Transcription
Intelligent automation:The future of digitalisationin organisationsMay 2021
Contents21.Digitalisation: An imperative for organisations today2.Understanding the components of IA3.The IA market in India4.Moving ahead with IA5.Creating a future-ready workforceIntelligent automation: The future of digitalisation in organisations4591518
PrefaceIn 2020, 94.7% of Indian organisations fast-tracked some level of digital transformation programmes. Further,92.3% are reinventing their business models.1 These staggering statistics indicate an unprecedented scale ofchange in the organisational landscape.Thus, with the objective of capturing the role and impact of the digital enterprise, IAMAI’s Digital TransformationCouncil, with the help of its knowledge partner PwC India, decided to study the key pillars of digitalisation, thevalue of technologies like intelligent automation (IA), the impact of COVID-19 on its adoption, its expectedevolution, its growth drivers, and the skill set requirements.In the preface to this report, it is important to note that digital transformation is not only the adoption of thelatest technologies – it’s also about data, processes and overall organisational change. It’s about operational,strategic and cultural transformation. The forecasts suggest that the global market for the internet of things(IoT) end-user solutions is expected to grow to around USD 1.6 trillion by 2025,2 even though 65% of riskmanagement leaders believe that risks from transformation adoption and tech will increase in 2021.3Artificial intelligence (AI)is expected to increase economic growth exponentially over the next few decades.Research also suggests that 64% of Indian organisations expect to increase demand for cloud computingas a result of COVID-19 alone.4 The combination of digital and physical technologies like AI, IoT, additivemanufacturing, robotics, cloud computing, and others is expected to disrupt established business models andchallenge the status quo of how organisations operate, what employees and customers expect from them, andhow they compete in the market. Hence, digital transformation is a top strategic objective today.This study reveals that IA itself has delivered significant benefits, including immediate reduction in operationalcosts, rapid return on investment, and shifting priorities of the employee workforce to innovation, strategy,and other business development activities with speed, agility, resiliency, accuracy, and better regulatorycompliance. It has also introduced increased employee satisfaction through a focus on high-value activitieswhile driving real-time transactions and many other useful insights.Digital transformation in an organisation could be powered by automated, intelligent, and transparent initiatives,ensuring wow customer, employer and supplier experiences. It is our pleasure to share this report with thehope that it will enable key stakeholders of the digital ecosystem to make an informed choice for the future.Vinay KumarDirector, Artificial Intelligence, Azure and Search Partnerships, Microsoft andChair – IAMAI’s Digital Transformation Council1 s-digital-transformation2 iot-market-size/#: :text 6%20trillion%20by%202025.3 leader.html4 https://www.idc.com/getdoc.jsp?containerId prAP46454420Intelligent automation: The future of digitalisation in organisations3
Digitalisation: An imperativefor organisations todayRise of the digital enterpriseAccording to PwC’s 24th Annual Global CEO Survey, nearly 49%of CEOs plan to increase their rate of digital investment by 10% ormore over the next three years.5 With digitalisation fast becominga precursor of growth, organisations today are recognising theimportance of creating a business strategy that aligns closelywith their digital strategy. Organisations across industries areincreasingly adopting enterprise architecture (EA) to realise thebenefits of digital transformation and stay ahead of the digitalcurve. As a result, we see the evolution of digital enterprises.These are businesses that implement a complete digitalisationstrategy to make the best use of digital tools and technologiesacross the length and breadth of their operations. As a growingnumber of organisations are redefining their operational processesaround emerging technologies and ensuring consistent deliveryof services, they want to use these capabilities to become morecustomer centric. Digital enterprises focus on the conversion ofinformational resources into digital formats and automation ofbusiness processes with scalable technologies – cloud computing,internet of things (IoT) artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning(ML) and various technology-driven solutions. Software automationtechnologies are the