With autonomous systems such as self-driving cars or drones, AI-supported forms of automation are increasingly becoming part of everyday life. From Customer Service to enterprise-wide process chains - intelligent automation is already transforming work and life. According to market forecasts, automation will become the central driving force behind the digital transformation and impacts everything from infrastructure to business models to customer experience. In this context, Intelligent Process Automation enables automation of even more complex and strategic tasks beyond simple manual activities. In this article you get:
- Latest developments in Intelligent Process Automation and their benefits for you
- Opportunities to transform your business strategies using Intelligent Process Automation
- Condensed implementation approaches to save you important time
- Examples of use cases by industry segment to generate ideas for your situation
Companies that are now orchestrating complex business processes through intelligent automation are leading this development. This article shows concrete approaches on how you can implement Intelligent Process Automation for maximum productivity and efficiency in your company today - and incidentally unleash the potential of employees, reduce operational risks and improve response times and customer experience.
This article was written in German, automatically translated into other languages and editorially reviewed. We welcome feedback at the end of the article.
Intelligent Process Automation as a strategy for holistic operations: digital ecosystems
Many terms circulate for the relatively new field of Intelligent Process Automation (IPA): Intelligent Automation (IA), Cognitive Automation (CA), Hyperautomation or also Intelligent Process Digitization and Digital Process Automation (DPA) as well as Business Process Automation (BPA) or Business Automation - all these terms are about a comprehensive enterprise-wide digital transformation.
Consistent operations across all internal processes and customer-facing experiences require an overarching governance perspective as Big Ops Leadership. With Intelligent Process Automation (IPA), you can connect insights and data, workflows and services, and partners, employees, digital workforce (bots), and customers across the enterprise in a holistic ecosystem - and achieve high performance at lower cost.. This is how you recognize suitable fields of application and create an automated process chain in which all participants interact optimally and business operations are rapidly transformed.
As an Intelligent Process Automation Platform, Konfuzio combines Digital Process Automation (DPA) with AI-powered Robotic Process Automation (RPA) into an integrated IPA solution where each component can be customized.
What is Intelligent Process Automation?
Intelligent process automation (IPA) is defined as the use of artificial intelligence (AI) and other advanced technologies to intelligently automate business processes. These technologies can include machine learning (ML), natural language processing (NLP), and robotic process automation (RPA), which are combined as sequential toolchains.
Smart Workflows (or Business Process Management, BPM, or Digital Process Automation, DPA) facilitate a fundamentally optimized redesign of workflows. Deep Learning also enables increasingly autonomous processes, so that humans only need to check critical decisions - the improvements are therefore continuous and increase over time.
The goal of IPA is to improve the efficiency, accuracy, and speed of business processes by replacing manual activities with automated tasks (e.g., in data entry, customer service, or finance and accounting). IPA is often used in conjunction with other digital technologies such as cloud computing and big data analytics to create more sophisticated and efficient systems.
How are Intelligent Process Automation technologies used?
The intelligent component in Intelligent Process Automation is Artificial Intelligence (AI). Konfuzio offers AI-powered IPA solutions bundled in a platform for intelligent document automation workflows that use the underlying OCR technology (Optical Character Recognition) and RPA (Robotic Process Automation) continues through the following technologies:
- Intelligent workflows (Smart Workflows)
- Optical Semantic Hybrid AI
- Machine Learning (ML)
- Natural Language Processing (NLP)
- CV (Deep Learning for Computer Vision)
- Cognitive technology
- Ressource-efficient Cloud implementation or On-Premise
These powerful technologies are strategically combined and orchestrated to digitize, manage, automate and optimize business processes. This results in enormous efficiency gains, because you automate not only individual tasks as with RPA (Robotic Process Automation), but complete journeys throughout the entire company, across departments. You get a highly transformative solution that optimizes journeys, simplifies workflows, and improves business-critical factors such as customer experience and costs.
Thanks to agile release cycle we continuously and flexibly develop our scalable services. Konfuzio enables with the help of AI-powered document processing software companies across all industries to extract accurate information from documents and make it available for various processes (e.g., customer onboarding, verification and employee information management, sales, contracting and pricing, contract management, and claims processing). This frees up critical resources and improves operational efficiencies across the enterprise - improving customer interactions (streamlined external processes) and employee engagement (streamlined internal processes).
Many processes offer opportunities for intelligent automation:
- Error-prone, time- and resource-intensive manual tasks (through Robotic Process Automation, RPA).
