{"id":2436,"date":"2019-11-06T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2019-11-06T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost\/projects\/horsesforsources\/cx-lags-intelligent-automation_110719\/"},"modified":"2021-12-09T11:22:24","modified_gmt":"2021-12-09T11:22:24","slug":"cx-lags-intelligent-automation_110719","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.horsesforsources.com\/cx-lags-intelligent-automation_110719\/","title":{"rendered":"Most automation strategies are failing because they aren’t impacting customer experiences. We must broaden beyond the back office…"},"content":{"rendered":"

After the recent RPA circus acts, the process automation industry has reached its lowest ebb.\u00a0 Simply put, dollars were being put behind a value proposition that simply wasn’t realistic – but that doesn’t mean the market doesn’t\u00a0have amazing potential<\/em>.\u00a0 We just need to refocus (and fast) on a direction that is real and sustainable for the long-term and rally everyone behind it.\u00a0 And the fault lies as much with the enterprises buying the solutions as it does those selling and implementing them.<\/p>\n

Far too many enterprises are paying lip service to CX – they love to ”big it up” but aren’t putting their money where their mouths are<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

We can bemoan over-eager investors and over-hyping marketeers all day long for over-cooking the market, but the reality behind the sluggish uptake of scaled deployments is the simple fact that intelligent automation initiatives and investments are firmly rooted in the back office, according to 590 major global enterprises, where nine times<\/em> as much investment has gone into the back office versus the front:<\/p>\n

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Click to Enlarge<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

So why is such paltry investment\u00a0being made in the front office, when improving the\u00a0customer\u00a0experience and making front office function\u00a0more efficiently are the biggest drivers?\u00a0 Is the CMO\/CDO completely distrusted<\/em> to spend on technology-enabled initiatives?\u00a0 Is automation simply an activity not worthy<\/em> of the CMO’s attention and the CFO has to be the one to get his\/her hands dirty?\u00a0 Because when you talk to digital leaders on both the buy and sell-side of the equation, they will all confess that both the potential and capability of RPA\u00a0to fix the gargantuan mess that is marketing and customer service process is massive<\/em>.\u00a0 Yes indeed people, improving customer experience is the ultimate objective of the majority of enterprises’ intelligent\u00a0automation strategies. Because you can’t get the full benefit from customer\u00a0analytics and AI if your processes are glued together by spaghetti code and manual workarounds:<\/p>\n

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Adoption of intelligent automation solutions is painfully slow because enterprises are failing to define their ideal “to-be” states<\/span><\/p>\n

When you consider it took a decade just for the finance function to grapple with the seismic shift from Lotus 1-2-3 to Excel, why are we expecting the same people to embrace much more complex technology tools like RPA\u00a0and Watson as voraciously as ice cream ion a hot summer’s day?\u00a0 Sure, the levels of investment in intelligent automation have already surpassed an average of $50m for the function, but the pace of adoption is still desperately slow, with barely a third of enterprises moving beyond pilots for any Intelligent Automation technology:<\/p>\n

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Click to Enlarge<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

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The Bottom-line:\u00a0 The process automation industry needs to rebuild the trust of enterprise leaders and investors.\u00a0 That means we need to approach this from an enterprise-wide perspective and quit paying lip-service to the customer experience<\/span><\/p>\n

The only way to focus on successful automation is for clients to define their ideal “to be” state and then work on solutions to help them get there.\u00a0 For many enterprises, this may be to drive down cost \/ improve efficiency, but the majority are focused on improving customer interactions and customer delivery execution (see above).<\/p>\n

What software vendors need to do: Quit all the marketing fluff and focus your solutions on supporting clients reaching their desired “to-be” states.<\/strong>\u00a0 Just trying to sell licenses as aggressively as possible has only resulted in mass disappointment – and has hurt the market and lost a lot of customer trust.\u00a0 Who cares which brand came higher in the latest analyst report (written by some analyst who has never written a script in his life) or whether Microsoft actually has any clue what it’s doing<\/a>, making a play into this space with some dated technology?\u00a0 Instead, focus on engaging customers to solve their desires – which are clearly outlined above.\u00a0 This means making sure you have evangelists\u00a0who can educate clients\u00a0(not just amplify the same old cardboard marketing fluff from some turgid conference) and invest in a support division which can build a world-class partner ecosystem and support clients directly during their early phases to get this all on the right track.\u00a0 Sure the tech is important, but if it’s not purchased with the right mindset it’s all one big fat waste of time and money – and costs many their careers into the bargain.<\/p>\n

What enterprises need to do:\u00a0 Design and define your “to-be state” and use that to flesh out which partners can actually listen, understand and deliver.<\/strong>\u00a0 The first thing you need to do is get past all this “bot for every employee” nonsense and focus on what you need, not how many licenses\u00a0to buy to keep your local RPA\u00a0sales rep happy. Most of these products can deliver basic RPA, document processing, screen scraping etc (and you can get deeper into which one performs best to meet your need in time), but you really need to get familiar with the whole concept and potential of intelligent automation technologies before throwing wads of cash at new kit.\u00a0 I’ve already seen several people lose their jobs because they squandered fortunes on licenses\u00a0they didn’t need and were left carrying the can for a dog’s breakfast<\/em> of an automation program…\u00a0 Then you need to explore all your critical process flows across the front-to-back offices.\u00a0 While your operations folks in the non-customer facing areas will undoubtedly be more enthusiastic about develop competencies\u00a0in intelligent automation, getting the frost office executives on board will reap considerable\u00a0benefits down the road,\u00a0 Marketing workflows are awash with manual workarounds, legacy apps and silos of data… customer services are a real mixed back of good and bad process habit and don’t even get me started on sales.\u00a0 So think OneOffice<\/a>… think about how the real customer-centric\u00a0organization needs to operate and you can work backward from there.<\/p>\n

What service providers and consultants need to do:\u00a0 get your heads out of the back office and reel in the marketing\/sales leads.\u00a0<\/strong> Simply put, you need to be the vehicle to help your enterprise clients align effectively with what the software vendors are selling.\u00a0 If you are not that vehicle then get out now, as you will be dead in the water.\u00a0 While the CFO and COO (and often the CIO) have budget to spend on software-driven process initiatives, they are often too rooted in stove-piped projects which operate at a snail’s pace with little enterprise impact.\u00a0 You need to drive the intelligent automation discussion with the Chief Digital Officer \/ CMO\u00a0to understand, listen and demonstrate the huge impact that these technologies can have in enabling a well-designed customer process and integrating with the operational areas of the firm to support unified data efforts.\u00a0 You have to help join the front and back-office pieces together for your clients if they are ever going to get past task optimization to genuine end-to-end process automation.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

After the recent RPA circus acts, the process automation industry has reached its lowest ebb.\u00a0 Simply put, dollars were being…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":2437,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[867,852,833,90],"tags":[303],"ppma_author":[19],"yoast_head":"\nMost automation strategies are failing because they aren't impacting customer experiences. 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