners come in.

Implementation partners like qBotica have turnkey solutions that are designed to help businesses set up and use RPA systems. They provide a valuable service by guiding businesses throughout the automation journey, from start to finish.

Here’s a look at how implementation partners can help enterprises automate their business processes:

1. Defining the goals of automation
   The first step in any automation journey is to define the goals of the project. What tasks do you want to automate? What processes will be affected? What benefits do you hope to achieve? An implementation partner can help you answer these questions and develop a clear roadmap for your automation project.
2. Selecting the right RPA products and solutions
   There are a number of different RPA systems on the market and choosing the right one for your business can be a daunting task. An implementation partner can help you evaluate your options and select a system that will meet your needs in the most efficient and profitable manner.
3. Implementing the RPA system
   Once you’ve selected an RPA system, it’s time to implement it. This can be a complex and time-consuming process, but an implementation partner can help make it go more smoothly. They can provide guidance on everything from installation to configuration to user training.
4. Monitoring and maintaining the system
   Even after your RPA system is up and running, there’s still work to be done. An implementation partner can help you monitor the system to ensure it’s working correctly and make adjustments as needed. They can also provide ongoing support and maintenance to keep the system running smoothly.

Implementation partners like qBotica not only have the expertise, but also the resource necessary to help businesses of all sizes successfully implement an RPA system. There are a few things that an implementation partner can do to help ease the automation journey for enterprises:

1. Help assess which processes are best suited for automation
2. Develop a roadmap for automation implementation
3. Train employees on how to use the new system
4. Provide ongoing support and maintenance

Each of these steps is essential in ensuring a successful RPA implementation. By working with an experienced and knowledgeable implementation partner, enterprises can rest assured that their automation journey will be a smooth and successful one. Reach out to our experts if you are looking for an implementation partner to support you throughout your automation journey.

As a UiPath Diamond Partner and an Emerald Sponsor at this year’s UiPath FORWARD 5 event, qBotica had the front row seat to envisioning & co-creating the future of automation. This year’s event was bigger and better than ever before, with the entire automation industry coming together to create a combined vision of how automation will continue to augment human efforts in the years to come.

Here are our 5 key takeaways from this year’s UiPath FORWARD 5

Time to lean into automation is NOW

There is a sense of optimism and possibilities for where automation is headed, with UiPath Co-CEO, Rob Enslin saying in his keynote speech, “Like ERP [enterprise resource planning] in the ‘90s, the internet in the 2000s, and the cloud in the teens, automation is a game changer for this era.”

Robotic process automation (RPA) has long enabled people and businesses to assign repetitive jobs to robots, but the next few years will be characterized by using automation as a source of creativity and innovation.

As companies start to think ‘automation first’, they can do more with their existing workforce, scaling operations and improving productivity, without a significant increase in costs.

Automation Centers of Excellence are here to stay

The true power of automation is not realized by individual teams and operations leaning into it, but by building strong Automation Centers of Excellence (CoE) to empower organizations think automation across the whole company, sharing knowledge and best practices across organization units and leveraging synergies and developing efficiencies where possible. Business units can share knowledge and learn from each other’s’ experiences to build and grow bigger and better automation systems.

The Power of Automation in the hands of the People

Putting the power of automation in the hands of each employee means giving them access to easy, instant, turnkey solutions for their roles. Empowering employees to adapt and gain exposure to solutions gives them a sense of comfort and ease around the new technologies. Most RPA solutions are easy to implement and can take hours off the employees’ tedious tasks to leave room for creativity, which in turn, is in the best interest of the organization.

The future of personal automation is semantic automation where solutions can help even the non-technical users leverage advanced capabilities to automate seemingly simple but tedious tasks and use these robots as their digital assistants and quintessential co-workers.

A heartwarming story one of our teammates, Russell Alfeche, heard was from a woman who had spent over 31 of her life managing repetitive tasks manually. She joined a bot-a-thon and was able to automate, not one, but three processes she’s been doing for over three decades. She was unbelievably happy to be able to achieve this. What did she gain out of this exercise? A sense of fulfilment and more time to drink her coffee.

Automation as a Source of Hypergrowth

The question now is how can businesses put their newfound knowledge into practice and unleash the power of automation throughout their organizations? How can automation be employed as a productivity force multiplier?

As UiPath Co-CEO, Rob Enslin said, they “go BIG with automation.”

These companies make automation a part of their long-term strategy and design business models keeping automation in mind. The more these companies focus on implementation across business unites, the more exponential growth they get.

Larger the organization, higher is the potential of automation to drive efficiency and accelerate growth. How? By looking at automation as a strategic resource, these large organizations are able to drive impact with more and more processes automated and saving hundreds of thousands of man-hours to put to more meaningful use. With true, easy to use turnkey solutions today, sky’s the limit for what organizations can achieve through automation.

RPA Talent Pool is driving the Future of Automation

Some of the smartest engineers and developers are joining the world of automation. These RPA Developers are designing the best-in-class, impressive, user-friendly automation capabilities for organizations. They will influence the direction the future of automation will take.

The Automation talent pool is also growing, as developers come from various backgrounds helping CoE leaders. Keep an eye out for the next Gen Z of RPA Developers.

In Conclusion…

RPA is here to stay. In fact, RPA is here to grow with you and help your organization grow faster. Through the delivery speed, nimbleness, turnkey solutions and expanded capabilities, RPA can help deliver important business outcomes.

Our promise is this: if you lean into automation as a way of doing business, as a part of the overall organizational strategies, it will change the trajectory of your organization in the future.

The right technology partner is critical for enabling this success. Reach out to us to see how the qBotica and UiPath enhanced partnership can help ease your enterprise automation journey.

Food for thought: What is next, after RPA?

Aerospace technology generates an endless stream of data. Indeed, only a single Boeing 737 flight between New York and Los Angeles produces 20 terabytes of data an hour. The sheer amount of data in aviation is growing exponentially in the demand to streamline collection and analysis and turn such information into actionable insights using RPA.

Robotic Process Automation (RPA) is one of the best solutions and it can deal with routine and rule-based tasks through intelligent bots. RPA assists aviation organizations to complete many daily tasks and checklists that demand consistency and maximum accuracy.

 

What is RPA in the aviation industry?

The aviation industry is moving more and more to automated and digitalized solutions to minimize manual and time-intensive activities in the process of processing its vast data streams. As a matter of fact, global RPA was 7.35 billion in Aerospace in 2021.

The current innovations in RPA technology have added new AI and machine learning features. The result of this integration is improved software bots with enhanced cognitive capabilities capable of making decisions that are more intelligent and thus of great assistance to the management and operations planning in the aerospace industry. The aviation industry can use RPA to embrace software bots to automate most of the critical business aspects, including airports administration, tickets reservation, quality assurance, customer service, aircraft navigation, air traffic control and others.

 

How can RPA help aerospace organizations?

The best advantages of RPA implementations in aerospace sectors are:

• Operation 24/7 in order to achieve maximum productivity and efficiency.
• Better minimization of errors.
• Better safety and regulatory compliance.
• Good quality management.
• Better customer service
• Continuous record updating
• Complete audit trail so as to simplify accounting problems.

What are examples of RPA uses in the aviation industry?

RPA can be used to enhance different aerospace operations in order to increase productivity and quality. The following are eight best uses of RPA in aviation businesses.

1. Administration: The aerospace field is full of administrative departments and processes that have varied requirements, such as maintenance, finance, cargo, testing, and airworthiness. Each business unit employs different software programs and produces paper work that is voluminous and has different compliance needs. As an example, most aviation documentation has to be held until the end of the aircraft service life, and should be easily accessible to the regulators, customers, and suppliers when they are needed, which include:
   • Maintenance records
   • Toolbox and control cards
   • Supplier invoices
   • Release notes
   • The work packs, such as airplane service records.
   • Travelers documents and Certificates of Conformity.

   These disparate systems can be integrated into a workforce of RPA bots, data in these systems can be migrated, and its structure can be arranged so that it can be accessed with ease and flexibility by the personnel who have access to it. It is also able to automatically arrange and refresh documents and reduce human error and keep information current, precise and always delivered to the right location.

2. E-Invoicing The distribution channels and revenue management of airlines is more complex since they are collaborating with hundreds of international travel agencies to sell airline tickets:
   • All over the world, airlines are given invoice lists in various formats that take a lot of time and energy to be processed manually and are highly prone to errors.
   • They are expected to monitor invoicing process with strict attention to prevent a deficit between the ticket fares and the amount received by the different agencies.

   Many invoicing tasks can be automated by RPA bots and they include:

   • Inventory, authorization and recording invoices.
   • Reformatting invoice data when they arrive in a non-structured or non-standard format.
   • Supplier statement reconciliation and accounts.
   • Checking and validating payments.
   • Credit checks

   This automation will decrease the work and improve accuracy to make sure that there is no revenue leakage.

3. Customer Relations Passengers complained about delayed flights and unsized seats, lost luggage and rude other passengers, U.S. airlines got 102,550 complaints in 2020 alone, a 568 percent increase over 2019. These complaints come in different format, length, and significance and it is cumbersome and time consuming to sort, classify and deal with these complaints. RPA bots may facilitate and enhance customer relations by:
   • Complaints, the creation of case tickets, and sorting them into the categories of the level of importance, those that require urgent response.
   • Knowing types of complaints and automatically forwarding them to appropriate department or employee to act on the complaint.

   A dramatic rise in customer satisfaction can be achieved in the aviation industry through a reduction in the amount of unresponded complaints that drop through the cracks where they are not attended to by overwhelmed employees.

4. Air Traffic Control Lack of good air traffic control (ATC) leads to delays in passengers and high operating costs. The Economist estimates ATC due to mismanagement has caused flight delays and cancellations costing the European economy nearly 21 billion in 2017 and ATC was the cause of approximately twice the number of delays compared to other causes. RPA may collaborate with machine learning technology to exchange the flight data of the airplanes in real-time. This capability automatically computes the most effective safe distance that aircraft must keep prior to landing, which accomplishes two important objectives:
   • Improves the number of landing aircraft without jeopardizing the safety.
   • Reduces the possibility of collision occurring as a result of unexpected conditions, like strong headwinds.
5. Travelers Communication In 2022 with 128,934 flight cancellations in the U.S. between January and July, this is higher than before the pandemic. Airline agencies and airports need to maintain this huge traffic and indicate to the travelers in a quicker fashion about the probable delays and cancellations. Moreover, on-the-fly updates usually emerge by the time travelers are boarding the plane that might influence their flight unless they are informed in time, e.g., a change in the gate or a change in the boarding schedule. RPA will be able to swap data among numerous applications automatically and keep the passengers informed about the latest news. Examples include:
   • Writing and posting push notices or email.
   • Giving background, e.g. a gate number was switched because a vacant jetway was not found in time.
6. Crew Scheduling The problem of effective crew scheduling in aviation is over half a century old. When allocating trips to employees, airlines have to contend with a long list of factors that include:
   • Employee contracts
   • Union stipulations
   • Safety regulations
   • Date and time of last flight
   • Availability
   • Experience

   The RPA software can be linked to the HR files and automatically extract the employees contract information, time schedules and other requirements. In doing so, airlines would be able to choose the most appropriate crew on any flight and circumvent the problem of scheduling remarkably easily without having to violate any safety or union policies.

