In part 1 of this blog series we explored some of the support functions that you can automate using innovative, modern technology for greater operational efficiency. Intelligent Automation, also referred to as Intelligent Process Automation (IPA), harnesses the capabilities of both Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Robotic Process Automation (RPA) technologies. Such technology enables hyperautomation of business processes, which is end-to-end process automation. This is a highly popular trend across various industries such as logistics, hospitality, healthcare and shared services to name a few, as well as business functions including customer service, IT, procurement and operations.
Hyperautomation is listed as the top trend in Gartner’s top 10 strategic trends for 2020. Gartner’s research indicates that by 2022, 65% of organizations will introduce IPA that leverages both Machine Learning (ML) and Natural Language Processing (NLP) capabilities. Aside from the improvements in operational efficiency and cost reduction, such technology can be easily used by the average business user with no specialist knowledge. This ease of use makes IPA adoption easier to implement for use cases in your organization.
Here’s a closer look at more use cases for RPA and IPA automation for various support functions in your business.
- Human Resources
Recruitment departments can implement bots to automate accumulating CVs, assessment results and interview results. AI can read and understand these documents in various formats and IPA can automate the entire process. This makes the entire process faster and more user-friendly for both the recruiters and applicants.
Employment History Verification cab be automated using IPA and this can reduce manual intervention by 40%. Faster verification is possible and you automate the handling and maintenance of previous employment records.
Onboarding & Headcount Reduction can be reduced and simplified for HR teams across employee onboarding and resigning processes with partial RPA bot management. Save time by reducing onboarding processes from over half an hour to just a few minutes.
Payroll Automation is based on repetitive actions which can be easily delegated to RPA bots. You’ll be able to accelerate the process by 85% with no manual intervention.
Absence Management is a process that can be automated in order to overcome manually handling absentee reports. A simple RPA bot can be set up to cross-check reports against time logs and employees can fill in any discrepancies that get flagged.
Employee Compensation Claims is fairly simple and rule-based process so it can be automated. This enables employees to report absence due to injury or sickness and be compensated quickly.
Expense Management entails expense claims forms require employees to reiterate details that are present on bills submitted. With an IPA solution that has OCR capabilities, such details can be automatically extracted minimizing manual effort and ensuring this data extracted is accurate.
HR Virtual Assistants can consolidate all HR services on a single platform or at least present the semblance of a single platform, even if there are multiple systems at the back end. These intelligent chatbots with NLP (Natural Language Processing) capabilities help employees to submit expense reimbursements, log sick leaves, request contact details and much more.
- Finance
Financial Planning can be partially automated using IPA enhanced financial planning & analysis (FP&A) systems. This automation accelerates the integration and processing of statements from numerous departments and also eliminates manual errors in the process.
Bank Reconciliation can harness rule-based automation in order to compare and tally complex spreadsheets and reconcile statements. Complete the reconciliation process for your organization with increased accuracy and speed.
Daily P&L Preparation can be automated while tracking risk exposure with trading firms on a regular basis. Manual effort will be reduced significantly and turnaround time to complete this task can be reduced by more than half. Accuracy is also maintained while working at this accelerated pace thanks to IPA.
- Operations
Updating Inventory Records with the help of automation can overcome the hassles of multi-system inventory management with RPA bots automating inter-system reconciliations with ease. This also ensures accuracy across all systems and the enterprise overall.
Optimize Refund Issues with automation capabilities and reduce delays. This serves to improve customer satisfaction and ultimately customer loyalty.
Compliance changes in regulatory or tax requirements will entail the validation of thousands of reports. This can be performed much faster with RPA/IPA processes that also have the advantage of eliminating manual errors.
- Procurement
Updating Vendor Records when left to bots can maintain an up-to-date vendor master file which in turn keeps various departments informed so they can collaborate within allocated budgets. Ensuring a single source of truth provides accurate data to every department in the enterprise.
If you’d like to explore opportunities where your business can benefit from commercial RPA and IPA implementations for hyperautomation, the Rapid Acceleration Partners team would be glad to help. Our next-gen, AI-powered content intelligence platform RAPFlow enables full lifecycle AI orchestration on a single platform. When used in tandem with our RPA solution RAPBot, it provides end-to-end workflow automation capabilities that can be deployed in just weeks. You can even build your own use case and the platform can easily integrate with your existing systems. Book a demo to get a more detailed understanding of how our products can transform your business.
