Automation initiatives in businesses typically start with a “bright idea”.
For example: “We could make the Finance Department much more productive if we could automate some of Accounts Receivable. Let’s talk to IT and see what or who they would recommend”.
However research by both EY and McKinsey should that such initiatives end up with a near 70% failure rate.
So how should you identify and prioritise automation opportunities? We have worked with many businesses to drive significant productivity gains and return on investment from workflow automation. In doing so we have developed an approach that is powerful, successful and sequential.
The high level steps are:
- Be clear on the Strategic Intent of the business – to ensure that any automation initiative aligns with the Strategic Intent.
- Analyse the business from a Value Chain perspective.
- Identify the key workflows in each of the Core Value Chain activities and in any Supporting Value Chain activity that is a significant cost centre.
- Approximate the likely return on investment from any possible automations together with the technical risk and cost.
- Choose a pilot project that is in alignment with the Strategic Intent, is relatively low cost and low risk and has a high return on investment.
- Prioritise the remaining potential automations and translate into an Automation Roadmap.
- Execute the Pilot Project as the first step on your Automation Roadmap.
Contact us to learn more about identifying and prioritising automation opportunities.