Process-driven intelligent automation (RPA at scale)

What Problems does “RPA at Scale” Solve?

• You want to scale up your RPA capability and need a controlled, scalable approach.
• You do not know where to focus your RPA team’s efforts next.
• Existing automation solutions have not delivered the value you expected.
• You are swamped with an unmanageable portfolio of robotic process automations.

Process-driven Intelligent Automation (RPA at Scale)

Identify

Develop a controlled, strategically aligned approach for identifying and prioritising where to focus your automation efforts.

Assess Business Context & Priorities

Create visibility of your entire organisation through a process hierarchy and operating model.

Identify the most critical areas to focus automation efforts – highest strategic impact, lowest current maturity and biggest automation potential.

Survey business stakeholders for impact and maturity metrics, then capture this data in the operating model.

Capture End-to-End Process/Function

Create visibility of the end-to-end process with a high level framework and document this is a Value Added Chain Diagram.

Identify process owners and key subject matter experts.

Define

Create clarity around the business problem that a proposed automation will resolve, bridging the gap between IT and the business.

Discover As-Is Process

Use process mining to create visibility of how key systems are being used.

Create visibility of the stakeholder perception of current practices by modelling As-Is process models.

Control process information and ensure high data quality by using approval workflows.

Design Optimised (To-Be) Process

Analyse performance through process mining, identifying bottlenecks, failure points, and throughput time; benchmark against industry best practices to highlight the greatest improvement opportunities.

Review As-Is process models and data insights with SMEs to identify and validate pain points; engage a broader subject matter expert audience by using the workflow and collaboration portals.

Identify improvement ideas added by automation and design To-Be processes incorporating the feedback; validate and confirm the new process designs using approval workflows.

Handover non-automation improvement ideas to general Operational Excellence/Continuous Improvement teams.

Develop RPA Business Case

Build the business case for the proposed automation initiatives; use process simulation to quantify the potential improvement.

Create visibility of the upcoming automation interventions by overlaying them into the business processes.

Design RPA Interventions

Create Process Definition with Functional Requirements by capturing requirement information in your process models and creating a custom report template.

Create a Solution Design with technical requirement, identifying the technical interactions of the automation using Application Architecture.

Create

Support development and deployment of automation solutions through process to ensure a successful rollout.

Develop RPA Interventions

Identify opportunities for code reuse by referring to your process documentation to find relevant, existing automations.

Use your automation platforms to develop your interventions.

Test RPA Interventions

Reuse the To-Be process models and Solution Design to help define test scripts. Capture test script detail in your process repository and share this through reports or the collaboration portal.

Manage testing using workflow automation, sharing test scripts, logging results and managing feedback/approvals.

Deploy RPA Interventions

Create “New Way of Working” documents (SOPs, detailed work instructions, etc.) and train the organisation on the post-automation process; communicate the information through reports or a collaboration portal to ensure effective adoption.

Monitor process performance immediately following deployment to identify potential issues and resolve these proactively; process mining can be used to identify potential issues and thus enable this proactive rectification.

Evaluate

Monitor the performance of your automation interventions to ensure you are delivering effective, end-to-end transformation.

Close & Celebrate RPA Project

Revisit the business case; simulate or use process mining to quantify the post-automation process performance and compare this against the business case to measure success (benefits realisation).

Promote the quantifiable success of the automation to build excitement and buy-in to automation across your organisation.

Monitor the Automated Workforce

Monitor the overall performance of the end-to-end process using process mining; proactively identify issues or further improvement opportunities.

Process mining is superior to RPA performance monitoring capabilities offered by most RPA tools because it provides insight into the end-to-end performance and therefore the overall business impact. Looking exclusively at the performance of the automation can give an untrue indication of effectiveness; the up or down-stream impacts have the potential to negate any and all savings.

Foundation

Foster an environment conducive to effective automation by capturing organisation wisdom (best practices) and developing excitement to engage in automation.

Setup Governance for the Automated Workforce

Define the best practice processes for your team, capturing your organisational wisdom around automation. Then use this to ensure, as you grow your team, new personnel benefit from your accumulated knowledge.

Best practice processes also generate clarity around the role’s responsibilities for the increasingly discrete roles which will develop in your automation teams as they grow in size and maturity. As you continue to advance, create Organisational Models to structure your team and link these to your best practice processes.

Build Success-driven Process Automation Culture

Create visibility of quantifiable automation improvement using data analysis tools (e.g. process mining) and share these across the organisation to build awareness of the potential of automation.

Drive Continuous Improvement by having process stakeholders submit automation ideas and feedback through collaboration channels. This builds excitement for automation across the organisation and gives functions a sense of ownership which drives engagement.

Why is this Important?

• Highly automated companies are 6 times more likely to see revenue growth of over 15 % which means automation is principal to a modern organisation’s successful outcome, – ServiceNow.
• BPM is crucial to the success of automation. 72% of automation projects fail to deliver on time, on budget or on value. 75% of all failures are due to missing process leadership or missing employee process skills, – The complete process handbook.
• Without effective control, automation projects can magnify inefficiencies. As organisations scale up their automation initiatives, the potential to magnify inefficiencies also scales and can become a critical organisational risk. A wholistic automation management framework, underpinned by process, is the most effective way to manage the risks and maximise the value from growing automation capabilities.

Benefits of Our Approach

Scalability – this proven approach facilitates the growth of an organisation’s automation capability to a mature, enterprise-scale level.

Prioritised Automation – creates a framework for prioritising and managing your automation efforts to maximise value delivered.

Strategic Alignment – aligns automation and transformation with your strategic objectives, ensuring you deliver the change your organisation needs to compete.

Wholistic Improvement – avoid creating “automation siloes” and instead deliver improvement across your critical, end-to-end business processes.

Sustainability – create a solid foundation on which to grow your automation capability to ensure both current and future success.