A Comparison of RPA, IA, and Hyperautomation
Automation in all its stripes shares a unifed goal—to ease the burden of repetitive tasks by strategically automating them.
Whether organizations leverage robotic process automation (RPA), intelligent automation (IA), or hyperautomation, the end result is the same: streamlined processes and tasks that enable businesses to achieve greater outcomes and be better at whatever it is they do.
The Differences Between RPA, IA, and Hyperautomation
Wherever you are on your digital transformation journey, leveraging automation helps increase revenue and growth. There is no one-size-fits-all when it comes to automation. Finding the right balance is key.
While there is overlap between these approaches to automation, there are a few key differences.
Unattended RPA and attended RPA are bots used to automate repetitive, mundane tasks and dramatically streamline business and operational processes across departments and the entire organization.
Attended RPA is manually triggered by a user or a predefined action to complete a task and requires some level of human involvement. Until that trigger or predefined action is initiated, the bot remains in the background, poised for action to help complete a process. As soon as an attended RPA finishes its part of a task or activity, the user then returns to the process to complete the task.
Unattended RPA is triggered automatically (versus manually) to complete an end-to-end process. Rather than requiring human intervention, it follows a pre-determined, rules-based process and operates independently on a preset schedule or as triggered by events. Unattended RPA perform activities or interact with applications at any time without human interaction. This is the defining characteristic of unattended RPA. These unattended bots work independently—interacting with humans only to seek validation or clarification or to note an exception.
Intelligent Automation brings together five key automation tools – artificial intelligence (AI), RPA, business process management (BPM) and automation (BPA), and document automation – to streamline all manner of business and operational processes across the organization. IA is an integral part of a successful digital transformation process because it provides a smart holistic view of the organization’s processes and people. As a result it helps organizations become vastly more efficient by simplifying complex systems and streamlining processes. Its scalability helps organizations save big on costs.
Hyperautomation takes intelligent automation to a level that radically impacts all areas of the business. In a nutshell, hyperautomation maintains that any task or process that can be automated should be automated end to end—and like IA and unattended RPA, hyperautomation doesn’t require human intervention. It takes streamlining processes to a heightened level of maxim efficiency and productivity across the entire organization.
Choosing the Right Technology for Your Business
Every company has a unique way of getting work done. To get the most out of your automation journey, you first need to have a solid understanding of your organization’s processes.
You want to make sure you pick the right business process management and automation platform as your partner in intelligently automating the parts of the business that make sense and enable successful outcomes. This platform should be with you every step of the way—from uncovering automation opportunities to measuring the efficiency and effectiveness of your new workflows.
Scope of Automation Needed
Every organization has a unique business landscape and opportunities for automation. No two organizations are exactly alike. Take the time to get stakeholders and users together to create a strategic plan for identifying processes and repetitive tasks that can be automated to benefit your teams and the overall organization.
This is where choosing the right tool really takes root: the best fit is one that begins the journey with you as you assess opportunities for automation.
Integration with Other Technologies
Understand how automation will integrate with other technologies in your organization’s tech stack. Is the automation solution you are considering able to work seamlessly with technologies you have in place or will need in the future?
Impact on the Workforce
At its core, automation is about reducing the amount of mundane, repetitive tasks and operational processes that drain time, energy, and motivation from people. Automating these tasks and processes enables your greatest resource – your people – to focus their energy, creativity, and time on more meaningful work. Automation also improves the profitability and competitiveness of the organization as a whole.
Implementation and Deployment
Begin by evaluating tasks and processes that would be good candidates for automation and identifying requirements. With the right tools, you’ll be able to build, test, and automate selected processes, followed by measuring and optimizing performance.
The Future of Automation Technologies
As more organizations get serious about their digital transformation, they increasingly look to automation opportunities that lead to significant successful outcomes and a strong competitive advantage.
Gartner’s findings underscore this rapid increase in the use of automation technologies. One of the key trends continuously identified by Gartner in recent years is that the pace of automation is on the rise and is expected to continue.
Are you ready to discover what automation can do for your organization? Request a demo.
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