Automation plays a critical role in digital transformation. A recent McKinsey & Company survey found that about 66% of organizations are pursuing automation in one way or another. And most automation efforts rely on robotic process automation (RPA), low-code software tools that create functional bots in minutes.
The Real Benefits of Automation
According to industrial stats compiled by Zapier, companies are keen on automating everyday business tasks such as data entry, document creation and organization, lead management, and inventory management. And the new automation trend is not just for show; entrepreneurs are already seeing the value of automation first-hand, with many citing the following benefits:
- Improved employee experience and workplace morale
- Sharper competitive edge
- Boosted business growth
- Lower operating costs and better bottom line
- Increased productivity
- Faster processes
- Better customer support
- Less human errors
- Reduced lead generation time
- Better use of HR
Why Do You Need Process Mining?
The proliferation and value of automation are indisputable. The only problem is getting automation to work from a business value perspective. Although the technical part of automation is all figured out, many companies struggle to make the right automation decisions and reap the desired rewards. It can be tricky to figure out which processes to automate, the expected outcomes, and the governance around automation.
That’s where process mining (PM) comes in handy.
Process mining is the technique of discovering, monitoring, and optimizing business processes with automation, compliance, and efficiency in mind. It helps you understand your workflows, the interdependencies between different processes, and the costs (turnaround time, resources, staffing, etc.) of various tasks. From there, you can quickly identify the tasks worth automating and try out various automation strategies.
“Processes are complex; identifying opportunities for automation is not easy. Automation must be based on facts, and not only facts, but you need to be able to calculate the impact.” — Alexandre Lanoue, VP & Leader, Business Reimagination, SIA.”
When paired with process mining, RPA becomes a powerful tool for streamlining workflows, operating costs, and overall work efficiency. Furthermore, this combination brings value quickly—in a matter of hours or days. Once you’ve worked out an automation strategy with process mining, you can simply parse the parameters to the RPA tool, where you can build and test a ready-to-deploy bot in minutes.
Discover the Business Value of Process Mining and Robotic Process Automation
“The transformational power of RPA and process mining brings visibility, scalability, and governance to your automation programs. Yet, the key value drivers of those products transcend cost savings.” —Richard Theodore, Business Automation Leader, IBM.”
For starters, process mining helps you draw a path to business automation. So, by extension, process mining delivers the value of automation to your business, from minimizing risks and boosting productivity to increasing competitiveness. In addition to all that, here are five ways that blending process mining and RPA delivers business value:
Transformative Change
Process mining takes a more holistic approach to digital innovation. As a workflow optimization tool, process mining goes beyond automation. In fact, only a small portion of process mining activities involve automation; the most part focuses on re-engineering, standardizing, and optimizing core business operations. RPA is only useful when automation is needed for certain functions.
Crucially, process mining drives digital transformation in more ways than one. It’s a multi-faceted approach to streamlining not just individual business processes but the enterprise as a whole.
High Work Efficiency and Quality
Process mining and RPA equip your business with a digital workforce operating around the clock without compromising performance or quality. In essence, process mining helps you uncover inefficiencies, while RPA provides the tooling needed to resolve those inefficiencies.
Besides making better use of HR, another upside to replacing human effort in mundane and repetitive tasks is work consistency in terms of efficiency and throughput. For instance, a well-placed AI bot will yield the same reliable results every time while using much fewer resources than its human counterparts.
Reduced Automation Cycle Time
Digitization is a fierce race in the business world. Luckily, process mining can drastically accelerate your automation and digital transformation initiatives. For one, it takes only 1 – 3 months to implement RPA and PM offerings company-wide. And once implemented, PM and RPA start delivering tangible outcomes almost immediately. Second, it takes only days or even hours (depending on process complexities) to map out an automation path, build a working bot, test/simulate different automation scenarios, and deploy an effective solution.
Automation Scalability and Flexibility
IT solutions need to scale depending on dynamic digital needs. Implementing automation through process mining ensures that the resulting workflows and bots are highly adaptable to different scenarios. For example, RPA bots born from process mining can be designed with scalable capacities to handle fluctuating workloads and routines that accommodate a wide range of input parameters or constraints.
Improved Accuracy, Compliance, and Security
You can always rely on the discretion, accuracy, and obedience of well-built bots. Automating tasks via process mining ensures the workflow is optimized for security, governance, and compliance. That’s a big deal since it eliminates human error and data loss risks. And as long as the bots are properly configured, they’ll output accurate results every time without fail.
Claim the Value of RPA With IBM Process Mining
IBM Process Mining is a powerful business optimization tool that seamlessly integrates with the IBM RPA solution. This is the ultimate dynamic duo when it comes to enterprise automation and digitization. Countless companies, including banks, retail stores, HR agencies, and energy suppliers, continue to share incredible success stories of how implementing IBM’s automation systems helped them to:
- Reduce process lead time.
- Increase team productivity and capacity.
- Improve cash flow availability and the bottom line.
- Cut support ticket resolution time.
- Improve employee/customer retention management and costs.
- Save on employee effort in back-office and customer support tasks.
- Foster meaningful employee engagements.
- Enhance managerial decision-making.
The big takeaway here is that process mining is the key to successful business process automation. It points you in the right direction toward result-oriented automation initiatives. That’s why PM and RPA are inseparable.
The tech world can be confusing. While it’s important to keep up with new enterprise tech trends, methods, and strategies, it’s not always easy to figure out what really matters to your business. But do not worry; SIA Innovations is here to guide you in making the best digital investments for your company. Book a consultation with us and learn incredible new ways to drive business value through IT.
