If something can be automated, it should be. Automation can bring faster performance, greater accuracy, and solid returns on investment. If these benefits are certain, then it is worth trying. To illustrate, let us consider a simple example. Before currency counting machines, bank staff had to count notes manually, which was tedious and prone to errors. Today, the same task can be done faultlessly in no time, allowing cashiers to focus on customers and more essential tasks.

Now imagine the world of difference that automation can make in factories and offices. Here are five reasons why you should consider automating your business:

1. Timesaving

According to a report, business process automation can save more than 50% of jobs and 30% of their time, which can be spent on more significant activities. Even automating document processing and paper approval can save the equivalent of five working days.

2. Cost-effective

By automating tasks, you can lower your labor costs and save on essential resources that manual labor demands.

3. Greater productivity

When repetitive tasks are automated, employees can focus on more critical work. For example, web designers can monitor project deadlines and progress with an automated system, allowing them to concentrate on their main job.

4. Better customer service

Automation can improve customer service by providing accurate and faster information, recording customer interactions, and allowing instant replies to emails or live chat queries.

5. More efficiency

Automation can help organizations become more organized and efficient. For instance, a retail outlet can use an automated inventory system to replenish stocks faster and timelier.

Of course, there are many more reasons to automate your business, such as scalability, compliance, and auditing. So why wait? Start considering the various aspects of your business and let machines and software make your life easier in areas that can benefit from automation. You could start with something as simple as replacing the jars in your water cooler faster.

2023 is here, and you’re deeply entrenched in formulating your enterprise automation strategy.  As we make business decisions to quench our need for operational efficiencies, let’s not forget the importance of alkalinized water.  We should all be water connoisseurs…after all, 60% of our bodies are made up of water. 

So what’s with this trend of alkalinized water? 

First, an oversimplified science lesson.  pH measures how acidic or basic a solution is on a scale of 0-14.  Water is neutral, with a pH of 7.0.  A value less than 7 is acidic, and over 7 is basic – also known as alkaline. 

Looking at the infographic above, our Starbucks and lemon waters have made our bodies more acidic.  Our body is programmed to operate at a slightly alkaline pH of 7.4, so alkalinized water helps restore this balance.

Why does this matter?  If our body’s pH is too acidic, we feel fatigued and nauseated, and our kidneys and lungs start to work less efficiently.  But we also need acids — without stomach acids, we cannot break down our food.  It’s a delicate balance.

So what does this have to do with automation? 

No enterprise decision is unilateral.  We’re always balancing the pros and cons of a solution.  Some common topics have been:

• What technology do we buy?
• How do we minimize technology debt?
• Digital Modernization vs. Digital Transformation?
• Build vs. Buy
• Process-led vs. Technology led?
• Citizen Led vs. IT-led

In our recent newsletter, we discussed how all these decisions revolve around just one thing – the coalescence of technology and people.  This year we’ll dive into this topic in more detail, but the following table shows technology-driven versus people-driven solutions and initiatives.

Below are some Automation predictions for 2023 that we will track will help reach a pH balance between technology and people.

1.    More diversified results across the organization

Process technologies have thus far primarily benefited companies’ finance and accounting processes. And with a reason since more structured activities and easier-to-manipulate data facilitated implementation. However, the scenario has changed now. Advancements in technologies like Cloud, Machine Learning, Artificial Intelligence, and Analytics are now enabling the successful deployment of process discovery across the organization. Consequently, Automation Anywhere is yielding diversified results in workflow improvement, customer experience, and compliance.          

2.    Automation tech stack bolstered with the addition of Intelligent Orchestration.

RPA can transform an organization, and RPA orchestration can do the same for RPA. Tech stack has now got a shot in the arm with the addition of automation orchestration that will further assist companies in scaling RPA programs and achieving meaningful ROI. When there is an RPA Supervisor, scheduling issues and coding problems can be dealt with more effectively.  

3.    Adjacent technologies to complement RPA solutions

There are bound to be gaps that RPA needs to address. Consequently, innovators will be keener to introduce newer technologies in other areas like Machine Learning, Intelligent Document Processing, and Natural Language Processing. So as these adjacent technologies complement RPA solutions, businesses will be able to deal with the complexity of new business problems.

