C‑suite guide to automation

Prop­er­ly exe­cut­ed, the poten­tial ben­e­fits of automa­tion can out­weigh even the media hype. Sus­tain­able trans­for­ma­tion and the cre­ation of real share­hold­er val­ue are tru­ly attain­able.

It feels like there is an automa­tion gold rush. How­ev­er, as with every gold rush there are draw­backs, pit­falls and cow­boys.

Our rec­om­mend­ed approach of ‘think big, move fast and get organ­ised’ is based on the con­sid­er­able expe­ri­ence gained by Vir­tu­al Oper­a­tions in sup­port­ing our clients’ large-scale automa­tion pro­grammes

The good news is we know the gold is there. It’s inex­pen­sive to mine, the risk is low and there are for­tunes to be made with the right approach.

Our rec­om­mend­ed approach of “think big, move fast and get organ­ised” is based on the con­sid­er­able expe­ri­ence gained by Vir­tu­al Oper­a­tions in sup­port­ing our clients’ large-scale automa­tion pro­grammes.

There are ten essen­tial steps to achiev­ing high­ly suc­cess­ful process automa­tion pro­grammes…

1. Under­stand your objec­tives. We have found that the prin­ci­pal dri­vers dic­tate the way in which the pro­gramme is con­struct­ed. Cost reduc­tion is almost invari­ably a major goal, but can be con­sid­ered as a pre-req­ui­site. Oth­er oper­a­tional issues are often seen as more impor­tant includ­ing:

• Enabling lega­cy sys­tems to inter­act seam­less­ly with new tech­nolo­gies (a major step towards cre­at­ing a dig­i­tal enter­prise)
• Increas­ing reg­u­la­to­ry com­pli­ance (and reg­u­la­tor con­fi­dence)
• Work­force man­age­ment (espe­cial­ly cop­ing with peak or sea­son­al work­loads)
• Reduc­ing the off­shore foot­print
• Improved cus­tomer expe­ri­ence and sat­is­fac­tion, and fol­low-up (for exam­ple using inter­ac­tive voice response, arti­fi­cial intel­li­gence and robots in call cen­tres).

2. Plan. All large organ­i­sa­tions will have a wide range of process­es that could be auto­mat­ed and tech­nolo­gies which can be deployed. Defin­ing your “oper­a­tional land­scape” is a crit­i­cal step in opti­mis­ing the val­ue from automa­tion.

3. Com­mu­ni­cate and sell. A wide range of stake­hold­ers will become involved in any pro­gramme of sig­nif­i­cant scale. Reg­u­lar and time­ly com­mu­ni­ca­tion – sell­ing and edu­ca­tion – is a vital ele­ment in man­ag­ing the stake­hold­er group. Busi­ness own­er buy-in will cre­ate a pull for automa­tion. Remem­ber that automa­tion pro­grammes are low risk, but will invari­ably involve dis­rup­tion. With the holis­tic approach, dis­rup­tion is antic­i­pat­ed, man­aged and min­imised. Per­son­nel who are to be released or rede­ployed will require par­tic­u­lar atten­tion not least because the detailed process data will be gath­ered from with­in this group. Exter­nal com­mu­ni­ca­tion is also a major con­sid­er­a­tion as stock mar­kets look favourably upon well-orches­trat­ed change ini­tia­tives.

4. Think big and take a holis­tic approach. Aim at least at the func­tion­al lev­el and not process by process.

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5. Build an automa­tion cen­tre of excel­lence (CoE). Unlike shared ser­vice cen­tres, CoEs in the automa­tion world are rel­a­tive­ly small. The pur­pose they serve is to pro­vide the resources and tools required to ensure a con­sis­tent, low-risk, lever­aged cost to the pro­gramme, and the dis­ci­plines of strate­gic focus, gov­er­nance and pri­ori­ti­sa­tion that should be applied across the organ­i­sa­tion. The CoE should:

• Man­age the tar­get oper­at­ing mod­el design and devel­op­ment roles, organ­i­sa­tions, rela­tion­ships and gov­er­nance work­ing with IT of a fed­er­at­ed CoE to sup­port and sus­tain full-scale pro­duc­tion
• Devel­op an automa­tion method­ol­o­gy for use with­in the CoE
• Align CoE activ­i­ty to oth­er areas with­in the organ­i­sa­tion, such as IT roadmap or oth­er process opti­mi­sa­tion, for exam­ple lean, and shared ser­vices to break through the automa­tion “glass ceil­ing”
• Act as sub­ject mat­ter experts in sup­port of the automa­tion tech­nol­o­gy
• Man­age skills sourc­ing and/or train­ing
• Future-proof the pro­gramme by keep­ing pace with the lead­ing automa­tion tech­nolo­gies.

6. Release required resources and bud­get. Well-planned and organ­ised automa­tion pro­grammes will break even after approx­i­mate­ly 12 months. It is a false econ­o­my not to invest in a pro­gramme which will have such a rapid and high return.

7. Appoint a head of automa­tion from with­in. A focal point and an organ­is­er, this is a senior role, and requires a com­bi­na­tion of vision, per­sua­sion and project man­age­ment abil­i­ties.

8. Train your own peo­ple where pos­si­ble. The most dif­fi­cult tasks we face are iden­ti­fy­ing the right oppor­tu­ni­ties and then map­ping them accu­rate­ly. Once the process has been mapped, the imple­men­ta­tion is usu­al­ly straight­for­ward.

9. Run pilots not proofs of con­cept. All the lead­ing tech­nolo­gies have now been proven on mul­ti­ple occa­sions. If you need reas­sur­ance with your sys­tems and your data then run a pilot, which can go into pro­duc­tion and deliv­er val­ue when it suc­ceeds.

10. Don’t stop in-flight automa­tions. In many organ­i­sa­tions iso­lat­ed automa­tion ini­tia­tives are already under­way. Typ­i­cal­ly these are tac­ti­cal, with a sin­gle tool – usu­al­ly robot­ic – and are con­duct­ed on a process by process approach. Our advice is to let these ini­tia­tives con­tin­ue. They are high­ly like­ly to suc­ceed, they present lit­tle risk, they will almost cer­tain­ly under­pin automa­tion as a change lever and, most impor­tant­ly, they can be gath­ered in when the CoE is oper­a­tional.

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