Introduction to Our Intelligent Automation Journey
On a frequent basis, Peeriosity member companies share details and insights regarding their efforts in the Intelligent Automation [1] space in order to help other companies facing similar challenges. During a recent PeercastTM, a member company shared their experiences in implementing Robotic Process Automation (RPA) [2] in their Shared Services organization and what they have learned to this point in their Intelligent Automation journey.
Company Experience
The member company featured on the PeercastTM is a large global corporation with over 50,000 employees working in 50 countries. Their Intelligent Automation Center of Excellence (CoE) is one of five pillars found in their Automation & Process Optimization (APO) Eco System, along with ERP Process Deployment, ERP Data Governance, Control Configuration, and Process Engineering. This matrix framework has some key benefits, including an integrated process approach, an agile structure, robust solutioning, being quick to market, and providing financial leverage and resource optimization.
The company started its Intelligent Automation journey in late 2016 by investigating the capabilities of RPA and holding vendor meetings and product demos (including a proof of concept on their vendor master file) over the following several months until Automation Anywhere was selected as its provider in August 2017. The Automation Anywhere environments were stood up and configured a few weeks later, and resources were recruited for the RPA Team. An Intelligent Automation Solutions CoE was established in January of 2018 and the first automation went into production in February 2018. By the end of 2018, they had 15 automation in place, providing $3 million in benefits.
When assessing the viability of potential automation, a threshold requirement was that the benefits have to justify the creation and support of the automation. Those benefits can be hard savings, cost avoidance, and process productivity and are identified as part of a detailed automation assessment process.
Intelligent Automation is driving value at the company in the following ways:
- Higher Quality – Human errors are eliminated, compliance is improved, and there is higher staff satisfaction as the team can better focus on customer service.
- Productivity Boost – Average handling times have been reduced by 40% and are monitored around the clock.
- Cost Saver – An 80% reduction in processing costs in certain areas has been realized, with payback on the original technology investment occurring in months, not years.
- Implementation Speed – There is rapid implementation of new processes as process elements are often reusable among the different automation being implemented.
Additional details regarding the feature company’s journey, including a listing of assessment questions and metrics around the automation process, can be found on the Peeriosity member website.
Closing Summary
Our feature company provided members with another great example of what a focused effort on implementing Intelligent Automation can result in for a major corporation. Their obvious commitment from the inception of the project to make this effort a success has resulted in significant cost and productivity improvements, along with higher service quality results and increased attention by employees on customer service.
What is the status at your company regarding fully taking advantage of the benefits of Intelligent Automation? Is your current IA effort progressing at an acceptable pace or is an increased focus necessary to achieve your objectives in this area?
Who are your peers and how are you collaborating with them?
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“PeercastsTM” are private, professionally facilitated webcasts that feature leading member company experiences on specific topics as a catalyst for broader discussion. Access is available exclusively to Peeriosity member company employees, with consultants or vendors prohibited from attending or accessing discussion content. Members can see who is registered to attend in advance, with discussion recordings, supporting polls, and presentation materials online and available whenever convenient for the member. Using Peeriosity’s integrated email system, Peer MailTM, attendees can easily communicate at any time with other attending peers by selecting them from the list of registered attendees.
Peeriosity members are invited to log into www.peeriosity.com [3] to join the discussion and connect with Peers. Membership is for practitioners only, with no consultants or vendors permitted. To learn more about Peeriosity, click here [4].