7. Aircraft maintenance The aviation industry highly depends on aircraft maintenance. Checklists that require thorough filling every day are on top of the hands on workload that engineers need to undertake and most departments simply cannot cope with them. It is this backlog that leads to delays and efficiency in airlines. RPA bots can optimize such a process and support overwhelmed maintenance departments by:
   • Developing sophisticated computer programs that interlink airplanes and maintenance data and share among themselves real-time.
   • Creating the right checklists that would make the engineers aware of the problems requiring their attention.
   • Effective communication among the engineers so that all checks are completed on time by the relevant personnel and with the least use of time and resources.
   • Performing compliance and risk management supplier checks.
   • Monitoring aircraft parts inventory and placing the correct quantity order.
   • Automated notifications on where the shipments are prior to delivery.
8. Regulatory compliance One of the key requirements of the aviation industry is to abide by various authorities, including the Civil Aviation Authority or the European Aviation Safety Agency. It is a time consuming exercise, which leaves employees off other work. RPA provides high precision on processes execution and allows companies to quickly and effectively comply, including:
   • Screening of documents to ascertain that they are current and have all the necessary details.
   • Evidence of airlines performing the right risk identification, risk assessment and risk management processes.
   • Automation of HR functions and employee onboarding, e.g. right-to-work checks.
   • Placing orders on uniforms, PPE, and other, corresponding equipment.

 

The Bottom Line

The aerospace market is associated with data volumes that are so extensive that it would require human beings several lives to process manually. RPA works best in the aviation sector due to the consistency of the processes to be carried out and the lack of mistakes, 24/7 operation to meet the excessive demands. RPA is an indispensable instrument in the aerospace industry, whether it comes to maintenance and compliance, customers and crew scheduling; it has the capability of saving lives and making the activity significantly safer and more efficient.

Aviation enterprises have the opportunity to invest in innovation and development by making sure that employees have the ability to concentrate on priority activities. Today, contact with our automation experts to begin designing your automation vision.

Find out how qBotica can speed up AI-driven change and help your business get real results. Here, you can find out more about qBotica’s smart automation and digital transformation solutions.

Follow us on LinkedIn and check out our Insights Hub to stay up to date on the latest news and information from qBotica. If you want to know more, please get in touch with the qBotica Marketing Team at

• +1 (623) 252-6597
• marketing@qbotica.com
• https://www.qbotica.com

All businesses can benefit from automation, from streamlining operations to enhancing the customer experience. The implementation process, however, doesn’t feel so cut and dry, preventing many businesses from getting started. We think that’s a shame because any organization can achieve automation success and improve financial outcomes with the right strategy and partner.

The power of automation

Automation to optimize processes, reduce human error, intelligently process documents and create an efficient robotic workforce continues growing at unprecedented rates.

Robotic Process Automation(RPA) remains the crown jewel of the market. RPA handles repetitive tasks and processes, freeing humans to focus on more detail-oriented, creative work. Notably, RPA technology is straight forward to integrate into current systems, manage and scale.

Building on RPA is Business Process Automation, where computer “bots” mimic human actions and streamline their workload. BPA automates complete business processes from start to finish. It encompasses an entire workflow design that, in turn, monitors RPA tasks and processes.

Areas where RPA and BPA deliver great results

• Repetitive work: RPA easily handles routine work that doesn’t require special knowledge, skills, or human interaction but is highly prone to error. Example: submitting forms and copying and pasting between systems.
• Administrative work: Supports core business operations that typically involve getting information from one place to the next. Example: forwarding calls to the correct person or managing payroll.
• Departmental work: Ensures departments run smoothly without influencing the core business product. Example: expense tracking and approval.
• Cross-enterprise work: Streamlines cross-departmental work and simplifies the customer experience. Example: processing insurance claims or loan approval.
• Expert work: Keeps track of essential details, providing deeper insights and recommended actions. Example: personalized consultations.

Checklist for automation success in any industry

Not every business can automate the same way. However, every business should consider this checklist before implementation.

1. Designate automation as a strategic priority
According to a McKinsey survey, organizations that strategically prioritize automation and scale the technology enterprise-wide are five times more likely to report success. Conversely, companies that pursue automation programs for immediate cost savings or to keep up with competitors don’t see the same benefit.

2. Enhance digital transformation with automation
Business process automation is one of the dominating digital transformation trends in 2022 and beyond. According to Gartner’s CFO survey, 80% of finance directors agree that their organizations must pay attention to finance technology optimization. With digital technologies such as RPA and AI making businesses more efficient and productive, organizations can undergo digital transformation twice as fast.

3. Develop an operating model that enables scaling
A recent study cited that 79% of enterprises are “hitting a wall” using existing cloud tools and platforms. Constantly investing in infrastructure to support new technologies is not cost-effective, so companies must avoid having “islands” of automation where different teams use different tools. Instead, businesses must focus on an automation process that can start in one unit and scale to others once tested and vetted. Automate once, then repeat.

4. Pursue people-focused initiatives
Yes, automation is about robots and machines. But it’s also about using human-centric technology to make work easier for people, not replacing them altogether. The focus should not be on a headcount reduction. Most organizations that report success with implementing automation adopt “human-in-the-loop” solutions that redeploy employees to higher-value and more meaningful tasks. These companies see improved customer experience, revenue growth, and risk mitigation results.

Business Ecosystem Automation: A network of partners

Implementing a successful automation plan means thinking about an entire business ecosystem: the customers, suppliers, vendors, and financial institutions that make up a digital supply chain. To best achieve their goals, businesses should build relationships with automation service providers to help them meet their goals and align all stakeholders.

Automation partnerships exist in two primary forms–business partners and technology partners.

• Business partners focus on services and solutions to help customers develop automation operating plans, such as implementation steps, like coding, training, communications, and designing an automation model that delivers rapid benefits.
• Technology partners provide technologies that integrate with the business and their vendors’ technology to make adopting automation processes more seamless.

Where to Start: Tips for successful automation adoption

1. Don’t wait —just do it.
The more processes a business reimagines without factoring in automation, the harder it will be to implement later. So instead of waiting, companies should consider first automating a process that isn’t mission-critical but will demonstrate value when completed. For example, they might initially automate a small subset of a larger process, making incremental changes once they gain confidence in the technology. Small steps like this can have a significant return on investment.

2. Align automation to business outcomes.
Businesses must keep automation in mind when designing and improving processes. The first automation project doesn’t have to be big, but it should be important to the desired outcome or experience the business wants to achieve.

