Is “Hyper-automation” another buzzword, or does it provide significant solutions to real-world problems? To dive deeper, first, we’ll need to understand what this phrase actually means. It’s not a set of tools, nor hyper-automation is a process; rather, it is the combination of advanced technologies to help organizations automate every segment in an organization as much as possible. Hyper automation achieves this stance by utilizing AI (Artificial Intelligence), RPA (Robotic Process Automation), machine learning, NLP (Natural Language Processing), OCR (Optical Character Recognition), and as well as process mining.
By utilizing these techniques, businesses can automate their repetitive, rule-based tasks, make data-backed and informed decisions, and achieve optimization of end-to-end processes.
Difference between Automation and Hyper-automation
Isn’t the process of making mundane and repetitive tasks to be completed on their own accord known as automation? Well, yes, but that automation isn’t scalable, it can’t operate if the parameters of the task change or there are new inputs that have to be integrated into the process. Here is where Hyper automation comes into play; where it builds on this automation, makes sure that all automation work coherently, and scales the automation process by automating other processes and tasks as well as scaling up or down depending upon the need of the organization. While automation requires certain software such as bots to complete simple tasks, Hyper automation embraces a wider range as well as more complex tasks that involve multiple steps, data analysis as well as intelligent decision-making.
Now that we have built an overall understanding of Hyper automation and its uniqueness, we will go into the benefits of this technology and, finally, its implications in the world of business.
Benefits of hyper-automation
- Increased business agility:
As an organization grows, it presents its own challenges and complications that can prove to be a hindrance, but with hyper-automation, a business can ensure limitless growth and scalability. With intelligent automation tools, it makes it easier for enterprises to rapidly adapt to this ever-changing landscape, uncover new technologies and opportunities as well as evolve as an institution. - Data accessibility and storage:
In this digital age, where data has become the new oil, its accessibility, and storage are more important for organizations to utilize it to the fullest. Hyper automation is built on the premise of integration between software and processes, which allows enterprises to interact with data storing and on-prem infrastructure seamlessly. Hyper automation with the capabilities of Artificial intelligence and machine learning allows the formation of digital twins, which ultimately are virtual copies of assets and processes that are available physically. - Optimized for the future:
Unlike traditional automation techniques, hyper-automation is future-ready technology that can permit the machines to understand the working of business processes, assist in identifying a problem in them and optimize that problem and finally improve itself throughout the process. Through hyper-automation, organizations are ready for the future and can dive into future challenges without the fear of their technology and infrastructure going obsolete. - Improved analytics and insights:
Making use of large data sets to understand where the problem lies is time and resource-consuming; as a result, organizations fail to identify the inefficiencies. Hyper automation, with its machine learning capabilities and AI, can make use of the company data more effectively and provide deep analytics that not only helps businesses identify the problem but also help to visualize future problems that can arise to prepare the business better. - Decreased operational costs:
With hyper-automation, the need for labor to carry out repetitive tasks decreases, hence decreasing the overall employee expenditure. Moreover, with its capabilities to streamline processes, it also reduces process cycle time, providing faster and more cost-effective operations.
Hyper automation and its Implications in business
- Compliance and Risk Management:
Risk management and compliance play a vital role for organizations, especially in industries where regulatory frameworks shape how industries operate. Businesses, by leveraging the capabilities of hyper-automation, can simplify and accelerate the compliance process by automating the processes of checking the companies’ data, documents, and activities log against predefined compliance and regulations. Through its AI capabilities, it can predict future changes in rules and regulations that can possibly be implemented by regulators and help organizations better prepare themselves. Furthermore, hyper-automation tools can extract data from multiple data sources, perform analytics in a deeper extent and provide with comprehensive audit reports. Hyper automation enables organizations to have real-time risk monitoring capabilities, helping enterprises to intercept risks and problems. By mitigating risks, organizations can minimize financial losses as well as regulatory penalties. - Supply Chain and Retail:
Hyper automation makes use of AI and machine learning capabilities to access historical data, new market trends emerging, macroeconomic factors, production capabilities as well as consumer behavior to accurately predict the demand for products and services and Supply capabilities of organizations. With its real-time visibility and tracking, warehouses and goods in transit hyper-automation can have profound control over inventory levels and maintain optimal levels of inventory at all times to meet any unpredicted demand. Hyper automation, with its IOT (Internet Of Things) and AI, can have great insights on transport and logistics, and with its analytics, it can effectively optimize transportation and logistical operations to bring down overall costs down significantly. - Finance
Hyper automation automates the overall payment processes by carrying out invoice validation and fraud detection; through these, businesses can streamline the payment method and increase its efficiency by decreasing the overall wait time. Hyper automation, with its AI capabilities, can detect anomalies and patterns in financial statements to detect any possible case of fraud and notify the management. Through its machine learning and Artificial intelligence capabilities, it can carry out predictive analysis to uncover future business opportunities with the necessary capital needed to avail that opportunity with potential risks and expected ROI. Hyper automation enables the roles of robo-advisory platforms and helps organizations to create new venture spaces that were not possible before.
Though hyper-automation is fairly new the impact it is creating in the modern world is immense, and its implications in various industries are immense. Through this series of articles, we are going to dive deep into each specific industry and how hyper-automation is changing its landscape, as well as the potential dangers of this technology.
Written By: Abdul Ghafoor