No doubt, automation is now a determining factor of corporate success and a foundational element of digital transformation. Unfortunately, very few have made the strategic moves necessary to fully automate their operations. Only 31 percent of organizations have fully automated at least one function, as can be seen from the figures, states McKinsey. 

Most businesses are afraid to modernize themselves, even though IT solution providers like Accenture stated that AI technology might boost corporate efficiency by 40 percent.

There are specific obstacles that deter the widespread implementation of business process automation. The lack of a defined AI strategy may be linked to a few apparent causes, as stated by 43 percent of firms, and a lack of technology infrastructure by another 25 percent.

Anticipating the challenges before implementing automation and identifying clear remedies are essential to save businesses from revenue loss. In this article, let's look into the key challenges that CIOs need to address to attain effective business process automation.

Warehouse Legacy Systems

Warehouse automation is vital to optimizing supply chain operations while reducing the effort, time, and errors caused by manual labor. When implemented correctly, warehouse automation solutions can boost the productivity and efficiency of a company.

While warehouse automation solutions aid in attaining operational efficiency, companies often struggle with the implementation process, diminishing the productivity of the work process.

For most players, the existing legacy systems turn out to be a major limiting factor. According to studies, most of the available warehouse hardware and software solutions are in effect “islands”, thereby convolution the connection process and hampering the automation journey.  Inefficient connectivity also paves the way for poor or incompatible data, limiting the potential for real-time monitoring. 

Optimizing and automating the warehouse with existing legacy assets requires efficient planning and execution. The CIOs are required to optimize the simpler and labor-intensive systems before introducing robots or more complex automation solutions into the operations.

For example, the order-selecting process is prone to errors because of the constant back-and-forth movement and dependence on instruments like clipboards for information. Industrial players should consider merging solutions like RFID tags, wearables, and voice technologies in order to speed up and enhance this process.

Customer service calls for Balance

Over the years, the customer service domain has seen the rapid inclusion of novel technology and is increasingly marching toward complete automation. According to McKinsey, by 2030 majority of the companies will be implementing different AL technology to provide seamless support. Whereas by 2025, AL is expected to cater 95 percent of all consumer interactions, notes a customer experience company Servion.

Today, customer service automation solutions like – Interactive voice response, chatbots, email automation, FAQ, and help centers are deployed to provide fast and secure service to clients. However, the inclusion of automated customer support threatens the overall transparency of communication and gives rise to both external and internal challenges.

From a customer perspective, while automated responses provide a faster solution, it often lacks the human touch. In many complex situations, the AI chatbots will be unable to understand the emotion of the consumers, and the overall communication might lack empathy and tone, of human communication.

On the flip end, the adoption of automated customer support solutions may make employees uneasy. Customer service management must position intelligent automation as an addition to human customer care, not as a substitute, in order for integration to be successful.

The CIOs are required to create a balance between the role of AI and human support in customer services. Whereas AI is perfect for high volume low complexity tasks, humans are needed for high-complexity queries. 

A survey by American Express found that fewer than 20% of customers would rather talk to a real person about a simple issue like finding a product. However, that percentage nearly doubles if the customer has a more complicated issue, such as a dispute.

Siloed HR Technology

HR is a significant part of any organization. Vested with people management, HRM has been one segment observing tech dominance, leading toward automation. Presently, cutting-edge technologies like AI and ML are actively deployed to automate different HR operations. 

For instance, the inclusion of AI in employee onboarding has proved to be a major leap forward. Today, 63 percent of talent acquisition heads state that AI has brought a positive impact on the employee recruitment process, with the majority of “hire-to-retire” procedures being optimized and automated.

However, in HRM, prevalent piecemeal HR tools have created severe hindrances in achieving complete automation. Today, a number of companies are using siloed HR solutions, leading to inefficient operations. In a survey conducted by Deloitte, 65 percent of the respondents opined that their HR technology was inadequate or only fair at achieving its overall objectives.

Siloed HR solutions not only hamper a company’s automation journey but also complicates the overall operation. For example, while using multiple HR technologies, the HR department becomes more likely to be exacerbated by dealing with multiple vendors. On top of that, multiple solutions often shoot up the operation and maintenance cost, while damaging the scalability.

HR solutions of today are required to be fully integrated. Having a comprehensively connected HRM solution helps companies manage different critical operations like payroll, employee onboarding, taxes, and more under a single platform.

Conclusion

Business process automation is a long process, that necessitates meticulous attention for attaining effectiveness and efficiency. There are foreseeable and unknown difficulties involved with automating a whole system. Therefore, how company executives interpret the shift, foresee automation difficulties, and respond to them will influence the fate of organization-level automation.

Automation is a remedy for congested company operations that rely on conventional methods. When done effectively, business process automation is the key to reducing obstacles and accelerating businesses toward success. Therefore, foreseeing problems in advance and coming up with a workable remedy can ensure success.