The secret business benefit of process automation & AI technologies

Do you know the secret business benefit of process automation and artificial intelligence (AI) technologies?

Anyone who has ever travelled with children knows that hearing “are we there yet?” is not a cliche but a reality. Try telling an eight-year-old that the journey is as important as the destination, and they’ll look you in the eye and ask for their iPad.

Unfortunately, we can sometimes be just as impatient when it comes to seeing results in our businesses. According to recent research by Gartner, return on investment (ROI) and the speed of realizing it are among the most important factors for businesses employing new technologies like AI, and among the most disappointing ones.

Only a little over half of the organizations surveyed felt that the speed to ROI of these new technologies met their expectations. We want ROI and value-added benefits, just like the teenager in the car wants the next Wi-Fi hotspot. However, we might be missing something really important if all we’re looking at is the immediate numbers.

Efficiency in automation and AI

One of the clearest benefits of deploying new technologies like business automation and AI is efficiency. Tasks that previously took manual handling or data entry can be done almost instantly. Simple repetitive processes and data routing can be handed over to tools that will turn hours into minutes at most. So, what becomes of that time that has been saved?

Most businesses seem to assume that their teams will continue to work with the same velocity but have more hours to utilize for it. That would mean better numbers, like more units or higher sales. Unfortunately, that’s almost never true. With time freed up, employees take breaks or try to deal with the increased volume of task switching they now face. They may be looking for things to do, but with the burden of routine activities removed, sometimes they come up empty-handed. A lot of that newly freed time can be lost, and the expected ROI doesn’t materialize.

There is a better approach to both the outcomes of automation technologies and our understanding of the returns they bring. It’s recognizing that this is a resource we can reinvest in our business for longer-term value through training.

Invest that time in the tools

One of the most telling conclusions Gartner has drawn is that AI won’t replace people. People who use AI will replace people who can’t or won’t. With the time your teams recover from automation technologies, one of the best things you can do is help them understand how to use the tools.

Training your staff in the use of a new tech stack ensures that they can get the most out of it. Their proficiency will unlock the full potential of the systems, which means more engagement with the capabilities and better use of the investment you made. Empowered and trained workers will take the space you’ve created for them and look for ways to create more, developing greater efficiencies and increased skills with the tools at hand.

Invest that time in the people

That’s not to say that training is limited to the tech stack. Listen to your staff and find out what excites them about their roles. If they’re freed from mundane and repetitive tasks, what would they want to be able to do to further the organization’s goals? What parts of their roles excite them?

With the time freed up by AI and automation technologies, help them extend themselves into those areas. Look at developing existing capabilities through training and new opportunities and unlock your teams’ passions for their work. The old joke is that the reward for good work is more work, but what if the reward for efficiency was the opportunity to do the kind of work that makes you enthusiastic about your job?

Invest that time in the process

This kind of training ties closely to business process management (BPM). When you’re working with your subject matter experts to optimize business operations, they’re the ones who have the working knowledge of how things are done. When you free them up to become better skilled and more confident with tools like process automation and AI, they’re going to find new ways to employ those technologies.

Equipping business teams with the freedom and knowledge to apply these systems in a process improvement framework will result in cascading enhancements and unexpected efficiencies. Your process experts can only do so much, but if you empower your teams to join forces with them, you multiply the effect of continuous improvement and the impact of the tools at hand.

Discover the secret benefit of process automation and AI

All this is to say that the ROI for business process automation and process intelligence technologies maybe can’t be measured as clearly as units per hour produced, or cents on the dollar saved. It may result in clear time savings, but that isn’t always going to equate to a financial value-add.

That destination is definitely important, but you could be missing something valuable on the journey too – the potential to invest time in enhancing your workforce, extending the impact of your tools and improving your business processes further through training and empowering your teams. The ROI on that might be a little longer coming, but it will also have much greater impact as your teams extend their capabilities and improve the way they work for your organization in the long term.