Ask any business owner about what they spend most of their week on and the chances are, the answer won’t be “strategic decision-making”. Usually, it’s dealing with approvals, copying numbers between Excel spreadsheets, answering similar customer inquiries, and correcting all kinds of errors.
Years ago, the answer was obvious – regular automation tools and setting some instructions. It helped a little but had certain limitations. Today, there is another option to consider – super intelligent business automation. In this guide, we will tell you what it is and how it can be applied to your processes.
What Is Super Intelligent Business Automation?
Super intelligent business automation refers to the combination of automation tools and machine learning algorithms to automate work that required a human touch before.
In comparison with the regular automation tools that work according to certain predefined rules, super intelligent automation can not only perform actions according to the rules, but read information and extract it from documents, understand it, detect deviations, route it to relevant employees and even learn from them.
Compare a calculator and an accountant. The calculator will follow your command without fail. However, the accountant will understand the scenario and take sound decisions. Highly intelligent automation wants to do things similar to the way an accountant does.
Difference from Common Automation?
Routine task automation is perfect for common operations. However, the trouble comes with unpredictability, which may take the form of an invoice not conforming to any standard pattern or unusual wording from the customer’s side.
This is when super-intelligent solutions become useful. Here is a brief explanation of how they differ:
• Regular automation depends on predefined instructions. Super intelligent automation detects patterns.
• Basic automation processes only structured data. Super intelligent automation can process emails, messages, and documents as well.
• Basic automation requires regular updates. Super intelligent automation gets better with time.
• Basic automation solves tasks. Super intelligent automation provides insight into your decisions.
Technologies Working Behind the Scenes
You don’t have to be an expert in this field to take advantage of it, but knowing the basic components will help you know what to ask for when making your selection.
Robotic Process Automation and AI in Business
Robotic process automation makes use of software “bots” that can do repetitive digital activities such as typing, transferring files, filling in forms, and others. Robotic process automation alone is helpful, but has limitations. However, if one combines RPA with AI in business, then these bots can do much more. They can now interpret documents, understand languages, deal with exceptions, and RPA does the work.
Smart Process Automation for Business
Smart process automation means that the system can control all process stages, including signing a new customer, order handling, and support ticket management. The technology doesn’t automate each small process stage but links the whole process chain and makes decisions on the go, notifying you and your team only if it requires human input.
Automated Business Intelligence
Data collection isn’t the problem. It’s interpreting that data that’s tough. Automated business intelligence collects data from your various applications, cleans it, and presents it in the form of reports and dashboards, all without you having to manually build those each and every week. You go from crunching numbers to analyzing them.
Automated Business Intelligence
There is a little subtlety in this matter, but it is important. Whereas business intelligence automation deals with the creation of insights quickly, automated business intelligence involves their implementation. If there are low inventories of your best-selling product on your dashboard, for instance, this does not just generate an alert message; rather, it will trigger an automatic ordering process.
Real-World Applications
We’ll look at some examples in real life.
Financial departments: These are some of the invoices which have many different formats. This system is capable of processing them automatically, capturing data from them, correlating them with orders and identifying discrepancies. What took an entire day to be accomplished is now achieved within a few minutes.
Customer service: In place of having every individual message assigned to a particular individual, intelligent automation understands what the client needs, answers all the most commonly asked questions and routes difficult questions to the appropriate individuals.
Sales and Marketing: Leads are sorted automatically based on how they behave, follow-ups are sent at the appropriate time, and time is spent with the people who want to buy from your organization.
HR and Operations: Onboarding paperwork, leave paperwork, and equipment setup paperwork can work independent of each other such that new employees have an easy first week at the job.
The Advantages for Your Company
If performed correctly, superb intelligent business automation may provide you with:
1. Time saved. Your team will stop spending their time on boring tasks and devote themselves to creative tasks.
2. Less errors. Machines are not getting tired and distracted as humans are, thus the quantity of errors becomes lower.
3. Immediate action. Having all the information updated, you will not need to wait for monthly report to understand the situation.
4. Less costs. It is easier to perform some tasks automatically, so less manual work is required, resulting in less costs.
5. More scalable system. You will be able to take care of more clients and deals without additional hiring of new specialists.
6. Happier employees. No one dreams of spending their time on boring copy-paste tasks.
How to Begin without Getting Overwhelmed?
The first and foremost thing which a company usually does wrong is trying to automate all things at once. But a less brutal approach might be something like this:
Step 1: Find out the pain areas in your organization. Simply asking your employees which tasks take their time or are repetitive would give you a point of entry.
Step 2: Think smaller. Choose one business process and automate it, such as invoicing or lead nurturing.
Step 3: Organize information in your organization. Intelligent processes are only as smart as the data they analyze.
Step 4: Involve people in decision-making. Intelligent automation should assist your people when it comes to decision-making.
Step 5: Measure your results. Count your savings in terms of time, mistakes and costs and let these numbers serve as a basis for your future automation endeavors.
Answers to Common Questions
Can it replace my staff?
No, in the majority of cases. It strips away everything boring and leaves only those tasks that need imagination, compassion, and thought. Companies that implement the automation technology properly usually find themselves hiring more employees, rather than laying off some.
Isn’t it too costly for a small business?
No. The latest technology is much cheaper than it used to be a few years ago. Besides, most companies start implementing new tools step-by-step, thus paying for only the things that are necessary.
Isn’t it complicated to integrate?
Yes, if you do it all on your own – that’s why having a technology partner makes such a huge difference. The right technology team will analyze your processes first and then implement the system accordingly.
Closing Words
Very advanced automation in the business space is not some sci-fi concept only large companies are capable of implementing. It is a realistic, attainable means to reduce busywork, prevent errors, and create more space for your team to perform at its best.
The right time to get started is now, starting with just one process.
If you are interested in learning how all of that could be implemented in your own business, the Aura Flow Tech professionals will be glad to help you out with that.