Intelligent automation (IA) is seen as the next phase of process automation. A few years ago, robotic process automation (RPA) was introduced in many industries across Banking, Insurance, Retail, Logistics and Telecom. Although we see that many traditional RPA deployments are still failing. Reasons are complex business processes, including many rules, exceptions or even processes which are not known end-to-end. Introducing only an RPA solution will not solve this issue of dynamic processes. A proper process management is still needed in the organizations to make the process automation successful. A process centric view is still needed from the beginning, process analysis and optimizations are still part of the solution.

Besides this, the operational costs of a process automation are still increasing in organizations. Changing UI’s, processes, forms and documents will impact the automated tasks. The introduction of intelligent automation can solve these issues. These tools can recognize changes in forms, UI and processes by using AI and can correct the automated processes by using machine learning. 

Intelligent process automation, supported by process management will become rapidly the next-generation operating model. We see that vendors like UIPath, Blueprism,… are adapting their tools, so the next phase of digital transformation can be started.

– Nico Schaetsaert