A practical look at process automation – how to avoid common mistakes
Generate added value by focusing on corporate vision and customer benefit
In the digital economy, process automation is a critical factor for operational excellence. Intelligent systems take over some of the control of recurring everyday tasks. The key advantage: they are faster and more reliable. However, implementing software and AI for automation requires a focus on a clear business vision and fundamental customer needs. If you want to generate long-term added value, you should follow a few rules and critically question prevailing assumptions.
Index
Consistent standardization of processes is a must
One of the first and most important measures is the consistent standardization of the processes that are to be automated. A clearly defined and standardized approach ensures that all parties involved align themselves with the same strategic guidelines and align stakeholder needs with project plans or product use cases. This is the only way to establish the precise KPIs that are necessary for the sustainable measurement of a targeted increase in efficiency in process automation. However, this approach, which is actually quite clear, often proves to be more difficult than expected because contradictions lurk at every corner within the company. To uncover these, it is important to make possible conflicts of interest between departments transparent and to eliminate them so that they do not undermine the standardization.
Departments have their own logic, which they consider efficient from an internal perspective and are reluctant to give up. Established individual processes may well have been justified in the past, but they can be a hindrance to the technical transformation of the company as a whole and to the scalability of products. Furthermore, misunderstandings and errors can easily arise, especially in large companies, when different departments or teams have different approaches to overlapping issues. This results in an increased number of coordination loops between various groups, which in turn leads to an administrative overhead. To avoid knowledge loss due to decentralized agreements, clear goals should be set as guidelines, which in turn are derived from the corporate strategy. Departments must be included in this company-wide learning process.
Another problem is a lack of understanding of innovation and a lack of willingness to change. Standardization is often misunderstood as squaring the circle: the old world is to be transferred into the new without wastage. This does not succeed in most cases. Instead, process standardization should always be based on the lowest common denominator that adds value. The following concept is primarily about setting priorities and separating irrelevant process elements. Above all, leadership qualities are needed here: consciously taking responsibility, not being afraid of mistakes, and taking a direction that seems promising. If this turns out to be the wrong decision, countermeasures can still be taken at an early stage in an agile environment geared towards learning.
Automation only where it adds value
Leveraging automation potential can save costs and also make processes faster, leaner and more user-friendly. This makes customers and employees happy when it saves them unnecessary steps. But not all processes are suitable for automation. Often, companies overestimate how much can be achieved with automation. The main reasons for companies to use automation are often short-term goals such as cost reduction and increased efficiency, without considering long-term quality improvement or a broad vision. According to an IDG study, considerations of why, such as more freedom for innovation or an improved customer experience, play only a minor role.
Technical feasibility and business goals often clash when implementing automation. It becomes dangerous when entire areas are subjected to automation without detailed analysis of the expected business benefits: for example, manual steps are laboriously automated that are to be abolished in the long term anyway. Or it is not considered at all how many edge cases counteract the benefits of automating a standard solution in operational reality. The fact that automated systems do not come for free, but in the long term, in addition to software costs, also generate new manual effort in the form of maintenance, data management and product service, is often ignored. In the worst case, a solution is built that devours far too much cost, time and capacity for a small amount of added value, which, moreover, is not accepted by employees or customers.
A realistic comparison of benefits and costs is essential. Companies must ensure that the benefits of automation justify the investment. Misjudgements in this area can lead to financial problems that negatively impact the entire organization. Therefore, it is important to look closely and decide which processes can be standardized based on their rule-based logic. Processes that are not suitable for automation due to their complexity, instability, lack of maturity or scalability should remain manual – this is not a problem, because they can still be seamlessly connected to the automated landscape. These considerations should be embedded in a clear vision that sets the direction of the automation projects and supports the long-term goals of the company.
Formulating detailed requirements end-to-end
When it comes to automation, it is crucial to formulate requirements in a concrete and detailed way. This should be done end-to-end and should consider various scenarios based on customer pain points. Methods such as customer journey mapping or sequence diagrams can be used to systematically capture the actors and motivations, objects and interfaces, challenges and successes that define the user experience. By thoroughly analyzing the needs of users, companies can ensure that automation actually adds value. Here, too, departmental boundaries can be a hindrance, since requirements are artificially divided into business and technical specifics, which are collected one after the other. However, this unnecessarily narrows the perspective and prevents the possibility of a big leap forward – interdisciplinary or cross-functional collaboration is the key to success here.
When analyzing processes that are to be automated, business analysts often underestimate the technical complexity of the implementation and enter the solution space too early. In product development, however, it is necessary to conduct a detailed discovery that clearly identifies the actual problem. Involving product experts and even software developers at an early stage is helpful here. Only by thoroughly understanding the customer’s needs can various solutions be designed that can then be evaluated for technical feasibility. This approach significantly increases the likelihood of finding a suitable solution that meets the given time and cost constraints. It also avoids the need to bend an already selected solution so much during implementation due to unforeseen technical difficulties that it no longer provides the added value that was intended.
On the product side, on the other hand, the mistake is often made of presenting a ready-made solution to users or customers too late. Involving stakeholders at an early stage is an important psychological step in creating a sense of inclusion and enabling action at eye level. By involving relevant groups in the process from the outset, you can create acceptance and ensure that the automation meets actual needs. Methods such as workshops, regular meetings, obtaining feedback on prototypes or public demos on development progress can be helpful here.
