Among the business continuity trends of 2020’s pandemic, business automation surged. This pursuit of survival has morphed into a land grab for a competitive edge — likely exceeding Forrester’s now-conservative estimate of $12B global spend on robotic process automation services by 2023. Organizations of all sizes have embraced bot-driven digital transformation across departments to slim down operating costs and boost the quality of their results. But not all efforts have been successful — some have been quite the opposite.As organizations move forward, many have discovered the hidden but preventable costs that separate failed programs from successful ones.To avoid learning the hard way from common mistakes, here are some things your team can keep in mind if automating this year.
1. Never underestimate time-to-automate
From the start, many teams rely on estimated implementation timelines without accounting for processes that need additional prep work. Without taking the time to understand your processes, your automation may adopt inaccurate steps that are dated or simply not true to your real-world workflows. Unfortunately, an “agile solution” that takes over four times the estimated setup timeline can easily lose momentum. Teams feel bamboozled about why their pilot automation efforts take up to half a year when they expected under 2 months at most. It’s only natural that some would abandon these slow and costly efforts before reaching completion.To accelerate your efforts, knowing your processes is key. Employee interviews and other aspects of business process analysis (BPA) should be a consideration early into your plans.
2. Be sure processes are truly automation-ready
Knowing your processes can help you avoid another cardinal mistake in business automation: .Teams who adopt bot-driven workflows may be convinced that issues with quality and efficiency are resolved by eliminating human error. However, some use existing processes with baked-in human error. Now they produce poor quality in higher quantities.Naturally, organizations should be taking a deeper look at what their bots are being programmed to do. When picking the right processes for cost-effective automation, teams might see success with processes that:
