On innovation, the United Arab Emirates holds a record most would envy. From its business-centric governance to its economic Visions, the nation has traditionally embraced the new and issued guidelines on adoption to ensure the best possible outcome from any technological emergence — the cloud, the Metaverse, mobile computing, 5G, and on, and on.
But it is in artificial intelligence (AI) that the nation really stands out. It was the first to appoint a minister of state to oversee AI technologies, and guidelines on its implementation often touched upon responsibility and transparency. These remain hot issues as tools such as OpenAI’s ChatGPT and Google’s Bard continue to capture the imagination. Used by informed individuals, such inventions can be incredibly useful. But in a region that continues to place pressure on the technology function to deliver more — more innovative experiences, more security — using less — less people, less resources — we must tread carefully. Generative AI has its caveats, even as it presents itself as a way to remain relevant in a demanding and uncertain world.
Why so hyper?
That is why I want to talk about hyperautomation, an orchestra of technologies — AI, machine learning (ML), and robotic process automation (RPA) — that come together in uplifting harmony and allow any organisation to weather the trials of today’s markets. Hyperautomation allows businesses to acquire new customers while retaining current ones and other such examples that, to a seasoned executive, appear to be having your cake after eating it. Hyperautomation is just what the CEO ordered — creativity on a budget.
Start here. Rethink processes. If you gather the right data, you can take a peek under the hood of each process to see what works, what goes wrong (and where), and what frustrations employees and customers are encountering. However, it is amazing how few companies are currently equipped to do what I have described. Data is plentiful, but extracting the insightful nuggets and making those discoveries available to the right people might be problematic. Your ambition therefore falls victim to your capacity.
Do not think that hyperautomation is just the latest buzzword for the latest technologies. It is more than that. It is an approach to connecting critical business processes, breaking down informational and operational silos, and boosting efficiency by empowering decision-makers to execute data-driven maneuvers. By connecting different teams into a single operational ecosystem, the business creates a new uber-process that is greater than the sum of its parts, and makes that process repeatable.
Trimming the fat
I should point out that — and this may strike you as strange — hyperautomation does not always start with automation. This is because teams cannot be expected to automate processes of which they are unaware. To train teams to act differently, we start with discovery to understand what everybody does and how (well) they do it. In many change projects of this type, an enterprise will turn to Application Portfolio Management (APM), which will determine what applications are run by each business unit and what tools are most commonly used in daily work. Just as important, is the discovery of which applications are not in use. And of course, we must also find out what operational gaps exist and what technologies might best be deployed to plug them.
This is what optimisation is all about. We trim the fat, we strengthen the bones, and we tone the muscles. Since we all took a more expansive step into the cloud, this region’s technology suites have become prone to tech sprawl. This has implications for operational efficiency and security, both of which have knock-on effects for employees and customers. Most organisations now use some 200 apps or more, and employees are unaware of many of them.
APM allows organisations to make the architectural changes necessary to optimise experiences for employees and customers. Hyperautomation ties together people, processes, and technology. Say your B2C enterprise runs a self-service chatbot, a case management system for customer complaints, and a call-center platform for human-to human communication between employees and customers. During the APM discovery phase, you may find the complaint platform to be under-resourced (which will affect the employee experience) while the chatbot is seldom used.
The hyperautomation mindset will call for redressing this balance to enhance the experience for both employees and customers. When the chatbot is connected to the customer complaints system via integrated workflow, the AI can do more than just field more calls and reduce the burden on human agents. It can also augment the entire process by learning the most commonly asked questions and tying these to common problems. The RPA module can filter out those questions and direct customers either to the chatbot, to self-service documents, or to a human agent.
Boldly going
Hyperautomation may seem like a risky leap. And it takes a bold mindset to give the “go” on a radically new way of working. We often think of leaders primarily as those in front while forgetting that they are often in front because they moved first. If it helps, many great innovations come in times of uncertainty — not because people took risks but because they realised the greater risk was standing still, waiting to be a follower.