4.    Partial Automation shall also suffice.

In this new year, the need for full Automation of complicated use cases necessitating digitization of human-enabled inputs is likely to diminish. Automation programs could yield significant returns through a combination of partial Automation and human intervention. Partial Automation is any day better than no automation, and the arrangement, as mentioned above, can cause the overall effort to decrease by almost 40%. 

5.    Unattended process automation in manufacturing

In 2023, there is likely to be a greater demand for unattended process automation in the field of manufacturing that should serve as a way out to rake in more profits in the wake of the mounting economic pressure. Millions of jobs will no doubt be affected worldwide. At the same time, unattended process automation will provide the same amount of or perhaps more opportunities to engineers, researchers, IT specialists, and many more.

6.    Automation to improve the employee experience

In 2023, Automation could enhance employee experience considerably by simplifying complex processes. Faulty processes and ineffective systems cause employee burnout. So, it is high time automation ceased benefitting manual and repetitive tasks only. As the focus shifts to complex procedures, organizations will realize the significance of improving their employee experience overall rather than just worrying about reducing costs and saving on working hours. Employees this way won’t just survive but also thrive.   

7.    Automation to fix healthcare issues

Healthcare has been plagued by an issue that needs to be resolved urgently. While the proportion of the elderly is rising, the healthcare labor force is shrinking. The monthly resignation rate of 3% is indeed alarming. Culling out patient information from hundreds of thousands of claims can be exacting. But when you have Natural Language Processing tools with domain expertise and the Document Understanding feature integrated with them, they can automatically extract data through intelligent Automation.

8.    Implementation of one base technology

2023 could perhaps be the right year for cloud-first companies to implement one base technology, which can interact with the numerous technologies already in use. When such organizations need to expand their capability, the tool or a complementary product can serve their purpose. When the underlying technology of businesses evolves, IA tools can adapt to the changes, thereby upgrading the businesses’ technology and the remaining infrastructure.   

If the above trends are followed by organizations globally, one cannot even imagine what the scenario will be like when we reflect on this subject one year later. And the way technology is advancing, newer trends will have emerged, and all the developments we have discussed could become passé. 

But what about Hyperautomation?

We’ve written several blogs on Hyperautomation. The critical takeaway is that hyper-automation restructures operations procedures by combining technology like RPA with process optimization to decrease operations expenses by, on average, 30% while increasing business efficiencies.

Intelligent Composable business is different.  Essentially, you’re buying highly customized, pre-built modules, which can then be further customized and pieced together like Legos to increase benefits to your organization.

Intelligent Composable Business

In a couple of years, 50% of financial application chiefs will likely follow a composable approach vis-à-vis financial management for solution selection. A composable framework is one wherein extremely modular applications are composed and recomposed to offer capabilities and results that keep pace with the fast rate of business change.

FMS (Financial Management System) solutions that include cloud core financial management, financial planning and analysis and financial close processes stand a chance of becoming composable. This will let finance staff who put these solutions to use obtain, amass, compose, configure, and customize them.

One of the biggest advantages of such a system is that because it is entirely modular, it can be reconfigured fast by those who utilize it to meet their and their business’s needs in a swiftly-altering environment. CFOs can become better at fast-tracking the execution, operation, and handling of composable systems by gaining the required competencies like data literacy, which aids data incorporation across an extensive range of sources.

So you see that hyper-automation and intelligent composable business are two raging automation trends that are key CFOs as they optimize financial operations.

AI (Artificial Intelligence) and ML (Machine Learning) are helping many industries improve their performance through better models to process and interpret data, such as retail companies. If you are running a business in the retail sector, you can use these technologies to drive an upswing in your sales and bottom-line results. This article discusses some use cases of AI and ML that could boost your retail business’ revenues with better insights into customer behavior and buying patterns in your store or online e-commerce websites. 

What should AI do? 

