By Jakob Freund, CEO and Cofounder, Camunda
There’s a disconnect between how much teams invest in automation and the actual level of automation they achieve. In a recent report, 90% of IT decision makers said their organizations will increase investments in automation within the next two years, and yet, the overall level of automation has slightly decreased since last year. If investments continue to rise, why wouldn’t more processes be automated?
This lack of momentum is especially striking when you consider that almost all IT decision makers and business leaders (96%) said automation is vital to digital transformation. Current approaches are impeding progress instead of accelerating it. What’s going wrong, and more importantly, how do teams make sure their investments in automation are paying off?
1. Automation is viewed as a project, instead of a strategy
Many teams view automation as a series of isolated projects. In this approach, the focus is on identifying and addressing immediate issues or inefficiencies, employing quick fixes as needed. For instance, they might deploy RPA (Robotic Process Automation) bots to automate specific, straightforward tasks, inadvertently creating further operational silos and failing to achieve end-to-end automation. Consequently, these organizations may find themselves with numerous automation initiatives scattered across various teams, lacking a cohesive strategy and practically the ability to orchestrate multiple automation projects with each other.
In contrast, approaching automation strategically can lead to greater success at scale. A holistic, end-to-end automation approach seamlessly blends human workflows with automated processes, and effectively orchestrates processes spanning a wide array of endpoints. A study from Deloitte shows that 92% of advanced automation adopters use end-to-end automation as a part of their strategy now, or plan to within the next three years.
In addition, strategic teams align their automation efforts with key performance indicators (KPIs) and leverage the greater sum of all parts working together. Evaluating success means looking at not only the efficiency of the process itself, but also the tangible business value it contributes to the organization. Consider an insurance company seeking to enhance the efficiency of their claim processing. While speed is undoubtedly a crucial aspect, a business-oriented KPI aligned with this objective could involve reducing customer attrition rates. By measuring both speed and attrition, it’s easier to understand the business implications of automation.
2. Organizations lack an effective center of excellence
Some teams are unable to scale effectively because they don’t have a center of excellence (CoE) to “own” and accelerate their process automation efforts and scale the benefits of automation over time. Others might have a traditional, yet inflexible CoE model, where a single team assumes responsibility for all aspects of automation planning and implementation across the entire organization.
In contrast, within a modern and decentralized CoE framework, the primary focus revolves around empowering teams to achieve maximum success and promoting the widespread adoption of automation throughout the organization. Here are a few examples of how a decentralized CoE could accelerate automation:
- Solution Delivery: The CoE might assess the automation pipeline, collaborate with practitioners, or engage external partners to staff various projects. For instance, the CoE could offer guidance to project teams during the initial setup phase, provide valuable feedback, or assist in evaluating KPIs for continuous improvement.
- Technology Implementation: The CoE plays a pivotal role in assessing tools for the entire process automation lifecycle, including the decision of which tools to incorporate into the hyperautomation technology stack. This team also determines the technical operations model and manages architecture-related decisions. To scale more efficiently, the CoE can provide reusable components and libraries for sharing across different teams.
- Enablement and communication: Enablement might include defining the relevant skill sets in the organization, including finding gaps and building automation skills, and creating and maintaining best-practices. The CoE should also share successes both internally and externally to ensure that business stakeholders are aware of the opportunities to maximize automation across the organization.
3. Processes are too complex for current approaches
Most processes involve a wide range of endpoints – including people, systems, and devices. In fact, 60% of respondents in the State of Process Orchestration report estimated that 26 or more systems are involved in their organization’s automation implementation. Many teams contend with legacy systems or automated processes that involve human interventions, which only makes matters more complicated.
It’s not only the variety of endpoints involved in a process that contributes to its complexity. Sometimes the process itself follows an advanced logic. For example, multiple steps might need to be executed in parallel, or a process might require escalation after a certain amount of time.
Some teams may have the wrong technologies in place to support complex processes. Or they may not have a complete view into how their processes flow across different endpoints. To solve these problems, they need to properly orchestrate processes from end to end. The objective is to prevent process silos resulting from isolated, local automation efforts. A strategic orchestration approach helps organizations achieve uninterrupted and frictionless automation, even when dealing with the most intricate processes.
To sum up, scaling automation doesn’t have to be difficult. The key is to shift from viewing automation as individual projects to a comprehensive orchestrated strategy. Effective teams understand how to measure success, and also ensure that everyone in the company can use automation effectively. Additionally, they realize that complex processes with many endpoints can work better with careful planning and orchestration. By addressing these challenges, businesses can harness automation’s true potential to drive digital transformation.
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Jakob Freund is CEO of Camunda, which enables organizations to orchestrate processes across people, systems, and devices. Jakob is responsible for the company’s vision, strategy, and culture, and is the driving force behind Camunda’s global growth. He founded Camunda with Bernd Rücker in 2008 to help organizations become more productive and efficient, by providing the process orchestration capabilities that are essential for enterprise automation. Jakob was drawn to starting his own software business as a boy after reading a biography of Bill Gates and admiring his early work at Microsoft. He spent 10 years in the Boy Scouts which taught him some early lessons about leadership and influenced how he runs his company today. He holds an MSc in Computer Science, co-authored the book “Real-Life BPMN,” and is a sought-after speaker at technology and industry events.