3. Get all stakeholders involved.
Businesses should include every stakeholder in all stages of the automation process. If required, they should also help employees transition their skills. For example, someone who previously managed a department that now consists of bots can re-purpose their skills to overseeing design, development, and analytics teams.

4. Never stop measuring value.
Businesses shouldn’t stall after the first automation project is complete. The most effective strategy is to keep looking for innovative ways to optimize processes. Companies should seek inspiration from industry automation leaders to understand what’s possible.

A Shift in Vision: Putting automation into practice

Businesses will uncover hidden revenue streams and unexpected benefits when they start automating across their entire ecosystem. Organizations will also create a more engaged, bottom-line-driven workforce by eliminating manual work. Any business can tap into automation’s many benefits and improve its bottom line by partnering with an automation partner to create an effective implementation strategy.

At qBotica, we create automation roadmaps using our intelligent process discovery tool to identify bottlenecks and customize automation to fit the needs of any business. Schedule a discovery call today.

Automation allows businesses to increase efficiency without expanding their workforce. The challenge is choosing the right automation technology that organizations can harness to adapt alongside their evolving systems, services, and products. Fortunately, with scalable automation tools, businesses can streamline operations, improve productivity, and grow their operations with little to no downtime.

What is Scalable Automation?

Businesses’ operational needs fluctuate, and organizations can expand or contract rapidly. For example, online stores experience exponential traffic during the holidays, start-ups can double in size in a year, and major enterprises can merge with other fortune 500 corporations. When these changes occur, businesses need scalable (easily adjustable) IT infrastructure to allow them to adapt quickly. Such malleable environments are critical to ensure data management and cloud services function consistently with high performance.

To support changing businesses, scalable automation software helps them prevent bottlenecks, guarantee capacity, reduce resource consumption, and predict potential issues to prevent system failures. In the process, such technology offers a range of features like automated data warehousing and workflow management.

Benefits of Scalable Automation

The ability to rapidly expand or contract operations in response to changing market conditions can mean the difference between success and failure in today’s business world.

A functionally scalable automation solution should support business success through features like:

• Allowing businesses to introduce new logic into workflows with simple mechanisms that don’t impact the current automation environment or functions
• Enabling users to change the behavior of current automation processes without changing the function itself.
• Empowering businesses to integrate new external applications into their infrastructure quickly.

Best Practices to Build a Scalable Automation Infrastructure

Automation is critical to healthcare, manufacturers, and financial services organizations, to name a few. However, it can be daunting to choose tools that IT staff and developers can easily use to grow and contract with businesses’ changing needs. That’s why decision-makers must follow best implementation practices and look for scalable features.

Select the Right Features

Businesses must look for automation platform attributes that are user-friendly and adaptable.

No-code, universal connectors: Universal connectors allow developers to drag and drop actions into process workflow to avoid wasting time scripting. Plus, these pre-built job actions serve as templates, allowing developers to repeat them for future jobs easily.

Low-code API accessibility Seamless API accessibility allows developers to integrate virtually any automation tool without spending time coding.

Alerting: This allows automation operators to set alerts based on pre-defined events such as a job failure or if the IT team hasn’t resolved tickets promptly, known as an SLA breach. In addition, email and SMS alerts ensure the tech team can remedy system issues promptly without business interruption.

Auto-remediation: This feature ensures operators don’t have to be physically present for a system to resolve workflow problems. By setting trigger rules, operators can outsource problem-solving, speeding up resolution time and allowing them to focus on higher-level IT tasks.

Self–service portals: Self-service portals provide businesses and IT help desk teams with simple interfaces for overseeing system processes. Users can conduct data transfers, run reports, and make updates from these permission-based portals.

Design Workflows in a Modular Fashion

Businesses must consider designing automation infrastructure in a modular fashion. This means breaking down the tools into smaller, more manageable pieces that can be chained together to create the overall solution. By thinking about automation this way, businesses can more easily scale it up or down as their needs change. Additionally, modular automation design makes it easier to troubleshoot and fix automation issues as they arise.

Another benefit of modular automation design is that it allows IT developers to reuse automation components that they’ve already created. This can save significant time and money.

Keep Automation Infrastructure Well-documented

One of the most important steps businesses can take to maintain control over automation infrastructure is to keep it well-documented. This means having clear and up-to-date reports on what automation tasks are taking place, how they perform, and by whom. Additionally, this documentation should be easily accessible to all team members, so everyone is aligned.

By keeping automation infrastructure well-documented, IT teams can avoid potential issues and ensure that your tasks are taking place correctly and efficiently. Additionally, this documentation will be invaluable if businesses ever need to change their automation system.

Types of Scalable Automation

Businesses can improve efficiency and quality while reducing costs by automating tasks prone to human error. Below are three types of scalable automation that organizations should consider using:

• Process automation: Automating repetitive tasks such as data entry, invoicing, and customer communication can free up employees’ time for more value-added activities.
• Reporting and analytics: Automated reporting and analytics tools can provide real-time insights into key performance indicators, allowing businesses to make data-driven decisions about allocating resources.
• Customer relationship management: A sound CRM system can automate sales and marketing tasks, making it easier to manage customer relationships at scale.

Conclusion

It is essential to implement scalable automation infrastructure to meet businesses’ needs. At qBotica, we specialize in helping enterprises build highly adaptable, scalable automation ecosystems that deliver real value. Our DoqumentAI platform enables businesses to start “thinking inside the bots” and derive maximum benefit from advanced data capture software. With our platform, enterprises can easily integrate with leading RPA products and enjoy scalability, flexibility, and efficiency. Schedule a discovery call today to learn more.

Every business relies on efficient workflows to keep the wheels turning. From sales and marketing to human resources and accounting, every department has various responsibilities to fulfill.

As a business owner or manager, it can be challenging to effectively oversee every process while determining which tasks may be better for automation. This is where qBotica’s Disqover comes in. Disqover is an intelligent process discovery tool that helps businesses determine where automation best fits so they focus on the big picture instead of getting caught in the operational weeds.

