For years, automation has become more and more common in the business operations of organizations in the public and private sectors. But since the pandemic in 2020, that trend has picked up a great deal of steam.
It can be argued that the main reasons for this are the increased availability and effectiveness of artificial intelligence (AI) products and the willingness to re-examine processes and workflows in a world where remote and hybrid workforces are more and more often considered the norm.
Business hyperautomation is the result of the confluence of these changes in tech and philosophy. Instead of focusing on automating simple tasks, hyperautomation takes a wider view and uses intelligent technology to find ways to link different automations into a well-oiled machine of efficiency.
Some people might boil hyperautomation down to a narrow definition, like calling it AI-powered process automation. And that’s certainly a part of what hyperautomation is but that doesn’t paint the entire picture.
Normal automation takes very specific, simple, repetitive, rules-based tasks and utilizes software to accomplish those tasks. These tasks will typically be the kinds of things that consume a great deal of time for a human to do—keeping them from focusing on higher-level tasks.
Hyperautomation combines multiple tools to allow the automation of more complex tasks. So instead of part of a workflow here or there being automated, large, interconnected parts of that workflow can be automated—creating a much smoother process for your team.
In order to implement a digital transformation strategy that will facilitate a move to hyperautomation, it is important to know what will be powering your new processes. Hyperautomation uses multiple tools together, so just what tools are at play?
AI plays a major part in business hyperautomation. AI serves as a kind of technological hub for everything else in your system. Utilizing the power of a large language model, generative AI program, your system can intelligently identify and categorize documents and then apply the proper tools and skills needed to move those documents through your workflows without forcing your team to dedicate significant percentages of their bandwidth to those processes.
Arguably the backbone of automated workflow design, RPA uses bots to take standardized inputs and run them through a specific sequence to complete a task. If processing a document requires specific data points to be extracted and plugged into specific applications for analysis, RPA can be used to grab that data and put it where it needs to be.
OCR and NLP are tools that allow your automation capabilities to expand into the realm of business hyperautomation. OCR converts data into usable objects while NLP sifts through the context of a document to identify data that may otherwise have been missed. When these technologies work in conjunction with each other, you gain the ability to extract data from any kind of document—be it structured, semi-structured, or unstructured.
Part of hyperautomation is finding new areas to automate. Machine learning technology allows your intelligent document processing software to analyze its performance and find opportunities to streamline current automations or to facilitate process mining for automation—digging into your processes and workflows to identify areas that are not automated that could be.
When embracing business hyperautomation, you need your platform to be able to adjust to new requirements as your business expands. Eventually, you will encounter a new type of document or automation opportunity that does not have an associated pre-programmed skill or tool. A platform that facilitates the creation of new skills by citizen developers thanks to its low-code/no-code functionality is invaluable in that scenario.
Hyperautomation combines AI, RPA, OCR, NLP, and ML (so many acronyms, I know) in a low-code automation platform, but how does that translate into the day-to-day operations of a company?
Here are a few use cases that help demonstrate hyperautomation benefits in different scenarios:
Using AI powered tools to scan profiles on hiring websites or to sift through applications to check for keywords or listed requirements can save your hiring team loads of time. You can also automate response emails and offer letters.
Hyperautomation can also help expedite the onboarding process by extracting information from key documents (including government issued ID) and inserting that data into the proper forms for contracts and taxes.
Hyperautomation in financial services covers a wide swath of workflows and processes. From scanning loan applications to compiling reports for compliance agencies, a hyperautomated system can identify data coming in on any kind of document—even when that data has been written by hand—and put it into the correct workflow pipeline.
With the increase in online shopping, retail customer experience automation helps improve the shopping experience at the user end while improving efficiency on the business side. Hyperautomation in retail helps smooth out everything from order processing to inventory management to tracking logistics.
Healthcare process optimization can take a few different forms. It can look like an AI interface gathering information from an incoming patient to automatically submitting claims to insurance to collating patient information from all areas of a medical company.
When it comes to manufacturing automation solutions, they largely exist as supplements to the humans working on the floor. This can look like workflow monitoring or process mining to find more efficient ways to allow your human team to operate your manufacturing robots.
One of the great things about business hyperautomation is that it is designed to expand its capabilities alongside your organization. As new elements come into your processes and workflows, you can develop new hyperautomation skills to streamline them.
Part of your automation ROI calculation needs to be the cost of implementing your hyperautomation platform. The faster you can get these tools in play, the sooner you can reap the benefits.
If you look at one of the leaders in hyperautomation, ABBYY Vantage, you can see that it has been designed with ease of implementation in mind. In partnership with TEAM IM, an ABBYY Vantage Connector to M-Files was developed to simplify integration with that software—and connectors to other platforms can be built using the same principles.
One of the most important hyperautomation best practices is to work with a knowledgeable party initially to get you off the ground smoothly. After that, your team can likely handle most of the changes that come as your business grows.
But to begin with, you should work with experts like the group at TEAM IM. They know when to develop a new API and when to trust the software out of the box. And they’ve been engaged with the development of hyperautomation technology for years, so they know of what they speak.
The future of hyperautomation is the future of your business. Scalable hyperautomation systems will ensure that you don’t succumb to an increased risk of human error or an overwhelmed work force as your company expands its reach and product offerings.
Adapting and growing with your business is a feature of hyperautomation, after all. Leveraging the machine learning functionality and the low-code/no-code skill development capabilities, your hyperautomation platform was built with growth and iterative improvement in mind.
And you don’t need to go through a huge workforce transformation for automation since it is designed to help your human team, not replace them. Hyperautomation is about taking the time consuming aspects of your workflows off the hands of your team so that they can better use the skills you hired them for in the first place to help bring new innovations to your business.
By taking advantage of the ever expanding skills and abilities of business hyperautomation platforms like ABBYY Vantage, you give your organization a leg up on your competition. You take more full advantage of the abilities of your team members without burning them out on repetitive and labor intensive tasks.
Reach out to the experts at TEAM IM to see how you can take your process automation to the next level. Hyperautomation is one of the best things to happen in the world of business process optimization ever—don’t miss out on the benefits it can give to your business.