HOW TO WIN WITH AUTOMATION

BUSINESS PROCESS AUTOMATION HAS BECOME A BOON FOR COMPANIES LOOKING TO ADAPT AND RESPOND TO THE CHALLENGES INDUCED BY THE PANDEMIC.

The automation revolution is sweeping across enterprises in the Middle East, fueled by new technologies such as AI, ML, and robotic process automation. Business process automation might be nothing new, but the Covid-19 crisis has forced many companies to eye automation with renewed vigour to streamline operations.

As a result of the massive economic disruption caused by the pandemic, many companies are looking to reduce labor costs, which has triggered a huge demand for automation technologies. Industry experts say the business process automation market is going to witness a huge upswing in demand in the coming years, and a recent MarketsandMarkets report states the global BPA market size is expected to grow from $9.8 billion in 2020 to $19.6 billion by 2026.

“Organisations in the Middle East, Turkey, and Africa (META) are increasingly focusing on various automation strategies by leveraging technologies such as RPA, AI, and ML to improve efficiency and achieve better business and operational results. According to latest IDC CIO survey at an overall META level, RPA is ranked fourth among the emerging technologies where organisations across the region are planning to invest in significantly over the next 12 months,” says Manish Ranjan, Senior Program Manager for Software & Cloud at IDC Middle East, Turkey and Africa.

Reducing time and effort spent on repetitive, low-value tasks will free employees to focus on more strategic work. With AI/ML being the top investment area, META organisations are clearly aiming to implement more business and process automation to improve efficiency and outcomes. As deployments of AI and cognitive solutions based on machine learning increase, demand for intelligent solutions capable of self-learning and self-healing will rise from organisations looking to enable true digital transformation. Government, banking and finance, resource industries including mining, oil and gas, and utilities, and manufacturing are the leading industry verticals which are embracing business automation, he adds.

Ramprakash Ramamoorthy, Director of Research at ManageEngine, says modern-day technologies like AI have helped achieve new milestones in process automation. In fact, we’re moving beyond process automation and heading towards automation augmented with decisionmaking capabilities.

“The world has seen tremendous digital adoption during the pandemic, including an uptick in the number of digital-native or digital-first brands across segments. At this juncture, it only makes sense for digital organisations to use data to their competitive advantage. We are also at a stage where there is increased awareness of what data an individual or business generates, who has access to it, and how it is put to use,” he says.

Vaidy Panchabikesan, Regional Sales Director at Kissflow, comments: “Business process automation has been significantly growing and continues to empower employees, especially those who work remotely. As a result, this trend was accelerated by the pandemic and today, BPA technologies and automation strategies have been evolving

Manish Ranjan

as enterprises target long-term digital transformation.”

Due to drastic external changes, organisations have been forced to give up traditional, office-based operations and legacy systems and shift to remote work. Productivity and business continuity pressures have also significantly increased because of this. The post-pandemic world now revolves around online services and cloud-based products and through 2021, the pursuit of delivering better customer experiences continues to drive the businesses towards streamlining operations and embracing new digital processes, he says.

Automation is more of a strategy than just technology implementation, and CIOs now have the opportunity to leverage disruptive technologies to redesign business processes completely.

“Business Process Automation has become increasingly important in the quest by today’s enterprises to become digital businesses. The key to any digital transformation strategy is scaling a digital infrastructure footprint in an autonomous way based on end users’ demands. Every service provider or enterprise in the post-COVID-19 world, is looking for ways to implement their infrastructure into an auto-pilot mode to better focus on delivering services to their customers,” says Kamel Al-Tawil, Managing Director for Middle East and North Africa, Equinix.

Nabil Abbas, Principal at Booz Allen Hamilton, MENA, says most business process automation programs are likely to fall short of realising their intended ROI. “The misfortune is rarely attributed to the choice of automation technology or to the design of business processes, and rather it is the outcome of failing to comprehend and/or manage the change introduced by automation and its impact on people. The challenge of coping with change is particularly amplified with

Ramprakash Ramamoorthy Vaidy Panchabikesan

WHAT THE EXPERTS SAY

Businesses continue to struggle for automation to garner ROI. This is because, while data is present, a significant challenge that entities face is of utilising and benefiting from this data in terms of capturing and structuring it in a more clear, concise and organised manner to enable any AI implementation in a close to accurate manner. This challenge mandates automation to shift towards integration to capture data from different sources through IoT or standard integration to create an organised workflow that can best present and use this data efficiently, accelerating insights and actions.