key towards creating robust and resilientinfrastructure that is capable of being scaled up to meet thisexponentially increasing demand for agile, digitally empoweredorganisations.Role of intelligent automationin the digitalisation journeyTechnologies such as big data, intelligent automation (IA) andAI are at the forefront of the next wave of digitisation. Big dataallows companies to gather large amounts of data and extractmeaningful insights that can be used to make strategic businessadvancements, minimising costs and maximising results.However, only gathering large amounts of data is rarely enough.Organisations are including data analytics in their ecosystemto mass-customise offerings, optimise and improve customerexperience, mitigate risks and further utilise data-transformingand modelling capabilities to lay out a future roadmap. Combiningautomation with data analytics can help organisations to deliverquicker outcomes through increased accuracy and enhancedoperational efficiency. Advancements in analytics, IA and AI areenabling businesses to improve performance and productivity,reshape organisational structure, permanently upgrade the ways ofworking, and have a significant impact on the economy.5 1/report.html#digital-acceleration4Intelligent automation: The future of digitalisation in organisations
The four pillars of digitisationData and analytics competency – big data(volume, velocity, variety, veracity and value)tomAuDecision makingAI sationtalyAnIA competency –automation path1Analytics competency –analytics pathDigitisationAI competencyRevenueProfitsSource: PwC analysisOrganisations across sectors and industries are harnessing thepotential of digital technologies to gain significant competitiveadvantage. As per a PwC report, emerging technologies(augmented reality, drones, virtual reality, IoT, robots, blockchainand AI) are driving rapid cross-functional innovation and makingorganisations smarter.6IA is a crucial component of the digitisation agenda. The layeringof automation and intelligent technologies such as smart opticalcharacter recognition (OCR), natural language processing (NLP)/natural language generation (NLG) and ML enable organisationsto transform the way they work. IA is fast becoming mainstreamas organisations move higher up the digitalisation maturity curve.Fast-evolving product capabilities complemented by ease of usefor non-developers are fuelling market growth and enabling citizenled innovation in IA adoption.Furthermore, this exponential increase in the adoption of IA isdriven by the increased capabilities of cognitive technologiesto solve practical challenges and their proven ability to delivertangible results such as decreasing costs and increasing revenues.Firms are exploring new avenues of moving up the automationmaturity curve as more competitors adopt IA.6 Intelligent automation: The future of digitalisation in organisations5
Understanding thecomponents of IAIA combines the capabilities of robotic process automation (RPA)with smart OCR, conversational AI and cognitive intelligence:RPA: RPA can be defined as technology that configures orinteracts with computer software to capture and interpretinformation, thereby enabling transaction processing, data transfer,data comparison, etc.Smart OCR: OCR/intelligent character recognition (ICR) is theconversion of images into machine-readable format. Using OCR/ICR is the first step towards converting images/scanned documentsinto editable and searchable data.Conversational AI: Conversational AI is a set of technologiesthat allows human-like interactions with computers. It enablescomputers to understand natural language (including speech andtext) and respond in a manner that mimics human conversation.7Cognitive intelligence: Cognitive intelligence is a set of pretrainedalgorithms/skills that replicate human decision-making abilities andseamlessly integrate them within the bot ecosystem. It uses ML tomake predictions based on historic data and NLP to understand,generate and process text.7 elligent automation: The future of digitalisation in organisationsFurthermore, hyperautomation is an increasing trend amongorganisations as IA capabilities evolve and organisationaldemand for end-to-end automation grows. Process-mining tools,business process management and advanced analytics are beingincreasingly used by organisations to expand the scope of IA andrealise greater benefits. Process mining supports the analysis of data, including divingdeeply into how teams work to show them what to automate. Business process management automates a complete set oftasks involved in an end-to-end workflow. Advanced analytics helps in unlocking the value of data toprovide deeper insights that enable real-time decision making.
