This past week the headlines have been blaring, “are we entering a recession?”. We’ll leave it to the talking heads to decide whether we are already in a recession or if one is simply imminent. However, what we can do is offer you some clear cut ways organizations can leverage business process automation to more effectively prepare for and navigate these uncertain times.

Design for Resilience

All too often and especially in times of crisis, organizations implement digital technology for one sole purpose: to cut costs.

However, adopting such a miopic view of technology can hinder innovation and long-term growth. Instead we encourage you to focus on enabling resilient delivery. This means leveraging a wide range of automated tools such as RPA, machine learning, AI, IoT, and so on to not only automate tasks and workflows, but decision making as well. Secondaring goals include ensuring your organization is location independent, highly scalable, adaptable, fully integrated and secure.

Case in point, during the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic when billions of people entered lockdown virtually overnight, Telecom providers were inundated with customer service calls from people. To help mitigate this surge of inquiries, many turned to intelligent automation-powered chatbots.

In an August 2020 blog post, Sorabh Saxena, Executive Vice President – Customer Service & Operations at AT&T describes how the company launched BOTS, a new tool designed to, “automate key work specifically needed to support the influx of requests surrounding COVID-19. The team’s innovative work included a conversation chatbot in collaboration space. Created within 48 hours, these virtual assistants provide real-time updates and help speed employee collaboration for faster problem solving. And one of the BOTs is saving hours per day for each service manager. That means we’re able to deliver more of the services that our customers need even faster.”

Capitalize on AutoML, AIOps & Low Code

In a crisis, you have to act fast, especially when it comes to IT delivery. 

However, even under normal circumstances, IT and development teams are constantly pushed to deliver more, faster and with fewer resources. By equipping your IT and software development teams with next gen solutions low/no code automation and AutoML, you can expedite the time it takes to build new applications and ensure your tech teams can act fast in times of crisis.

Combined with a robust AIOps tool, these tools can facilitate continuous resiliency, availability and system health across the entire technology ecosystem. 

Interested in learning more about how real-world companies are leveraging low code tools to accelerate and democratize innovation?

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LOW CODE AUTOMATION LIVE

Virtual Event // July 26, 2022

Prioritize Humans and Embrace Cobots 

In addition to straightforward process automation, RPA and IA can also help enhance the human worker experience by equipping them with digital assistants. Similar to at-home conversational-AI powered applications such as Alexa and Siri, assisted RPA and IA solutions can automate routine tasks on demand. For example, the user could request the tool to pull up a customer’s account, process a refund, update medical records, approve vacation requests, locate compliance information and so on. 

In times where skilled employees are scarce, these tools can help bridge the gap by boosting productivity and satisfaction of existing employees. For example, Nike’s “cobots” helped their human workers triple their order processing capacities during the past two holiday seasons. The U.S. Air Force has also embraced a human-first approach to RPA, using the technology to enhance everything from battle ground operations such as target recognition to personnel processes such as permanent change of station (PCS).