The Benefits and Challenges of Hyperautomation for IT Leaders
Hyperautomation is the use of automation technology to streamline any and every process possible in an organization, enabling repetitive processes to run without manual intervention. Hyperautomation uses artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning and robotic process automation (RPA) to transform modern and legacy processes and equipment. This digital transformation can help an organization gain cost and resource efficiencies that enable it to thrive in a more competitive landscape.
Benefits of Hyperautomation
Some of the major benefits of hyperautomation are:
- Efficiency: Hyperautomation can help organizations automate many processes across their business, from simple tasks like data entry and invoice processing to complex ones like customer service and decision making. This can save time, reduce errors, and improve productivity.
- Optimization: Hyperautomation can help optimize workflow allocation by ensuring repetitive tasks are completed consistently and efficiently, freeing up human workers to focus on more creative and strategic work. This can also enhance employee satisfaction and retention.
- Innovation: Hyperautomation can help foster innovation by enabling organizations to leverage digital technologies like AI and machine learning to automate tasks that were previously impossible or impractical. This can also help organizations discover new insights, opportunities, and solutions.
- Agility: Hyperautomation can help increase agility by allowing organizations to adapt quickly to changing customer needs, market conditions, and business goals. This can also help organizations respond faster to disruptions, threats, and opportunities.
Challenges of Hyperautomation
Some of the common challenges of hyperautomation are:
- Measurement: Hyperautomation projects require clear and measurable objectives and outcomes, as well as effective methods to track and evaluate progress and performance. This can be challenging when dealing with complex and dynamic processes that involve multiple stakeholders, systems, and data sources.
- Timeline: Hyperautomation projects require realistic and achievable timelines that account for the scope, scale, and complexity of the processes to be automated. This can be challenging when dealing with legacy systems that may not be compatible or interoperable with modern automation technologies.
- Leadership: Hyperautomation projects require end-to-end leadership that can oversee the entire project lifecycle, from planning and design to implementation and maintenance. This can be challenging when dealing with organizational silos, cultural barriers, and resistance to change.
- ROI: Hyperautomation projects require accurate and transparent calculation of return on investment (ROI), both tangible and intangible, that can justify the costs and risks involved. This can be challenging when dealing with uncertain or intangible benefits, such as customer satisfaction, employee engagement, or innovation potential.
According to Gartner, “Currently, many people touch products and produce before they reach their ultimate destination, but automated factories and farms will soon do most of the work, including farming, picking, packing and shipping. By 2025 more than 20% of all products and produce will first be touched by a human at the time of purchase.”
: Gartner. (2022). Gartner Top Strategic Predictions for 2023 and Beyond. Retrieved from https://www.gartner.com/en/doc/3988678-gartner-top-strategic-predictions-for-2023-and-beyond
Conclusion
Hyperautomation is a powerful and promising technology that can help organizations gain competitive advantage in today’s economy. However, it also comes with significant challenges that need to be addressed carefully and strategically. IT leaders need to understand the benefits and challenges of hyperautomation, as well as the best practices and tools to implement it successfully. By doing so, they can leverage hyperautomation to transform their business processes, improve their operational efficiency, and drive their innovation potential.