Transformation of a traditional enterprise to an intelligent enterpriseTraditionalenterprise Machinelearning Natural languageprocessing Deeplearning IntelligententerpriseTraditional ligenceUnlock value and realtime decisionsRPAOCR/ICRChatbot/voicebotML/NLPExecutes rule-based andrepetitive processes bymimicking what users do ontheir computerRecognises content andextracts information from animage or scanned documentConversational automationwhich integrates withsystems on the backendAutomation using its ownhistorical data to providedeeper insights, enablingreal-time decision makingSource: PwC analysisIntelligent automation: The future of digitalisation in organisations7
IA tools can also be used for low-code and drag-and-drop methods of solution development, making the adoption of citizen-ledautomation possible and beneficial for organisations across sectors.Benefits delivered by IACost reductionQuality and complianceSoftware robotics brings immediate reduction inoperational cost beyond labour arbitrage, and realisesrapid return on investment.The automated nature of software robotics reduceserrors and leaves a digital audit trail that increasesaccuracy and regulatory compliance, enablingprogrammable controls.Value-focused talentThe priorities of the employee workforce shift toinnovation, strategy and other business developmentactivities.ScalabilityA virtual workforce can respond to growth events (e.g.organic, acquisitive) with speed, agility and resiliency.Once developed, automated solutions can be used toramp up/down volumes easily.Software robotics increases revenue growth throughshorter cycle time to service customers.There is a one-to-one relationship between a bot andthe tasks it automates for a single worker (full-timeequivalent or FTE). In others, a single bot automatestasks performed by three to five workers. Savings areeasy to calculate.24/7Robots never sleep and many of today’s digitallyenabled processes can be orchestrated to operateautonomously 24x7, driving real-time transactions.Employee and customer satisfactionSpeed to value and low riskIncreased employee satisfaction through a focus onhigher value activities will, together with fewer errors,result in more satisfied customers.Software robotics has a quick time to delivery andavoids the invasive traditional system integration.Weeks or months instead of years.Source: PwC analysis8Revenue enhancementIntelligent automation: The future of digitalisation in organisations
As organisational strategies and operating models vary, so do thebenefits envisaged from implementing automation programmesand the metrics used to track progress. The objectives of suchimplementation is to enable human-digital workforce collaborationand make it as seamless as possible. This in turn should translateinto increased productivity, reduced costs, redeployment ofemployees to more cognitive functions – depending on what thegoals are, how the automation strategy is defined and the currentautomation maturity. While the focus is on error-free processingand reducing turnaround time in the early stages, matureautomation programmes can enhance scalability and compliance.The large-scale and growing adoption of IA has enabledbusinesses to automate more than just repetitive rule-basedactivities, create greater value from their human resourcesand streamline workflows/processes to accelerate their digitaltransformation journey. The key aspects that help businessesleverage IA to drive competitiveness are mentioned below:Using AI and IA to upgrade business processes/systemswithout disrupting current operationsAlthough many businesses have started implementing AI toadvance their digital transformation strategies, they are alsoalarmed by the perceived difficulties in implementation. A keyconcern amongst businesses is that the implementation of AIcapabilities can impact existing IT systems and daily operations,leading to increased complexity and added efforts.Organisations are wary of the risks posed by incidents that impactcritical operations. They are increasingly looking at platforms andtools that can seamlessly incorporate AI capabilities such as MLand NLP into existing processes and systems without disruptingcurrent operations. Such demands are enhancing the maturityof AI products and services, and vendors are prioritising theseparameters when coming up with updates and new releases. Thisis enabling businesses to leverage IA to perform usual businessoperations as well as significantly upgrade their status quo.Improved employee efficiency and job satisfactionIn today’s technology-driven competitive landscape, maintaininga motivated and action-oriented workforce is important forbusinesses to advance. A widespread misconception about IA isthat robots will replace the human workforce, ultimately leading tojob losses. However, IA capabilities help in the better execution oftedious and rule-based