What Is Hyperautomation & Why It Matters for Enterprises

Back when automation first jumped into the technological industries, organizations were reluctant to adapt to this evolution for the fear of change. However, as the markets progressed, organizations started automating their processes and the results were evident.  

Since then, automation became a go-to practice for enterprises to adapt smart work systems that leads to more efficient outcomes. With evolution, automation took the form of hyperautomation that helps organizations to automate their IT processes in compliance with the dynamic market trends and business growth needs.  

This blog provides a detailed guide on hyperautomation, how it helps businesses to automate their processes and enhance ROI, why it matters so much for business growth, and some hyperautomation benefits. 

Let's start. 

What is Hyperautomation?  

Hyperautomation is a process carried out through an advanced framework developed with Robotic Process Automation or RPA, Artificial Intelligence (AI), and Machine learning (ML) to automate as many IT processes and tasks as possible for smart working and on-time business growth with minimum human intervention. 

Hyperautomation was at the top of Gartner’s list of strategic technology trends for 2021, and again in 2022. In a hyperautomation journey, organizations make use of technologies like AI, ML, intelligent business process management, and other tech software that act as the automation tools to first identify those IT tasks that later can be automated.

Keep in mind that hyperautomation is a holistic automation approach that is not just limited to services and products but is expandable to automating the whole decision-making processes with the help of advanced AI,  RPA tools, and ML algorithms.

Importance of Hyperautomation

Due to the significant positive impact hyperautomation can bring to the business, there has been noticed a rise in the need for hyperautomation for those businesses that are frustrated over the level of progress they make through the regular automation. Although many organizations have already implemented regular automation, this typical automation comes with its own set of limitations.

As a typical automation process cannot learn itself from structured data to have the decision-making capabilities, there arises a need for businesses to adapt to advanced algorithms. Moreover, simple automation requires manual coding, structured data interpretation, and a high amount of work to achieve the desired result each time an organization requires it.

This practice limits the advantages and expected statistics due to the typical reliance on structured data. Hyperautomation enables a business to streamline its processes from A to Z with decision-making and cognitive capabilities through complex artwork.

Here's a table for you to understand the differences between regular automation and hyperautomation:

Benefits of Hyperautomation for Enterprises  

Hyperautomation doesn't necessarily mean to replace human intervention, however, it complements and augments the worker's capabilities. Moreover, the optimization of on-time workflow reduces manual and time-consuming human intervention and provides richer insights that enhance the cognitive and decision-making capabilities, which are the results of hyperautomation.

Given below is the list of important benefits that shows why it has become crucial for organizations to adapt to hyperautomation.

Automation of the Processes  

The very first and obvious advantage of hyperautomation is that it simply automates the processes. However, the output is more precise, efficient, and result driven in hyperautomation. 

As some repetitive tasks or processes require logical reasoning and cognitive abilities along with data knowledge, hyperautomation allows an enterprise to automate the whole IT processes along with reduced manual and time-consuming interventions. This automation of processes allows the human workforce more time to think innovatively and more critically to perform their day-to-day chores instead of wasting their energy in the fulfilment of repetitive tasks.

Enhanced ROI  

As one of its main goals is to enhance the current business state and drive more leads, hyperautomation triggers the ROI by reducing the OPEX costs. 

Organizations that are currently on their hyperautomation journey may already see how result-driven this automation approach is and how it influences the conversions since it is less time-consuming. It is not just the hyperautomation, but any change initiative that’s implemented in an organization has a goal to target better ROI, and thus better work outcomes. AI, ML, and RPA-based hyperautomation bring the same results. 

For example, a hyper-automated process provides detailed analytics through automating a multi-layered process from end to end. These detailed analytics assist the data analysts to take notes that are helpful to increase the return on investment (ROI) by reducing the OPEX business costs.  

Easy Data Accessibility  

As hyperautomation involves the integration of various software and the organization's processes to achieve seamless interaction of workers, it allows the workforce to access the data more easily through its data accessibility feature. Moreover, integration of multiple systems together is the main requirement for a business to transform properly through hyperautomation, this also benefits the organization to stream their data from all channels to a centralized unit, which is in return more accessible and workable for employees.  

Increased Agility  

Hyperautomation makes a business more agile due to its market competitive features. No doubt it lowers the employee burden and workload, but also allows the creative thinkers to focus on the value-additive operations. Thus, this triggers business agility and allows a business to scale quickly in the market by automating the production, development, testation, and reiteration of their products and services. 

Integration and Collaboration  

Integration and better collaboration are among one the most impactful hyperautomation benefits. Organizations in their hyperautomation journey must integrate various technologies to automate a multilayered process from end-to-end. A multilayered process involves the use of multiple technologies and teams to work together. This integration also provides a benefit to teams and stakeholders to easily access all technologies, interpret data, and communicate and collaborate more effectively with each other.

Challenges of Hyperautomation  

Although hyperautomation comes with advanced benefits, there are several challenges that an enterprise might have to face when dealing with RPA, AI, and ML algorithms in their hyperautomation journey. Let's have a look at what sort of challenges you may expect when implementing intelligent automation: 

Complexity

Once a business starts the implementation of change, several issues like lack of process understanding and complexities in the ongoing IT operations might arise. Due to digital transformation, challenges in understanding processes might arise, however, this challenge often fades with time as employees start to build comprehension of systems. Proper documentation of the technical process, and making it accessible for employees, also allows a business to avoid possible comprehension-related issues.

Change Management

In the implementation phase of a hyperautomation journey, an organization might have to deal with issues like customer dissatisfaction and employee frustration. People tend to fear change and prefer to stay in their comfort zones. However, hyperautomation means implementing a change that might upset the comfort zone and boundaries of both employees and customers. Thus, change management is another critical challenge enterprises and organizations might have to face.

Such critical issues can be avoided by properly communicating with employees regarding the possible disturbances, so they mentally prepare themselves for the expected changes. Moreover, offering employee compensation and rewards boosts the employee morale and allows change managers to tackle change management more productively.

Training Data

One main challenge of hyperautomation is that when training the AI and ML systems, the training data may be unavailable, biased, or may include personal information. Moreover, sometimes biasing may occur in the algorithms due to wrong data assumptions. Fine-tuning the hyperparameters, training the model through cross-validations, and using the right features allow you to avoid bias in data and algorithms.

Manual Augmentation

Even if the system is automated, manual augmentations are still required to expect robust outcomes and effectively scale the business. A workforce that is well-versed in the hyperautomation technicalities must overlook the processes to ensure seamless working.

Security

Organizations are responsible for providing the training data to AI and ML vendors, and sometimes it may include personal information that is hard to identify. Thus, several personal data security issues may arise when you share the training data with the external vendors.

Moreover, when the process becomes automated, the organizations are responsible to assess the security vulnerabilities of these intelligent automated applications.

The Bottom Line

Although it is just a compact list of benefits and challenges, there are going to be difficult stages that will come up from time to time. Thus, you must be well-prepared to face those daunting challenges and resolve them in the best of your enterprise's favor.

Are you interested in knowing more about hyperautomation to start digital transformation journey? Get in touch with Icreon’s automation experts to get the best consultation based on your organization's goals and framework. Explore Icreon’s Emerging Technology Development Services.