So, how can process discovery tools help businesses determine the most optimized automation path? Here, we review.

What is Business Process Discovery?

Before implementing automation technologies, businesses must audit their workflows with process discovery tools to determine where to begin. Business process discovery is a set of technologies, methodologies, and strategies for identifying, describing, and analyzing an organization’s current framework.

Process discovery aims to gather and transform workflow data into visual models, which are essential components of business process management (BPM) and process optimization. These end-to-end process charts make it seamless for organizations to determine which tasks are the best automation candidates.

For example, qBotica’s Disqover tool helps organizations determine how much automation they need while designing the steps to get started. Disqover uses artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning, natural language processing, and process mining to extract data from sources such as emails, chat logs, CRMs, and ERPs to automatically discover current business workflows. The platform then analyzes these processes to identify improvement and automation opportunities.

What are the Benefits of Process Discovery?

Reduce Costs
Process discovery is an approach to improving company performance by learning more about its processes than even its staff might know offhand. This enables businesses to quickly and accurately determine which procedures to automate, resulting in a more cost-effective path to intelligent decisions.

Improve compliance
Every industry must track ad follow various compliance rules. Unfortunately, auditing these rules is extraordinarily time-consuming and laborious. However, process discovery tools automatically track regulatory factors while identifying non-compliant deviations in real-time.

Helps businesses avoid common automation mistakes
According to a 2020 Deloitte survey, 53 percent of businesses have already started using Robotic Process Automation (RPA). Furthermore, Deloitte anticipates that number to rise to 72 percent by 2022. Given the rapid adoption rates and significant potential of the technology, businesses must avoid the mistakes that lead to almost half of RPA project failures.

The most common pitfall is that businesses try to automate too quickly without the proper due diligence. Swift implementation can lead to unrealistic expectations, overburdened IT departments, and employee resistance. Fortunately, businesses can avoid this risk by starting with process discovery to determine the most beneficial automation onboarding route. Tools like qBotica’s Disqover identify the best processes and outline the specific time and cost savings automation software can provide.

How To Identify Business Processes for Automation?

Determine which processes take the most time to conduct.
The first step is understanding what processes take up the most time for employees. If a process necessitates many hours of manual labor, it may be a candidate for automation. These man-hours might be helpful for more high-value activities rather than the routine administration involved in the process. To determine if the most time-consuming tasks are good automation candidates, businesses can conduct process mining through tools like Disqover.

Identify the most complex tasks.
The number of workers involved, the number of activities involved, and the time requirements are all factors that influence complexity. And the more complex a process is, the longer it will take to automate. That’s why businesses must identify complex tasks and determine if they have the resources for automation implementation.

Target high-volume transactional processes
Organizations with large or growing volumes of transactional processes are excellent candidates for business process automation. Businesses in this category, like finance, healthcare, and insurance, can automate large sets of functions to speed up work and improve efficiency.

Pinpoint redundant workflows
Businesses should always start by automating redundant tasks the employees repeatedly perform without adding value to the organization’s bottom line. For example, a process that requires manually entering the same data into various systems is a great candidate for automation.

The Benefits of Process Automation

Process automation has emerged as one of the most popular ways for firms to improve efficiency and increase profitability. Because of its numerous advantages, more than half of existing businesses are now adopting automation technology. Here are three reasons why:

It Saves Employees Time
The significant advantage of business automation is that it saves time. According to research, office employees spend roughly one-third of the working year on rote tasks such as searching for information, signing paperwork, and processing documents.
Automating these workflows can help organizations achieve objectives faster and more accurately. In the end, process automation allows employees to do more daily.

Reduces Costs
According to McKinsey, US companies pay $2 trillion in labor costs annually due to inefficient tasks. Additionally, businesses lose 20 to 30% of their annual income in the process. Switching from a manual to an automated business process minimizes errors and maximizes resources. As a result, process automation lowers operational expenses and increases profits.

Better Customer Experiences
Customers prioritize convenience when selecting a company to do business with. Automation software gives customers faster, more accurate, and better-quality services, leading to trust, loyalty, and competitive advantages.

Three Business Processes and Automation Ideas

Hiring
Hiring is essential to business success. Yet, recruitment and selection procedures are often painfully slow and ineffective. To optimize the process, companies can take advantage of automated recruiting tools to scan job applications from the candidates swiftly. These technologies can also locate comparable keywords in each application to quickly determine who best fits the organization’s open positions.

Lead Generation and Nurturing:
Generating leads and nurturing them until they’re sales-ready can be highly time-consuming. It often involves multiple touchpoints and personalized attention. However, with the help of marketing automation software, businesses can automate many of these tasks. For example, automated technology can instantly deploy emails to leads at various points in the sales cycle. These tools can also establish lead scoring to help sales teams prioritize which prospects are more likely to convert.

Inventory Fulfillment
One of the most critical and often overlooked organizational processes is the order to cash process. This includes everything from the initial customer order to processing invoices, updating compliance documents, order shipment, and receiving payment. It’s a complex process that involves many different people and departments managing inventory flow within an organization.

qBotica’s Disqover solution helps organizations automate their order-to-cash process by providing a complete view of the customer order lifecycle. This includes visibility into all orders, invoices, compliance documents, and payments. It also offers real-time inventory management capabilities.

Automate Business Processes with Disqover

qBotica’s Process Discovery software, Disqover, is a great place to start identifying which processes are ripe for automation. Disqover uses machine learning to analyze a company’s data and find hidden patterns and relationships. With that information, organizations can map out their complex and inefficient processes to determine how to start streamlining operations.

Disqover is the only all-in-one tool that offers thorough process discovery, process mining, and process optimization in one package. Contact us today to learn more.

Many experts believe artificial intelligence (AI) is phasing out the need for human workforces entirely. But it doesn’t have to be this way. Rather than seeing automation as a threat to all jobs, we see AI as an opportunity to future-proof businesses by making them even more staff-focused. What do we mean by this? Human-centered automation is about using technology to augment employee abilities rather than replace them. This innovative automation approach can reduce costs, improve efficiency, and make businesses more competitive.