Consider the entire system architecture when making business decisions
Early decisions about whether a requirement should be implemented in which product or whether software should be developed or purchased are crucial. These decisions should be made depending on the existing system landscape in order to avoid problems and delays later on. Ideally, business features and scaling and performance requirements should be considered together with a software architect. Involving the digital system architecture improves the planning and design of structures and enables a critical analysis of system limitations, which also puts business requirements to the test again. This prevents the occurrence of avoidable errors in the implementation of customer needs due to compromises that have to be made in the course of technical implementation. It also supports the efficient use of resources and space.
By aligning your decisions with an innovative user journey based on a long-term vision at an early stage, you ensure that you regularly review the system architecture while keeping pace with market developments. In larger companies with many legacy processes, it is essential to take a generalist view of the entire process landscape. A generalist business perspective has the advantage of being able to plan in transformation environments in a more long-term, adaptable and networked way. It is often more expensive in the long term to adapt a sub-process than to think about how this target process can be streamlined for the future as early as possible. This is usually associated with pain and resistance because departmental rationales stand in the way. However, it is worth establishing a holistic view here, because a high degree of autonomy in development teams can also lead to similar products and features being built in different areas and synergies not being fully exploited. By sharing methods and best practices across products, learning effects can be better utilized and wrong turns can be identified more quickly.
Orchestrating the automation of processes is becoming increasingly important in order to be able to integrate different end points into process automation. But there are also pitfalls here: in many cases, data quality in companies is not at a level where complete automation can be effective without fallback processes. However, data quality is one of the most important prerequisites for the success of automation over long distances. Unfortunately, automation tools are not magic machines: every automation tool is only as good as the data it processes. This requires that data be collected, stored and updated consistently and uniformly in the company and that the data be retrievable for connected systems easily and accurately. This is a company-wide task that must, above all, strengthen the mindset that every single employee has a significant influence on the success of automation through the correct and conscientious maintenance of their data.
Realistically assess the speed of development and effectiveness
Automation projects should not be started lightly. They may look good in public relations or to the board of directors as a new project, but they should be seen for what they are in depth: a reorganization of the process infrastructure that runs horizontally through the entire company. On paper, the automation potential is quickly calculated with the personnel costs that can be saved. In reality, however, it often looks different: automation potential is overestimated in companies or automated landscapes are not thought through to the end. Furthermore, processes and the roles involved are not fully understood or other strategic areas in the company are given higher priority in the medium term due to changed guidelines or market conditions. These facts lead to the fact that the implementation speed of automation is impeded or even thwarted as soon as new, more important projects arise.
Before making staffing decisions, the speed of development and the effect of automation should be carefully considered. In the worst case, a hasty reduction in staff can lead to a situation in which there is simply not enough staff to implement the automation. Furthermore, linking automation to downsizing as a business goal can affect employee morale and jeopardize overall productivity. In this context, it is important to find a good compromise between the actual and target processes in agile product development in order to generate added value as quickly as possible and to be able to present users and employees with a positive interim result.
The best way to ensure real benefits for customers during implementation is to use the MVP approach. Even though it is relevant in discovery to consider all edge cases, implementation should start with an MVP that can be implemented quickly and covers the most important cases of a process. Otherwise, there is a high risk that managers and development teams will get lost in endless theoretical discussions about the challenges of integrating all scenarios. It is important to gain practical experience with the main use cases as early as possible with an initial small rollout, before taking the time to structure less relevant cases.
Rethink and redesign established job roles
In an automated world, it is important to rethink and redesign future job roles. Automation does not only mean cutting jobs, but also creating new roles that help employees develop and expand their skills. Companies should think in good time about how they can empower their employees to learn about new roles and actively help shape them. Constant transformation requires constant skill development, which works best in a model like “job rotation” where employees can try things out. This can help to reduce resistance among the workforce, but is not suitable for every type of character.
Automation raises hopes as well as fears among the workforce. Hopes include the prospect of getting rid of boring tasks in favor of more exciting, creative activities. Fears are, in most cases, the fear of losing one’s job or the loss of importance of one’s own work. This makes it all the more important to offer employees a concrete perspective of their role in the automated corporate landscape of the future. Although automation will be able to take over routine tasks, people will be needed all the more when it comes to complex or flexible processes. It is important here to develop an open approach to technological helpers at an early stage, so that people perceive them as partners and not as competitors.
It is crucial to develop the job roles of the future together with the employees. It does not help to restructure the company from top to bottom with the help of a consulting agency from time to time. The individual interests and desires of the employees must be taken into account. If you want to develop employees into new roles, you should give them enough leeway to shape these roles themselves. Otherwise, motivation gives way to a feeling of heteronomy and, in the worst case, ends in “work-to-rule”. In a dynamic environment in which markets are developing rapidly under high competitive pressure, innovation must be lived at all levels. If you want to leverage the full potential of your employees, you should give them the opportunity to help shape the vision of this new product world bottom-up.
Conclusion
In summary, it can be said that process automation is a promising tool for increasing efficiency and customer benefit, but it must be approached with caution and strategic focus. Standardizing processes, automating them in a targeted way where it adds real value, and considering the entire system architecture are essential to avoid common mistakes. It is also important to formulate requirements in detail and involve all stakeholders at an early stage to ensure acceptance and success. Finally, companies should actively shape the role of their employees in an automated future and offer them freedom to promote innovation and engagement.
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