It is essential to recognize that AI is still evolving, and companies use machine learning to collect and analyze customer data to predict customer behavior. For example, Amazon’s patent anticipatory shipping service will send out packages before orders are placed – targeting individuals who historically have had a high propensity to buy those products. However, other ways to use AI might be more applicable to your business. If you sell clothing or shoes online, you could use image recognition software to scan pictures from social media sites like Instagram and Facebook and then match them with similar items on your site. Or, if you operate an e-commerce store, you could use chatbots to answer questions directly from consumers via messaging apps like Facebook Messenger. These solutions can make shopping more accessible and convenient for consumers by providing instant access to information (like size charts) without leaving their social media feeds. They also help businesses capture valuable customer information, potentially assisting in future sales campaigns or product development processes.  

What should ML do?  

Machine Learning is used mainly for two things: personalization and automation. Personalization allows businesses to tailor their offerings based on what they know about individual customers; it helps brands target specific demographics with relevant offers and content that resonates best with them. Automation helps streamline organizational processes so that employees can focus on higher-value tasks rather than mundane ones. 

What can you leverage now? 

Thanks to technology, we can gain many benefits through predictive analytics. For example, if we look at Amazon Prime’s next-day delivery service, we can see how artificial intelligence helps make more accurate predictions about which products to order. They could use machine learning algorithms to predict when customers would run out of items they had previously ordered and what specific things they would order next. This mechanism allowed them to start placing orders for those items before they were requested, helping them save time and money while providing customers with an improved shopping experience. 

What is an AI-powered retail environment? 

Let’s look at Alibaba’s Tmall Genie smart speaker as another example. Alibaba’s AliGenie AI system powers this speaker,  which allows it to listen in on customer conversations and then provide personalized product recommendations based on that information. For instance, asking about a specific product or service can help you find what you need without an extensive search. And if you don’t have something specific in mind but are looking for inspiration? The Genie can help with that, too—it can help point out new products or services you might be interested in based on what other customers have purchased. 

By leveraging artificial intelligence systems like these, we can make our businesses more efficient while improving our customers’ experiences. 

How to make your customer shopping experience more enjoyable by leveraging AI 

Leverage AI in your retail shopping by using data science. You need to understand your customer shopping trends in specific departments or even an individual product at a particular time of day. Many cases require individualized experience for a customer; use Machine Learning to perform tasks like product recommendations based on the history of customers. For example, if you know what products a customer has purchased previously, you can recommend similar products. These recommendations will increase your sales drastically. Another way to leverage AI and ML is by understanding which products have high demand so that you can push them out first when restocking inventory. Similarly, if there are low-demand products, you can push them out last when restocking inventory, helping you maximize profits while minimizing inventory carrying costs and reducing storage space requirements due to less stocked items. 

Send us a note to find out how we can quickly help create an experience-oriented platform at Info@novatiosolutions.com.   

In today’s cut-throat market, businesses leave no stone unturned to create a unique experience for their clients. And customer communication is the key to ensuring that your clients enjoy the same experience every time.

Customer communication should have to be prompt for marketing, sales, or support. If your business fails to offer smooth engagement, customers are less likely to stick with it. This is where AI-backed chatbots come in, as they help automate customer communication while reinforcing the support big time.

A chatbot is a software application that simulates human conversation via artificial intelligence. In the last couple of years, it has gained considerable traction, and it is now widely used in web-based applications, including internet apps, call centres, e-commerce, customer service and so forth.

Continue reading to understand how chatbots can help build your brand and enhance customer service:

1. Chatbots are automated tools that enhance bidirectional communication. This results in better business outcomes with an improved customer experience and trust in the business.
2. Advanced chatbots give a personalized human touch to conversations, with a welcoming message and an amiable tone – without the need for actual human intervention or risk of delays due to overloaded attention centres – which is a clear advantage for business consumers.
3. Chatbots ensure faster response and immediate solutions to users, which makes customers feel more confident about the products or services of your company.
4. Chatbots offer precise information on products, new launches, schemes, offers, official announcements, and other updates related to your services or products. This motivates customers to explore the services or products more and make well-informed decisions about their purchases.
5. A chatbot designed to mimic human humour can make your brand more interactive, engaging, and livelier. Clients are more willing to talk to more human-like chatbots and respond with simple and fun messages.
6. A chatbot represents your brand, and if it responds to customer messages instantly in your brand’s voice, your brand will become more valuable to your customers.
7. A single chatbot has the potential to replace a couple of customer service executives, which helps reduce costs and save time substantially while providing customers with a consistent and seamless experience. This would help build a character for your brand, making it easier to gain customers’ trust.
8. A chatbot on your website or social handles represents round-the-clock customer support. This is an excellent option in situations wherein customers are likely to lose confidence in your brand because no one was there to attend to them.
9. Chatbots ward off human-specific restrictions in customer interaction. Typically, customer service agents manage just 2 or 3 customers at a time, but an intelligent chatbot doesn’t operate with such limitations. An intelligent chatbot can complement your human team while allowing your brand to reach out to more prospects in less time.

If you want to take your business to the next level in today’s digital era, chatbots are your way forward. We encourage you to connect with one of our specialists at Novatio, a leading RPA service provider, to understand how our custom automation solutions can help your business grow and thrive while preparing it for the future.

The following is a prelude to our more comprehensive piece on Hyperautomation in Education

Robotic process automation (RPA), sometimes referred to as software robotics, is a form of automation that’s about automating digital processes rather than physical ones. In other words, RPA isn’t about automating physical tasks like warehouse robots would do. Instead, you can think of RPA as a collection of mechanical minds that can save human experts from having to perform repetitive data entry tasks, processes that require interacting with multiple digital interfaces, or even some customer service business processes. While RPA is an important part of digital transformation across all industries, we’ve seen universities and other higher education providers use RPA to particularly great success.

Just as we’ve seen state and local governments embracing RPA during the COVID-19 crisis due to an increase in remote work, educators who face COVID-related challenges and the difficulties of remote learning are turning toward RPA. At Novatio, our mission is to help organizations find the RPA tools that make sense for their specific needs and make the transition as seamless as possible. Here are just a few great use cases for how higher ed is using RPA to their advantage and how we can help.

Application Processing

One of the greatest challenges higher education providers face during peak seasons is the influx of new college applications. This has been compounded for top colleges, which are actually seeing a significant increase in admissions during the COVID-19 crisis. Using legacy systems, human workers would have to manually read each application and check it against college requirements. With RPA, however, it’s possible to set up machine learning software bots that understand the parameters for high-quality applications, and these software bots can automatically process them.

An RPA bot can do this by automatically checking the courses each student is applying for and comparing their accomplishments to the prerequisites for the courses. This way, eligible students can be moved on automatically, and staff members can be flagged if a promising application lacks a necessary prerequisite.

Course Scheduling

RPA implementation in higher education facilities goes well beyond streamlining admissions. Course scheduling is another challenge that higher ed facilities must contend with each semester, and it requires collaboration between multiple different departments. Using legacy systems, each department will likely have its own data sets, and they have to manually share data with each other to determine the most popular course times for student demographics.

With robotic process automation, it’s possible for different departments to pool their data, and automated data analytics systems can check data between different courses and student information to determine the ideal times to hold each course. This improves the student experience, and it makes things much easier on the faculty, especially if your school struggles with scheduling. Naturally, this solution can be applied to other scheduling matters as well, such as sports, clubs, and other activities.

Financial Reports

Naturally, the COVID crisis has brought financial hardships to most sectors, and higher education isn’t any different. It’s estimated that 74% of colleges are now facing financial hardship, and it isn’t difficult to see why. Outside of the top colleges, enrollment is declining as students take breaks from education, and the decrease in state funding over the years has done nothing to help public higher education facilities.

RPA can help reduce costs in financial planning and processing by automatically collecting actionable insights backed by big data, so you’ll have everything you’ll need to plan accordingly for each semester. Of course, it isn’t just about keeping up with tuition costs and student spending. Intelligent automation can also help you process FAFSA applications, just as it helps you process admission applications. Determining eligibility criteria for each FAFSA form is incredibly time-consuming, but if you can set up software bots that understand the parameters for eligibility, you free up your staff to focus on core financial concerns.