Here we’ll discuss the benefits of human-centric automation and how businesses can begin implementation.

What is Human-Centered Automation?

According to Christine M. Mitchell 1996, human-centered automation is “…automation whose objective isn’t necessarily to automate previously manual activities, but rather to improve user efficiency and minimize error.” In other words, human-centered automation is about using technology to make work easier for people, not replacing them altogether.

Human-centered automation streamlines various procedures, such as data collection and verification, through machine learning (ML) technology. This gives staff more time to perform higher-value tasks like exception handling and process improvement.

To effectively implement human-centered automation, businesses must consider how users interact with the system and prioritize staff needs above all else. It’s also essential to ensure that the automation is flexible enough to adapt as people’s needs change. After all, what works today might not work tomorrow, so it’s crucial to adjust over time.

Advantages of Human-Centered Automation

Human-centered automation aims to make users’ lives easier by automating either difficult or time-consuming tasks. It can eliminate inefficiencies, speed up processes, and make operations run more smoothly.

Increased Job Satisfaction

Automating manual procedures allows businesses to give staff members new, more rewarding opportunities. Instead of spending time on rote tasks, like data entry, staff can focus on more client-centered roles. Automation helps reduce backlogs and ease stress levels while enabling more substantive customer interactions and allowing employees to use their whole skill set. This benefits the employee and can lead to a more agile and responsive business.

Fewer Errors

When people execute manual processes, particularly those with paper documentation, they work slowly and inevitably make mistakes. These processing delays and errors have real-world consequences, such as inadvertently rejecting a loan or mortgage application or denying disability claim.

A human-centered approach to automation uses Machine Learning with human supervision to introduce a new era of synergistic cooperation. For example, when the system detects data anomalies, it flags them for human review, then uses the findings to fine-tune the underlying models. This minimizes manual labor and error rates and allows workers to devote their attention to ensuring more customers get the services they need,

Examples of Human-centered Automation

Quicker Advancements in Healthcare

Healthcare is not only data-intensive–it demands innovative solutions to solve the world’s greatest medical challenges. Human-centered automation has made this possible by optimizing patient, doctor, and practitioner services. For example, AI-based software can analyze vast swathes of healthcare data, such as pictures, clinical research trials, and medical claims. With that information, it can detect patterns and offers insights that help experts optimize treatment protocols, improve patient outcomes, and discover new drug applications.

More Efficient Green Energy

AI can optimize energy use, balance supply,and demand needs in real-time, and manage storage to reduce costs. Additionally, AI can help renewables reach their full potential through technology such as the internet of things (IoT), sensors, big data, and distributed ledger technology. For example, by attaching sensors to gas turbines and connecting them to AI processing systems, energy experts can discover how to alter fuel valves to minimize emissions. However, AI can’t solve the world’s sustainability crisis overnight. At least for now, automation technology requires human collaboration to manage decentralized energy grids.

Smart Call Centers

For a long time, humans were responsible for all call center operations. They relied on well-written scripts to perform their jobs and received performance scores based on how quickly and efficiently they resolved customer issues. However, AI has completely transformed call centers into a collaborative environment between humans and machines.

Instead of humans answering every call, contact center automation directs inquiries to software bots to help customers resolve their own issues. If the bot can’t help the customer, it harnesses predictive analytics to determine when live agents need to intervene and
escalate the issue. Over time the software improves call matching skills to ensure agents can effectively support the client in question. Ultimately, automated contact centers help customer service agents work more efficiently, help more people throughout the day, and feel more empowered in their roles.

Unlock the Power of Human-Centered Automation with Disqover

The relationship between humans and AI is critical to the future of business success. That’s why strategic organizations must work with automation partners to discover which tasks are fit for humans and which can best be automated through the latest innovations. The best way to begin is by implementing a process discovery tool like Disqover from qBotica. With process discovery, businesses can map out every essential workflow, identifying how to optimize their workforce while maximizing AI opportunities.

By 2025, the world’s data repository will reach 175 zettabytes. The bulk will be unstructured like images, emails, and PDFs, requiring intelligent software to organize the data into actionable insights. Fortunately, Intelligent Document Processing (IDP) technology already exists to meet this incredible need. IDP offers a variety of public and private sector uses, and organizations are starting to take notice.

Here we’ll review Intelligent Document Processing basics, how the technology works, and the real-world applications it offers for businesses today.

What is Intelligent Document Processing?

Intelligent document processing (IDP) uses artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning algorithms to read, understand, and extract data from documents. The software then organizes and validates the data to reveal actionable insights.

IDP applications are critical in paper-reliant industries, such as insurance, healthcare, banking, finance, and government. With incredible efficiency and accuracy, the technology easilyprocesses unstructured data, such as invoices, sales orders, and customer correspondence. As a result, businesses find they can do more with fewer resources or devote current resources to higher-level tasks.

Companies can train IDP systems to read various documents, such as receipts, tax forms, ID cards, contracts, invoices, etc. Different industries can also customize the systems to extract specific data types based on what they need, such as names, addresses, dates, and prices.

How Intelligent Document Processing Works for Businesses:

Data collection:
The first step in intelligent document processing is to ingest data from a variety of sources, both digital and paper-based. Fortunately, most IDP solutions seamlessly unify with businesses’ existing programs. So, for instance, organizations can quickly integrate IDP software with their scanner system to automatically transform hard copies into digital format.

Pre-processing:
After IDP software collects the document details, it moves onto the pre-processing stage, where it analyses and cleans up the data, making it ready for further processing. Pre-processing involves several tasks such as Optical Character Recognition (OCR) for extracting text from images, de-skewing pages, image enhancement, and more.

Classification:
Next, IDP software identifies the document type, such as an invoice vs.a tax return, so that it can apply rule-based tasks. So after identifying a loan application, for example, the software automatically identifies personal information such as names, addresses, dates of birth, bank statements, tax returns, pay stubs, and credit history. Natural language processing algorithms help the software analyze these elements and ensure it only captures relevant data.

