Intelligent Process Automation (IPA): Definition &  Business Benefits

IPA

Over the past decade, lots of companies have been through tough financial times, and as a result, they have been looking for ways to simultaneously boost customer satisfaction, increase employee engagement and cut costs. With the increasing pressures on productivity and profit margins, companies are looking for digital solutions such as process automation and the application of Artificial Intelligence – this is where Intelligent Process Automation comes in.

This need to increase sales and drive productivity, paired with a surge in digital technologies, is paving the way for the next generation of business automation. Several organizations across different industries have already begun implementing intelligent process automation – usually with remarkable results. Still, despite this, some companies are unsure of Intelligent Process Automation and how it will impact the workforce moving forward.

What is Intelligent Process Automation (IPA)?

Intelligent Process Automation combines machine learning algorithms and artificial intelligence to automate or improve processes. IPA technologies can significantly lessen human interaction in several corporate processes. IPA can therefore be defined as a technology stack that helps you automate, integrate, and manage digital processes. 

IPA allows corporations to automate processes using unstructured, semi-structured, and structured document types, such as documents, forms, texts, video, and pictures. It’s a combination of next-generation tools and business-process enhancements that assist knowledge workers by eliminating repetitive tasks. IPA can also significantly enhance customer experience by accelerating procedures and streamlining interactions.

Intelligent Process Automation learns from imitating human behavior and becomes better at it over time. Due to developments in cognitive technologies and deep learning, traditional rule-based automation levers are being enhanced with decision-making abilities. IPA promises enhanced worker performance, faster reaction times, higher efficiency, better customer experiences, faster reaction times, and lower operational risks.

What Technologies Make Up Intelligent Process Automation

IPA-Business

Intelligent Process Automation is essentially made up of two major technologies: AI and RPA. At a granular level, however, there are specific AI technologies usa org that are key components of IPA as they serve different purposes that enable the cognitive capabilities to automate complex business processes. Here are the technologies that make up IPA:

  • Robotic Process Automation – involves the automation of rule-based and repetitive tasks
  • Artificial Intelligence – is also a combination of technologies that enable systems to perform tasks that require logic, reason, decision-making, and judgment:
  • Natural Language Processing – a technology that interprets language and uses that information to perform an action or make decisions. Good examples of the use of NPL are chatbots and virtual home assistants like Google Home or Amazon’s Echo 
  • Computer Vision – this AI technology allows computers to interpret and parse images. Computer vision is used in banking to detect fraudulent banknotes, thus enhancing security
  • Machine Learning – this technology can be described as systems that use data to enhance those systems’ performance without definitive instructions – finding patterns in data and using them to make accurate predictions

How is Intelligent Process Automation Different From Robotic Process Automation

While both these technologies deal with automation, RPA is merely a component of IPA:

  • Robotic Process Automation involves the automation or rule-based, repetitive tasks to present a little variation. The processes chosen for automation with role of RPA usa org are usually smaller, decomposed processes of larger, complex ones. For instance, extracting data from invoices to input them into Enterprise Resource Planners is among the common tasks that are automated with RPA. 
  • Intelligent Process Automation would further automate these processes and eliminate the need for human intervention that decreases response speed and introduces error. For instance, machine learning can be leveraged to review invoices for compliance, while decision modeling software can be used to automate the checks – something finance teams or managers usually perform manually.

What Are Some of the Top Benefits of Intelligent Process Automation

Boosting Innovation

The implementation of Intelligent Process Automation takes on time-consuming activities so that employees can focus on more cognitive tasks. This gives them more time to get creative, build relationships with customers, and develop new, innovative ways of doing things. This can significantly impact a company’s success as innovation is vital for pushing a business forward and helping it stay competitive.

Automating Business Functions

Automation is a rather obvious benefit of Intelligent Process Automation. Automation was developed to lessen the need for human intervention, which makes life that much easier for the human workforce, who will have more time to focus on more timely tasks.

Automation could mean something different for each industry, department, employee, etc. For instance, automation in recruitment can help you locate ideal candidates, whereas, in a financial institution, it can help in accessing data and updating client records. Nevertheless, the one thing these processes have in common is that IPA automates them, therefore, enhancing your business.

