Unlocking the Power of Hyperautomation in Finance

The pandemic has been a catalytic moment for businesses when it comes to digital transformation, especially for financial services. Volatility has been one of the defining features of the finance sector over the last 18 months. To navigate the challenges of such a rapidly changing consumer landscape, companies have had to utilise the right digital solutions to remain competitive. When financial services look to accelerate their digital transformation plans in a post-COVID world, they must quickly recognise the importance of hyperautomation and the benefits it provides. In April, Gartner predicted that the worldwide market for technology that enables hyperautomation will reach $596.6 billion in 2022. Hyperautomation is no longer a choice, rather a condition of survival.

Defining hyperautomation

Hyperautomation brings together capabilities including machine learning, process mining, RPA, API integration and intelligent workflow orchestration to replace high levels of complexity with 80%+ automation of the delivery of services to customers.

The key to success is actionable integrated data. Fragmented data and isolated systems are the enemy of hyperautomation, and data lake technologies don’t put the data that they hold into the hands of your employees in the workflow. The ability to integrate rapidly to modern and old systems, bringing together process-related data into one place where intelligent automation technologies can be effectively IT leaders must therefore recognise applied is the key to delivering actionable automated workflows and that hyperautomation is crucial to successful outcomes. Too many achieving business outcomes. It financial services organisations empowers people and businesses continue to deploy a ‘sticking plaster, hybrid-technology approach’ to to delegate the authority of decision achieve their automation goals, inmaking to intelligent applications, advertently creating yet more techphysical robots and software service nical debt and islands of data. assistants. Once technology that Delivering intelligent automation enables hyperautomation has been The financial services industry is implemented then financial services full of complex processes, transorganisations will begin to enjoy actions and payments connecting customers, buyers, traders, regtangible benefits. ulators and other stakeholders. Automation is crucial for firms to deliver a seamless customer experience, but legacy systems complexity often leaves high levels of human-dependent process management, while traditional business process management technologies, RPA and low

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code app development continue to contribute to a sub-optimal fragmented systems landscape. In these firms, engineers have traditionally wrestled with complex architecture and integrations trying to join systems that were never designed by vendors to work seamlessly together.

Hyperautomation can empower these organisations and reduce manual input while ensuring high-quality results on front and back-end processes. The combination of RPA with ML and AI is the core enabling technology behind hyperautomation and the reason behind its intelligent automation. It allows companies to automate in places that weren’t previously possible, namely undocumented processes that rely on unstructured data inputs.

For instance, if a bank’s customer requires a refund of a direct debit that should not have been paid, they contact the bank to recover the funds from the vendor. Hyperautomation streamlines the tasks involved within this request by automating data validation, making the processes quicker, more consistent, and less prone to error. Not only will this speed up digital processes but removing human intervention will dramatically reduce operating costs in the longer term. By combining hyperautomation technologies with redesigned operational processes, businesses are predicted to lower operational costs by as much as 30% in the next three years.

Upgrading customer experiences

Streamlining back and front office processes will inevitably lead to a much more efficient customer experience. Removing human intervention not only speeds up the delivery of customer requests, such as refunds or complaints, but also eliminates any chance of human error through automated workflows.

Firms which embrace hyperautomation can create a simplified platform environment that is natively integrated, integrates quickly to other systems and combines the best that humans and machines have to offer in the ultimate delivery of service to customers. They monitor and adapt their processes in real-time, evolving quickly depending on changing customer and business demands. Bringing data together in one place has the added benefit of effective fraud monitoring, a single view of the customer and the ability to apply predictive analytics to spot patterns and avoid issues before they occur.

Hyperautomation can also create customised products, tailored services and highly responsive omnichannel customer services that are available 24 hours a day. By removing cumbersome, repetitive tasks, employees can focus their time on tailoring their products and services for their customers. Additionally, more time and opportunities can be opened up for new innovation and digital transformation, which are crucial components for organisations to stay competitive and agile, particularly amid the pandemic. If business agility is the marker of success, then real-time data analytics is the key to this. Businesses often fail to identify where their inefficiencies lie due to a lack of data analysis, which is particularly frustrating in the financial sector given the vast amount of transactional data available.

Hyperautomation can help IT decision makers unleash the true potential of data by deriving insights that enables them to understand current business trends and make predictions about future outcomes. This means they are well placed to refine their automated processes and make the necessary course corrections. Companies can therefore adapt in real-time and evolve depending on the changing consumer landscape.

Furthermore, banks can utilise the AI algorithms and ML technologies built into hyperautomation to efficiently monitor all monetary transactions and proactively identify any fraudulent activities. Machine learning predictive models built with advanced modelling techniques can predict the probability of fraudulent transactions, minimising risks for customers.

Automation built for the future

Given the abundance of operational business benefits available, it’s difficult to overstate just how important hyperautomation will be for financial services over the next few years. Rather than just automating manual tasks, it will take a company’s ecosystem of technologically advanced tools and merge them to create a truly interconnected workflow solution.

Hyperautomation was created so that low-value tasks can be performed with automation tools, advanced AI and ML, so that outputs can be created automatically and run productively with virtually no human input. It is designed to grow alongside a business and will create a working ecosystem that is constantly educated, agile and ready to utilise data and insights for quick and accurate decision-making. Hyperautomation will deliver intelligent automation that is built for the future, especially as financial services look to keep competitive in a post-COVID economy.

Keith Pearson, Head of Financial Services GTM, ServiceNow

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https://www.gartner.com/en/newsroom/press-releases/202104-28-gartner-forecasts-worldwide-hyperautomation-enablingsoftware-market-to-reach-nearly-600-billion-by-2022 https://www.gartner.com/en/newsroom/press-releases/202104-28-gartner-forecasts-worldwide-hyperautomation-enablingsoftware-market-to-reach-nearly-600-billion-by-2022