Extraction:
After classification, IDP systems start extracting information using various methods like template-based extraction, rules-based extraction, and machine learning. For example, machine learning models use pre-processed and classified documentation to gather detailed information, such as dates, names, or figures. The aim is to automatically pull out all the critical data points from the document so they can be stored for further analysis.

Post-processing and validation:
After the extract, machine learning IDP models clean up the data. For example, the software can correct common misspellings or adjust words to standard formatting. Ultimately the software conducts several manuals and automated validation checks to verify the accuracy.

Integration:
Traditional document capture systems extract data and drop the information into content management systems with no ability to deliver insights. Modern IDP software, however, integrates with a variety of downstream applications (like ERPs) and workflows (like loans management) where it can help businesses make informed decisions. For example, using embedded AI tools, IDP software automatically identifies related data within enterprise content management systems, like ERPs, or even predicts whether the loan will be approved.

The Technologies behind Intelligent Document Processing

The technology pillars powering IDP include artificial intelligence and optical character recognition (OCR), which contains several subdisciplines of AI, such as computer vision (CV) and natural language processing (NLP). In addition, intelligent document processing solutions work well with robotic process automation(RPA). Let’s look at each technology in further depth.

• Optical character recognition: Optical character recognition (OCR) converts typed, printed, and handwritten text into a computer-readable form. Although OCR solutions have some intelligence, they merely interpret what they “see” and thus only decipher the documents’ meaning. As a result, OCR relies on AI to derive insights from the data.
• Computer vision: Computer vision (CV) is a subset of AI that deals with understanding and extracting meaning from digital images. Unlike OCR, which focuses on text recognition, CV can analyze the layout of a document to identify and extract data from non-textual elements like tables or graphs.
• Natural language processing: Natural language processing (NLP) is a subset of AI that extract meaning from unstructured data. So instead of staff spending hours sifting through support tickets to find common challenges, NLP allows businesses to see the data in seconds. Companies often combine NLP with OCR to improve accuracy
• Artificial intelligence: Artificial intelligence is the science of building, training, and deploying software models that mimic human intellect. AI models can make their own judgments and predictions once trained on vast historical data. As a result, the models learn to “understand” imaging information and investigate the significance of textual information like people do.
• Robotic process automation: Robotic process automation complements Intelligent Document Processing (IDP) since it is not a part of the technology stack. RPA bots can execute activities such as transaction processing, data manipulation, triggered responses, and interaction with other business IT systems.

Intelligent Document Processing Applications Across Industries

Intelligent document processing (IDP) solutions are designed to meet the specific needs of individual businesses and industries.

Accounting
Accounting is a field that generates significant paperwork and documents. With IDP technology, organizations can rapidly extract data and use it to make the best decisions.

For instance, businesses can teach IDP software to identify aspects of invoices and automatically extract key details like date, price, and vendor name. With that, teams can drastically improve efficiency, and businesses can save significant costs.

We saw this first hand after implementing DoqumentAI in a global organization’s accounts payable department. By cutting manual processing requirements, we helped the organization gain 95% time savings and significant cost savings.

Medical Records:
Practitioners struggle to organize vast amounts of patient information while simultaneously running busy practices. Performing administrative tasks, managing medical records, and ensuring that document processing is HIPAA-compliant while seeing patients is daunting. That’s why typical physicians spend more than two-thirds of their time doing paperwork! Fortunately, Healthcare institutions using IDP solutions may seamlessly organize records and diagnostics, access the information, when needed, and harness AI to improve patient treatments and outcomes.

Transportation & Supply Chain:
Supply chain companies can use Intelligent document processing (IDP) to streamline many operations. For example, IDP can automatically extract data from shipping documents, which can then be useful to track shipments and inventory levels. IDP can also generate bills of lading and process customs declarations, so goods travel faster across borders. And those examples just scratch the surface of IDP supply chain capabilities.

qBotica’s IDP solution, DoqumentAI, helped a Supply Chain Software company process 500+ documents daily so it could vastly improve its customer quoting process. The machine learning-powered software rapidly read through customer emails, interpreted the requests, extracted the valuable content, and instantly prepared quotes with the help of automated robots.

Getting Started with IDP

Getting the correct data to the right people at the right time is critical for success, whether through analytics or document archiving. Fortunately, IDP solutions help organizations automate and streamline various workflows, saving significant time and money. Additionally, by harnessing AI, IDP helps businesses make smarter decisions, opening new profit opportunities.

Schedule a demo with our team today to see how IDP can benefit your unique business needs.

Modern society depends on energy, gas, water, and waste management to function. Every household and individual also rely on these services, making Energy & Utilities (E&U) one of the most important industries in the world. Still, consumers expect energy and utility companies to operate efficiently, cost-effectively, and as sustainably as possible. This has led many energy and utility companies to invest in RPA technology.

According to Capgemini’s Research Institute, intelligent automation at scale may save the Energy & Utilities industry between$237 billion and $813 billion in costs. However, only 23% percent of energy and utility firms in the US have implemented sophisticated large-scale automation programs. That leaves significant room for improvement and enormous potential impact on global society.

Here’s a closer look at how RPA can help energy and utility companies catapult into the future.

What is RPA, and how can it help Energy Companies?

RPA, or robotic process automation, is a type of software that helps businesses automate repetitive tasks. A company can configure RPA software “bots” to mimic human actions, such as opening and closing applications, filling out forms, and extracting document data. In the energy industry, RPA bots can improve operations by automatically processing transactions, optimizing customer service, and eliminating errors. RPA bots can operate 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, without breaks.

Utility companies that adopt automation notice significantly fewer mistakes. Fewer errors mean happier consumers, which is critical for energy and utility firms to gain a competitive edge. United Utilities, for instance, invested in ten high-tech robots to “revolutionize” its service offerings. As a result, the company sped up the customer onboarding process by over 50 percent and improved accuracy using RPA bots to input data into its Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system. Ultimately United Utilities’ customers received water service much quicker and with fewer issues.