tasks, thus enabling humans to focus onmore strategic value-add activities.A 2019 survey conducted by a US-based business magazinefound that out of 300 senior executives who had explored IA,96% reported increased employee efficiency and 93% observedenhanced employee satisfaction.8Improved employee satisfaction and efficiency result in lowerattrition and increased productivity, both of which are importantfactors to create a sustainable competitive advantage.Using IA capabilities to harness the value of data andpropel informed decision makingBusinesses today have access to large amounts of data thatcan be converted into relevant business insights and help in riskmitigation. Leveraging IA technologies allows businesses to betterintegrate gathered data into the current ecosystem. In case thedata is unstructured, AI can be utilised to transform information intoa robot-friendly format. Together, AI and IA can help in unlockinginsights that enhance human decision-making capabilities.Enhanced customer experienceCustomer service has become a prominent differentiator inthe digital age. With IA executing manual tasks and repetitiveworkflows, employees can now devote more time and effort toaddressing customer needs and swiftly resolve their concerns.Employees can further work towards developing creative solutionsand addressing unresolved customer issues. This enablesbusinesses to deliver better customer service and strengthen theirposition among competitors.8 Accelerating business value with intelligent automation, Forbes Insights, 2019Intelligent automation: The future of digitalisation in organisations9
The IA market in IndiaIA adoption is witnessing continuous growth across organisations.As more organisations understand the value of automation, serviceproviders are developing products that are bridging the gap forthe democratisation of IA. The COVID-19 pandemic has furtheraccelerated IA adoption across industries.According to a PwC report charting India’s mid-term journeyfollowing the COVID-19 crisis, rapid acceleration of digitaltechnologies will change many aspects of operations. Throughtheir ability to build transparency, improve efficiency and developresilience, process automation technologies such as chatbots,automated calling, voice assistants and RPA will gain furthertraction.9There are a very few areas of business that are yet to undergo anykind of automation. Utilising bots for repetitive tasks is generatingvalue and improving the efficiency and productivity of businesses inevery sector. Moving forward, most organisations will be using IA todrive business growth further and encourage greater productivity,creativity, leadership and innovation among their employees.Indian businesses are finding valuein the use of IAThe Indian outlook towards automation is particularly optimisticbecause the country has gained extensively from previous softwarebooms. India’s largely young population makes automation a keypriority for the economy. Acquiring the right skills in automationis essential for India to retain the advantages of its demographicdividend. Organisations across the country expect their keybusiness metrics such as profitability and customer retention toimprove as a result of automation.9 ull-potential-revival-and-growth10Intelligent automation: The future of digitalisation in organisations
Automation in front officesAs automation objectives evolve to tackle customer-centricfunctions using cognitive tools and technologies, there is anincrease in automation adoption in front offices as well. Whilehighly repetitive back-office tasks in IT, finance and humanresources (HR) departments were the most automated functions inbusiness processes when organisations were just getting startedwith RPA, businesses are now also increasingly introducing IA inconsumer-facing functions such as marketing and sales.The Indian economy has grown consistently – from a USD 0.47trillion10 economy in 2000 to a USD 2.87 trillion11 economy in2019. This growth of India’s economy has been fuelled by factorssuch as economic liberalisation, financial reforms, favourablebusiness dynamics, a large graduate pool, digitalisation andglobalisation. The Government aims to make India a USD 5 trillioneconomy by 2025. To achieve this transformation, it is necessaryto foster sustainable growth through drivers such as technology.IA can increase productivity, enhance scalability and reduceprocessing time and costs across sectors and businesses, therebyaccelerating growth across all the sectors at the grassroots level.YearGDP growth of India (in USD trillion)While most organisations started with pure-play RPA initiatives,India is now witnessing a strong shift towards the adoption of moresophisticated tools and technologies to handle more complex,end-to-end processes via automation. The IA market in India isestimated to grow at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of55%, with