Firas Saifan, managing director, Technology Strategies Middle East “Organisations are increasingly relying on automation technologies as it allows them to focus on core business functions, optimise operations, reduce costs, simplify and streamline processes, and increase efficiencies. One of the biggest trends in BPA is Robotic Process Automation (RPA) solutions. Customers are increasing their investments in RPA solutions as they look to address challenges such as achieving smoother workflows, delivering efficient services and automating repetitive tasks. Organisations are also turning to AI and machine learning technologies to automate processes. We are seeing increased use cases of RPA across industries such as insurance, banking and finance, healthcare, telcos and government.”

Sakkeer Hussain, director of sales and marketing, D-Link Middle East and Africa

Kamel Al-Tawil

Nabil Abbas

technologies such as RPA and CPA, which can and ultimately will reconfigure jobs and their requirements within the organisation. In such cases, the scope of change can be overwhelming to people and have strong implications on organisational culture.”

He says the key to an effective automation strategy is, therefore, avoiding a myopic view of change byproduct. For any business process automation program to succeed, significant effort and time should be put into enabling cultural adoption and adaptation across the organisation with a new work mode.

Almotaz Salameh, Major Accounts Leader at UiPath, says: “While there is no one-size-fits all recipe for a successful automation journey, we are seeing an emerging framework for adoption that successful companies are leveraging. The first step is to find and prioritise high-value automation opportunities via centralised governance. Secondly, it is important to democratise the generation of automation ideas. One approach is to encourage employees to suggest and build automations themselves – and thus become citizen developers.”

For a successful deployment, enterprises should create a hybrid model of adoption that combines top-down and bottom-up approaches. Bringing both centralisation and democratisation of automation into a hybrid approach unlocks what we call the ‘automation flywheel’. The automation Center of Excellence (CoE) sets things in motion by building and distributing automations. Once employees start using them and get used to working with software robots, they will use their in-depth knowledge of the processes to generate automation ideas. With support from their IT department, the more tech savvy of employees can start building those automations themselves, he comments.

According to Vijay Jaswal, CTO of Software AG Middle East and Turkey, selecting the correct process is absolutely key. “You have to ensure sufficient analysis has been done on the process to ensure you are not automating a process that is inefficient. Also, it would help if you had a strong executive sponsor and ensure correct and relevant stakeholders are involved. These should include SMEs as well as the IT team.”

How can CIOs determine which business processes can be simplified with automation?

Al-Tawil from Equinix says although many businesses have already embarked on their digital journey to tackle the issues brought about by the global pandemic as remote operations, it is critical for digital leaders to take a step back, consider the broader picture and rethink their strategies. “At the end of the day, digital transformation is all about boosting business agility, optimising costs, and improving efficiency through automation. As markets become more global and interconnected, digital leaders need a clear vision of their future to ensure that the optimal digital infrastructure is in place to bring it to life,” he says.

Ranjan from IDC says the most important part of an effective automation strategy is to align with the organisational digital transformation initiatives and create a comprehensive and scalable automation plan. Identify the repetitive, mundane, and timeconsuming processes and tasks and work towards creating an agile, employee-friendly environment where these processes can be automated. Organisations need to define the business requirements and relevant use cases, determine what they want to achieve from process automation, and then create an effective implementation plan.

Panchabikesan from Kissflow says organisations with more automation have reported to see more value, higher customer satisfaction and enhanced productivity. For beginners, start by automating simple and trivial workflows that are not very crucial to business operations. This way, you can easily track the performance of your processes and gauge improvements.

“Typically, structured or IT-focused processes are focused on more when it comes to automation. But it is worth noting that less-structured processes are equally important to ensure overall business success,” he sums up.