In the past, only large companies used RPA because of the high software costs and hefty resource requirements. However, cost and complexity are no longer issues. RPA software today doesn’t require businesses to change their current IT systems or invest in techy programmers to manage the solutions. Thanks to the latest advances, RPA software is more affordable and accessible than ever.

RPA Use Cases in Energy & Utilities

Now is the time for energy businesses of all sizes and budgets to take advantage of RPA’s vast array of uses.

Meter Reading Validation
Energy and utility companies must validate a massive number of meter readings every day before billing a customer for usage. This process is essential, but it is also time-consuming, error-prone, and expensive. Employees typically handle this process manually, often misspelling a client’s name or entering inaccurate usage data. This results in incorrect billing that under or overcharges the customer. Mistakes like this can damage a business’s reputation and leave money on the table.

RPA technologies like DoqumentAI can help by automatically verifying meter readings against various data sources, including previous readings, customer usage patterns, and weather data. Furthermore, when RPA bots discover a deviation, they immediately flag it as a signal that something is wrong, instructing human employees to solve the problem. This process significantly improves accuracy and efficiency while reducing costs.

Billing and Statements
Utility companies issue numerous bills and statements to customers every month. This can be a time-consuming and error-prone process, mainly when done manually. RPA can help automate this process, ensuring that energy companies quickly and accurately issue bills, so their staff can focus on higher-level customer relations. RPA can also automatically flag anomalies, such as incorrect amounts or late payments, helping employees identify and prevent problems early.

EDF Energy, for example, harnessed RPA to optimize billing services across its retail electricity, generation, and nuclear and renewable energy businesses. In the process, it saved 70 hours a month in the pilot stage alone. After the first year, it expected to save 18,000 hours annually. EDF said it earned six times the ROI in time and money by automating eight of its previously manual tasks.

New Account Setup
One of the most time-consuming and tedious tasks for customer service representatives (CSRs) is setting up new accounts. This task generally requires CSRs to input the same information into multiple systems, leading to error and needless duplication of efforts.

RPA can automate account setup by integrating with various back-end systems (e.g., CRM, ERP, etc.) and capturing customer data from forms or emails. Bots can then enter this information into relevant systems without human intervention. RPA can also handle tasks such as password reset and account verification.

This is a win-win for customers and businesses. Customers get their accounts set up faster and with fewer errors, while companies can free up CSRs to do more ROI-focused tasks.

One company that has seen the benefits of RPA is Energy Australia, one of the largest energy retailers in the country. Energy Australia used RPA to automate the process of creating new customer accounts. As a result, the company reduced its account set-up time by 30%.

Managing technical support and improving retention
Energy companies must monitor persistent customer complaints, including account set-up issues, billing difficulties, and service outages. Fortunately, RPA can help by automatically logging, tracking, and resolving many of these standard queries, allowing reps to focus on more complex issues that require human intervention.

RPA can also help energy and utility companies proactively prevent customer churn by identifying patterns that could indicate a risk. Employees can then use this information to enact preventative measures, like offering discounts or reaching out to provide personalized service.

Energy companies can also use RPA with AI technologies for more advanced capabilities. For example, AI-based sentiment analysis can evaluate customer inquiries to determine if the person is asking a question or initiating a complaint. This analysis enables customer service reps to prioritize meaningful support to people who need it most.

Customer Onboarding
RPA technology can help energy companies automate customer onboarding by entering data into the CRM quickly and accurately. Automated bots can check and update the information provided, compare it to the parameters set, and send notifications if any errors occur. This process ensures energy companies make the right first impression on customers, further supporting long-term retention.

Why RPA is Essential for Energy and Utility Companies

Analyze Data Patterns
RPA robots can tell businesses how long it took to process an order, how many outstanding transactions there are, and the procedures that caused exceptions and necessitated human intervention. Additionally, RPA can also analyze the data to help businesses quickly identify process improvements. The best RPA platforms, such as Disqover, have built-in analytics tools, allowing energy companies to turn data into action by:

• Understanding which processes are most time-consuming and resource-intensive
• Identifying process improvements that will have the most significant impact on efficiency
• Benchmarking a company’s performance against industry standards

Streamline Joint Ventures
Corporations frequently establish joint ventures in the oil and gas sectors to minimize risk, meet regulatory standards, optimize supply chains, and share access to technology, capital, and resources. To operate effectively as partners, these organizations must integrate their technological platforms. RPA can quickly and easily do this, helping each company to streamline communications and optimize performance.

Improve Customer Service
RPA can automate tasks such as handling customer inquiries, providing information about outages and billing, and issuing refunds. This frees up employees to provide higher-quality assistance. It allows energy companies to scale up and handle more inquiries with the same or fewer number of employees.

Reduce Operational Costs
Using robots to execute repetitive tasks can result in significant operational savings for energy companies. For example, qBotica recently implemented an Invoice Processing Automation solution at a Global Energy Company. As a result, the company gained 95% time savings and a considerable cost reduction. Additionally, RPA can reduce operating costs by monitoring equipment and scheduling proactive maintenance before machinery breaks down.

Improve Accuracy and Compliance
RPA can also help to improve precision and compliance. For instance, RPA can automate matching invoices to purchase orders and flag any discrepancies to ensure accuracy. In addition, RPA can automatically generate reports on energy usage to help companies identify areas where they can improve efficiency.

Scalable and Adaptable to the needs of each Utility
Deployment of RPA is possible at any stage of a company’s digital transformation journey, from automating basic tasks to driving complex business processes. RPA is highly scalable and adaptable, making it an ideal solution for energy and utility companies looking to improve their operations.

The Future of RPA for Utilities

RPA is not a silver bullet, but it is a valuable tool to help energy and utility companies overcome many challenges and significantly improve ROI. Organizations that invest in RPA technology will be well-positioned to compete now and in the future.

Schedule a discovery call with us today to learn more about how RPA can streamline your business. Our team will be happy to answer any questions you may have.