August, 20208 STRATEGIES TO UNLEASH THE FULL POTENTIAL OF YOUR INTELLIGENT AUTOMATION (IA) INITIATIVEBY ADRIAN IAIZA, FORMERLY HEAD OF PROCESS AUTOMATION AND IMPROVEMENT, TAL AUSTRALIAA brief scan of literature suggests that while most organisations have embarked on Intelligent Automation, the majority of us are struggling to scale. Why does this happen?, What is holding us back?Goldratt's Theory of Constraints tell us to identify the most important limiting factor standing in the way of achieving a goal, and systematically improve that constraint until it is no longer the limiting factor. Then move onto the next constraint, and so on.As no two organisations are the same, I'll suggest a number of common constraints to consider, leaving it up to you as to which to take up, and in what order.C-Level support is conflicted or waning. This is usually as a result of a lack of Value and/or Alignment.Value: We all know to prioritise effort against value, but value is much more than cost alone. To generate and maintain enterprise wide engagement,value must extend to areas such as Customer Experience (time and quality), Risk Reduction and Avoidance, Revenue Generation, and fast tracking future new Product Releases.Once value has been defined it needs to be benchmarked, and progress widely reported. Too many organisations define value holistically, but then fail to report more than just the number of processes automated or hours of work avoided. Value needs to be reported holistically in order to generate, and sustain enterprise wide engagement. Reporting of benefits needs to be expanded to benchmark and report on the other key holistic measures such as reduced time to market, avoided regulatory risk, and improved revenue generation and NPS.Alignment: Hard fought budgets are tight and getting tighter. This capability is best used in areas using legacy systems that are expensive, or difficult to change and integrate. It is important that the initiative is positioned as complementing, and not competing, with straight through processing projects, using API or similar approaches.There are also synergies to be attained, and the question to ask is "Has the opportunity been seized to align your automation initiative with your digital transformation program?" IA has a thirst for clean, structured, digital data. Don't let this opportunity slide by.Commonly Machine Learning and Chatbot initiatives run into difficulty when moving from decision to action. IA is best placed to fill this need cheaply and quickly by using the digital inputs generated from machine learning, and then processing the relevant transactions across all underlying systems cheaply and effectively.Change Management: Are the benefits aligned against your corporate objective? Is IA seen as a way to deliver these top down, and bottom up throughout the organisation? Is there a residual fear around the intent of this capability? Are all members of the CoE change Adrian IaizaIN MY V EW
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