Decreasing Processing Times and Cutting Operational Costs

Improved productivity and efficiency are at the core of Intelligent Process Automation. This is due to the fact that these technologies eliminate the need to perform tasks manually, which is very burdensome and time-consuming. Using IPA tools to optimize your workforce productivity and back-office operations can significantly speed up key processes that help cut operational costs.

Improving Customer Satisfaction and Experience Rates

Intelligent Process Automation can enhance customer satisfaction and experience. Well, automated systems mean that individuals submitting data online, like insurance claims or credit card applications, will get the appropriate response much quicker. Plus, chatbots and automated online systems mean that your customers can get support and help even after office hours which is very essential in today’s digitized culture.

Intelligent Process Automation also helps make shipping and logistics easier and quicker. This means shipping and retail companies can get goods to their customers faster when shopping online.

Reducing the Risk of Human Error

Unfortunately, human beings are prone to making mistakes, which trickles down to their work—for instance, associating records with the wrong customers, inputting incorrect data, or sending documents to the wrong people. However, by eliminating the human workforce from the process and relying on IPA tools instead, you can reduce the risk of manual errors.

Increasing Compliance

Cybersecurity and data privacy are among the current hot topics, with people growing increasingly concerned about how much personal information they share with businesses – especially online. For instance, people share a lot of information when searching for an ideal insurance policy, applying for a loan, online banking, and even shopping.

Fortunately, Intelligent Process Automation ensures that personal data is handled carefully and stored safely at all times without deviation or error. This is extremely essential in General Data Protection Regulations. GDPR dictates that businesses of every size should comply with privacy laws and legislation.

Businesses must guarantee that all sensitive data is digitally secured through important security measures like end-to-end encryption. Luckily, Intelligent Process Automation makes this easier as it increases compliance, and it does this without the risk of human error.

What Challenges Are Associated With Intelligent Process Automation

  • Conflicts from manual workers and inefficiency in dealing with them appropriately
  • A complication in upskilling workers and offering them adequate training
  • Hardship in leveraging the legacy/traditional systems
  • An increase in cyber security threats
  • Scarcity of highly skilled and sophisticated manpower

How to Apply Intelligent Process Automation Across Different Industries

Insurance

Chatbots with Natural Language Processing are used actively in insurance companies to automate and enhance customer experiences. More specifically, they are implemented in the framework of Intelligent Process Automation in automating appointment scheduling and using a self-service model to help customers choose an insurance policy easily.

Health Care

Medical device manufacturers and pharmaceutical companies are increasingly using data provided by IPA to minimize fraud and mistakes while enhancing accuracy and security. The healthcare industry is known to generate a troublesome amount of paperwork. Intelligent Process Automation can be utilized in processes such as staff appointments, admission, test results, discharges, and billing, among other things.

Construction

Intelligent Process Automation can be applied in the construction industry to help organizations in remote handling of documents, autonomous machines, estimates management, automation of invoices, and the use of Virtual Reality in project planning and training.

Oil and Gas Industry

Intelligent Process Automation helps oil and gas industries to enhance thief operational efficiency. This includes live report generation, supply chain management, data analytics automation, security checks, etc.

Financial Services

Intelligent Process Automation is currently being tested and proved to be efficient in the financial services sector in increasing accurate credit models in order to know client preferences and sensitivity, strengthen the lending process, bost routing, and trade execution. 

Intelligent Process Automation assists in the digital transformation of top business processes through account payment operations, loan applications, automating valuation processes, and business rules – these are some of the current opportunities for Intelligent Process Automation in the financial world. In fact, finance companies can save up to 20-25% by using Intelligent Process Automation.

Retail Industry

In the retail industry, Intelligent Process Automation facilitates the automation of various processes and departments, including return processing, sales analytics, human resource processes, and more.

Manufacturing

Intelligent Process Automation doesn’t just enable manufacturers to automate workflow and manufacturing; it also supports delivery, orders, inventory, and purchasing of orders.

Try Implementing Intelligent Process Automation in Your Business Today

Several businesses across various industries are on the verge of a new era in organizational perfection that will be driven by Intelligent Process Automation. If you implement Intelligent Process automation in your business before your competition, you will have a very high chance of being more efficient, productive, and successful.

The views expressed in this article are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views or policies of The World Financial Review.