large enterprises expected to spend approximately USD340–350 million in IA capabilities in 2024.12 The overall expenditureis expected to exceed this figure since the market now alsoincludes start-ups and various SMEs.Impact of COVID-19 on IA 092008200720062005200420032002200120000.00The IA market in India has huge potential for growth since theadoption of IA is relatively in its early stages. While organisationsacross industries continue to explore IA, there is immense scopefor large-scale incorporation of automation as an integral part ofan organisation’s operating model. The demand for IA has grownsignificantly across various sectors in India over the past fewyears to improve business-process efficiency. The BFSI sectorhas been one of the early movers in adopting IA by automatingcore business functions to reduce costs and focus on strategicvalue-add activities. IA adoption has also gained momentum insectors such as telecom, retail and consumer goods, transport andlogistics, healthcare and manufacturing over the past few years.Education, oil and gas, small and medium enterprises (SMEs) andgovernment offices are gradually implementing IA as well.The COVID-19 pandemic has brought about unprecedentedchanges in how organisations function. It is the need of the hourfor organisations across the world to re-engineer the ways of doingbusiness. It is also of utmost importance for organisations to refocus on key support functions of businesses that will enable themto stabilize in this new atmosphere and develop new strategiesfor what’s next.13 Organisations need to transform themselves intomodern workplaces that enable the synergy between their humanand machine workforce, with the former assuming responsibilitiesfor strategic and customer-centric initiatives and the latterexecuting repetitive activities.0.501.001.502.002.50GDPSource: D?locations IN3.00The pandemic has further increased the adoption of emergingtechnologies. As organisations witnessed the impact of a resilientoperating model amidst the pandemic first-hand, COVID-19has proven to be an opportunity , giving organisations a chanceto repair (emerge from the present crisis), rethink (plan fortransformation) and reconfigure (make fundamental updates to themodus operandi and achieve sustainable competitive advantage).10 World Bank GDP Data: D?locations IN11 Ibid.12 983712.html13 covid-19.htmlIntelligent automation: The future of digitalisation in organisations11
Organisation-level processes and requests as well as high-volumeand repetitive tasks which were once carried out in person cannow be automated. Entire workflows across departments shouldbe mapped out to figure out their automation potential. All suchworkflows should be automated to improve operational efficiencyand reduce processing time. IA is helping businesses to deal withthe crisis and find ways to move forward as more organisationsshift towards digital.According to a survey conducted by PwC in August–September2020, the crisis has brought automation technologies to theforefront and led to a surge in automation investment. Furthermore,the nature of challenges related to adoption has changed frompurely technical to business-related factors.14 Organisationalpriorities have shifted, and more organisations have startedadopting digital tools and technologies. This initially helped supportbasic business operations and is now allowing them to emerge withmore robust digitally empowered operating models:Shifting priorities for IA adoptionStart of 2020Now11Increasing productivity/improving process efficiency22Digital transformation/automation adoption33Need to cut costs44Employee upskilling and future sustainability5Improving technology infrastructure66Need to be better prepared for risks77Responding to regulatory change88Simplification - the need to reduce complexity in business99Merger or acquisition1010Need to exploit opportunities for growth1111Need for culture changeSource:Gartner 20205Source: PwC research and analysis14 ai-an-opportunity-amidst-a-crisis.pdf12Intelligent automation: The future of digitalisation in organisations
Organisations that were already ahead on the maturity curve were more resilientthroughout the disruption. One year into the crisis and with the pandemic far fromover, India is now going through a second wave of infections. Witnessing thegaps between pioneers in automation and laggards is likely to have acceleratedthe pace of adoption as organisations adapt to the new normal.How we expect the IA market to evolve inthe futureIA is a dynamic technology which empowers businesses with advancedcapabilities to help carry out agile processes and enhance performance. IAenables businesses to increase process efficiency and improve overall customerexperience. Organisations can also optimise operations, mitigate risks, reducecosts and redeploy the workforce to focus on cognitive activities