Why You Need Deep Digital Process Automation to Scale RPA

Blog: Bizagi Blog

This article is a summary of a recent webinar discussion on deep Digital Process Automation between Bizagi, Forrester and the Institute for RPA and AI on the importance of having DPA in place before deploying RPA.

“There’s a renewed appreciation for automation.
Something is changing.” – Rob Koplowitz,
VP, Principal Analyst at Forrester.

Cost reduction used to be the leading reason organizations chose
to improve their processes, with 32% declaring this to Forrester Research two
years ago. However, in 2019 49% stated that they were improving their processes
with the primary focus of accelerating their digital transformation.

It has become a common misnomer that automation, and RPA specifically, is
the catalyst organizations need to accelerate their transformation. Before you begin
deploying robots to carry out task automation, you need an orchestrator to co-ordinate
your processes, people and apps.

I recently sat down with President of the Institute for Robotic Process
Automation & Artificial Intelligence, Daniel Goodstein, and Forrester VP
Analyst, Rob Koplowitz, to discuss why deep process automation, combined with
RPA is driving digital transformation across organizations.

If you would like to learn more about the benefits of Deep Process Automation, it is well worth watching, ‘Understanding Deep Process Automation and How it Helps Scale RPA’ in full. Read on in this article for three pieces of advice that will help you when considering your next steps for automation.

1. Unite your Business and IT zones

Digital transformation is now the primary focus of process
improvement, and with a change of focus comes a change of tactic. Organizations
will find that their transformation projects will no longer be one mammoth
effort like they were in previous decades, but instead they need to take an
agile, coordinated approach.

“If we think about the classic automation project, the
classic BPM-led project, this drove a lot of savings, but was a massive project
with specific goals: much like turning an aircraft carrier. We’re moving now
towards something more like moving speedboats in tandem,” explained Koplowitz.

“That connection between IT and Business becomes important
because there are literally thousands of processes that have to be automated. We’re
looking at a much more radical level of automation that has to be done in a coordinated
fashion.”

The “classic BPM projects” that Koplowitz mentioned, would have been managed by IT in a limited number of controlled applications. But with the advent of low-code tools, RPA, decisioning tools, and AI, there’s no single technology that does everything. As the graph below shows, so many of these applications are managed by Business Developers. So it is important to find a way to get all these speed boats to move in tandem. This is where Digital Process Automation comes in…

Forrester Bizagi webinar digital transformation

2. Use DPA as an orchestrator

“There has to be a master of these technologies. Something
has to orchestrate that end-to-end flow that includes all the discrete
technologies. I think that’s DPA,” said Koplowitz.

“DPA has the mature view of process mapping and
orchestration and is really well suited to managing and orchestrating all the
discrete technologies [such as RPA and AI] as well. So, you have to have
digital process automation as part of your transformation strategy.”

DPA deep platforms in particular, as opposed to DPA wide platforms,
are the best way to handle multiple technologies under a single umbrella. Deep
DPA evolved from BPM, so by nature they can handle multiple design
environments.

“DPA deep vendors are those that can not only take very
complex and simple, fast process automation, but can orchestrate the actions of
a lot of other types of process technologies as well. So, RPA can live within
the process orchestration layer of a DPA deep vendor,” said Koplowitz.

3. Think about the bigger picture

Once you have your DPA platform orchestration layer in
place, you need to consider which discrete technologies you will deploy. While
many organizations are keen to deploy RPA to ease their processes, it is not a
one-size-fits all solution. You need to understand where it fits.

RPA tends to mimic human behavior and is suited to task-orientated processes with a limited number of steps. This often happens within the context of a broader process. This is opposed to chatbots which understanding the users’ intent via conversation and then either provide an answer or trigger an action.

“There’s a lot of value in combing technologies like RPA and
AI to provide cognitive bots – robotics that can think more intelligently, said
Koplowitz. “But the real value comes form that end-to-end process automation
where you apply intelligence across the whole operation that you get the best
return and the best value. Then you can start to look at data flows and
intelligence across the entire operation and not just specific tasks related to
robotics within that.”

So what next?

Bizagi was recently named a Leader in The Forrester Wave: Software for Digital Process Automation (DPA) for Deep Deployments and was also recognized as the widest of the deep for “Balancing deep DPA functionality with a platform designed to go wide”.

To find out more about how Bizagi’s DPA platform can help you to transform your organization into an intelligent digital business, watch the webinar Understanding Deep Process Automation and How it Helps Scale RPA on-demand now.

The post Why You Need Deep Digital Process Automation to Scale RPA appeared first on Bizagi Blog – Ideas for Delivering Digital Transformation.