Chatbots

A chatbot is basically a virtual assistant that can simulate a real human conversation. While you naturally want to keep human assistants on hand for complex inquiries, many simple questions can be answered by a chatbot on your school website. With the help of natural language processing, these bots are able to understand questions submitted in a conversational tone, and they can provide accurate answers to questions regarding admissions, scheduling, and financial aid from students, family, and staff.

Processing Grades

Faculty members have to keep up with student reports which are collections of a student’s grades, recommendation letters, their academic program(s), and everything else to do with their time in college. Certain updates, like writing and adding new recommendation letters, may require manual steps, but grade processing can be automated.

Most teachers already use a learning management system to automate tasks with grade processing, such as having formulas that calculate each individual student’s average, for example. Once final grades are recorded after the exam, RPA makes it possible to pull each student’s grade from their teachers’ learning management system, so it can be instantly added to that student’s report without any manual tasks being performed.

These are just a few excellent use cases for RPA in higher education. We’re here to make sure you get the functions you need with reliability and scalability to ensure you see a good return on investment. Whether you need artificial intelligence solutions for student servicing or to simply automate some database functions, we can get you started with some quick wins for your efficiency and your return.

The Symbiotic Relationship Between Humans and AI

When we say AI thinks “like a human,” we really mean that it thinks “similar to a human.” There are many key differences between our biological neural networks, and artificial neural networks.
In our last article, we discussed the similarities in neural networks which are modeled after human brains and how that benefits our data training and labeling needs. However, we did not talk about what makes this technology different from how we work.

AI Is an Imitation

Artificial intelligence may never think in the same way humans do, as AI is not “thinking” at all. There are inherent differences between human intelligence and machine-learned intelligence that will prevent this, such as the inability to think uniquely, or past what the system has been taught to do. 

In fact, a top researcher of Artificial Intelligence wants people to stop referring to AI as “Machine Learning” in general. Michael I. Jordan, a professor at the University of California, Berkeley, asserts that most AI systems are nowhere near the capabilities of humans, as they are simply showing the most basic levels of pattern recognition skills. 

That being said, these differences do not inhibit the technology. While the terms artificial intelligence and machine learning can be a bit overused, AI can certainly be very intelligent and has the capacity to learn. Although there are some processes that AI cannot do better than humans, there are also processes where technology will beat us every time; and these things are improving at a rapid rate. 

AI Is an Extension of Its Creator

A U.S. federal judge recently ruled that AI cannot be classified as an inventor on a patent. Rather, the creator or owner of the AI is listed as the inventor. After all, the owner of the AI was the one tweaking algorithm, overseeing the data labeling and training.

The purpose of AI in the present and future is not to replicate human intelligence or replace the role of humans. The purpose of artificial intelligence is to create a self-teaching system that enhances the capabilities of humans.

The Future of AI?

So, humans and AI will always be distinguishable from one another. (Sorry Bladerunner fans.) But we’re still curious. What does the future of AI look like? 

AI is already used to create self-driving vehicles, analyze vast quantities of data, diagnose and treat illnesses, enhance customer retail experiences, and much more. 

Many experts predict that these uses will be expanded and improved upon, so much so that AI will be able to overcome the obstacles created by the biological limitations of humans. For example, AI could conduct long-range space expeditions to colonize other entities within our solar system without risking human lives, or even fight climate change using atmospheric drones. In fact, Microsoft has already begun using artificial intelligence to fight climate change through their “AI for Earth” program.

Artificial intelligence also has huge potential in future workplaces. AI could be used as a decision-making tool for companies, helping improve customer service systems and support management positions. To learn more about how technology like RPA and AI are already improving the workforce, read our blog The Factory Metaphor.

Again, AI will work alongside human workers, assisting us where we fall short, but never taking over completely.  In the future, we see a world where humans and Artificial Intelligence evolve together and AI has a metaphorical hand in most aspects of life. But unique decision-making and problem-solving will always set us apart from our robot counterparts.

If you are interested in implementing technology like AI, RPA, or ML into your workflow, contact us. Together, we can improve the way we work alongside artificial intelligence and drive the future of this technology.