which createstrategic value.Due to such vast applications and usability, the IA market is growing at anunprecedented rate. According to Analytics Insight, the global IA market ispredicted to grow at a CAGR of 14.5%15 – from USD 13 billion to USD 25.7billion and USD 50.5 billion by 2025 and 2030 respectively.16Global IA market (in USD billion)50.5CAGR 14.6%10.011.42018 (A)2019 (A)13.014.92020 (A)2021 (F)17.12022 (F)19.62023 (F)22.42024 (F)25.72025 (F)29.42026 (F)33.72027 (F)38.52028 (F)44.12029 (F)2030 (F)Source: https://www.analyticsinsight.net/A comparison between the different sectors that have adopted IA capabilities indicates that the banking, financial services and insurance(BFSI) sector will lead the race with a CAGR of 16.1% in the next ten years. The BFSI sector is closely followed by the telecommunicationsand healthcare sectors, which are predicted to grow at a CAGR of 16% and 15.1% respectively.15 wth-intelligent-automation-market/16 IbidIntelligent automation: The future of digitalisation in organisations13
Growth drivers for IATo understand what is causing this surge in IA adoption, it isworthwhile to understand both how organisational requirementsare evolving and how product and services are becoming morecompetent in addressing these needs. The demand is particularlyfuelled by business requirements that no longer operate in avacuum but must continuously adapt in line with the competitiveenvironment. On the supply side, both automation product vendorsand the service industry are working in tandem to deliver valuableinnovation continuously.Demand-side drivers Rising organisational needs to achieve efficiency in operations Proven value of IA in various industries Focus on enriching customer experience and reducingcustomer TATOperational efficiency: Automation enables businesses tofocus on strategic value-add activities, customer experience andleadership, while robots perform supporting tasks effectively andseamlessly. This can result in increased operational efficiency dueto better optimisation of resources.Proven value of IA: BFSI has been one of the early adoptersof IA. Intelligent adoption has helped the sector to improve theoverall customer experience, enhance security, speed up accountprocessing, mitigate risk and reduce human hours spent onaddressing repetitive tasks. The visible benefits of IA have led togrowth in demand across industries.Focus on enriching customer experience and reducingcustomer TAT: A good customer experience maximises speedand efficiency and builds a foundation for loyalty while maintaininga human element that is embedded within automation, AI or othertechnologies. It leaves consumers feeling content, satisfied andappreciated, and has a tangible monetary impact on businesses.Based on a survey conducted by PwC,17 75% of customersindicated that they would want to interact with real people more astechnology improves. Automation reduced human effort on menialtasks, enabling employees to be more engaged with customers,provide better services and get necessary support from technologyto provide a truly seamless customer experience.Supply-side drivers More sophisticated tools and products with better capabilities Low-code/no-code automation solutions Lower cost of licensing17 l14Intelligent automation: The future of digitalisation in organisations
More sophisticated tools and products with bettercapabilitiesThe leading IA products are those that started as pure-play roboticprocess automation (RPA) products but have continuously evolvedto bring in more capabilities. Leading RPA vendors have all startedto offer hyper automation capabilities. RPA serves as the startingpoint for adopting cognitive technologies and other advanced toolssuch as process mining tools, workforce enablement capabilitiesand advanced analytics. With hyper automation, organisations canachieve both scale and increase the speed of delivering automatedsolutions into production. Enhanced capabilities through the useof evolving AI technologies empower business, IT and citizendevelopers to contribute to the automation transformation journey.Robots thus act as complements to the existing workforce andend-to-end processes can be automated more quickly instead offollowing a band-aid approach.Low-code/no-code automation solutionsVarious automation solutions have been tailored to automaterepetitive, structured and non-cognitive processes. However, withthe emergence of technology where RPA is integrated with evolvingAI technologies, it is now possible to create a digital workforce forend
Intelligent automation: he uture of diitalisation in organisations 7. Automation using its own historical data to provide deeper insights, enabling real-time decision making. ML/NLP. Unlock value and real-time decisions. Transformation of a traditional enterprise to an intelligent enterprise. Source: PwC analysis. Traditional automation . RPA