- Repetitive and predictable operations (rule-based decisions using machine learning, ML).
- Workflows with a low degree of personalization or with common technical standards and specifications (compliance, invoice processing)
- Text-heavy communications (Natural Language Processing, NLP)
- Customer Service (Cognitive Agents)
- Real-time tracking of handoffs between systems and teams (smart workflows)
Impact through intelligent automation:
- Improved quality, consistency, accuracy and processing time, as well as satisfaction among customers, employees and partners
- Increased focus on strategy and core competencies
- Improved employee engagement through Leadership in Automation, RPA (Robotic Process Automation) and Data Analytics.
- Reduced costs, increased flexibility
- Save time and better allocate resources to scale your business operations
- Process efficiency through intelligent process optimization
With IPA, the advantages of automation are multiplied: more than the sum of the parts
RPA bots make binary decisions: Each decision remains black or white, color-wise. The AI-powered process automation expands the color palette of automation.
Hyperautomation in the interplay of value creation and technology
The strategically concerted use of a comprehensive IPA strategy makes each individual technology particularly effective. The uniform implementation of the new technologies involved throughout the company maximizes the effects, as there are no process losses due to, for example, handovers to non-automated departments. Data stored in documents from different sources is aggregated and available company-wide - this avoids duplication of work and conflicting "knowledge" in different departments. This gives you maximum agility with maximum stability at the same time. The enormous improvement potential of IPA is achieved by:
- Increased precision, reliability, availability and quality through consistent workflows and journeys. AI capabilities of IPA make repetitive tasks error-free and more consistent.
- Improved customer experience. AI-powered digital process automation (DPA) enables modern intuitive experiences with seamless data flow across all channels.
- Cost reduction by reducing the workload of employees, improving productivity, increasing ROI, and reducing the risk of errors (through more accurate data collection and analytics).
- Scalability. IPA can be scaled quickly and risk-free, with consistent quality and without additional burden on employees.
- Orchestrating humans and bots. Instead of isolated implementation of RPA on individual tasks, IPA coordinates work across the enterprise between bots, employees, systems, partners and customers.
- Human talent for a better purpose. Optimized workflows with fewer routine tasks make employees more flexible. They can turn their attention to more complex activities. Error-free, faster and better insights enable better business decisions.
- Meet compliance and regulations more consistently. Industry-specific regulations are implemented more consistently and with less risk of error (e.g., due to faulty Data entry) fulfilled.
- End-to-end transparency of operations. The company-wide IPA implementation integrates all operations: bottlenecks and opportunities for improvement are quickly identified.
- Agility and process change. With integrated end-to-end operations, agile applications can be more easily integrated to continuously and incrementally improve business operations.
Making the future the present with Intelligent Process Automation
Together with you, our AI experts design and optimize journeys with human and artificial intelligence that fully exploit the potential of automation. This means that in these times of change, you are already arriving in the future. Our partners support you with domain and technology expertise in the implementation of comprehensive solutions for intelligent process optimization. The IPA platform is integrated on top of your existing systems (in the cloud or on-premise) - and thus achieves rapid effects with an identical IT backend and without high infrastructure investments.
Communicate well, transform successfully
A good corporate culture and communication between managers and teams form the basis for successful transformation strategies. This is how you involve employees and manage deployment:
- Illustrate the enormous optimization potential of IPA using key customer journeys.
- Demonstrate in trainings and workshops what the workload reduction looks like in practice (e.g. with AI-supported RPA bots).
- With more in-depth materials, teams can get ongoing and more in-depth information.
- Learning-by-doing with coaching, on-the-job training and mutual exchange of experience and knowledge is particularly sustainable.
- Evaluate business operations for further implementations.
This is how you pave the way to the future of work with Intelligent Process Automation.
Digital human-machine collaboration: working intelligently, unleashing potential
Navigate current transformations (e.g., increasing remote work) by focusing on the human elements and reinforcing employee resilience. Many managers also perform manual tasks and want more time for strategic tasks. Digital work environments succeed with automated processes and effective process management. This creates freedom - and knowledge workers become creative and strategic innovation experts.
Implement holistically - a guide
When implementing Intelligent Process Automation, Konfuzio partners combine consultative services with a comprehensive ecosystem and integrated solutions (in the cloud or on-premise) to create and implement strategic business roadmaps. Together, we start where your business is on the path to automation and accelerate transformation from there.
Sequential integration of digital technologies combined with holistic operations redesign is important for successful and scalable IPA transformations as well as short- and long-term value development. The following design principles are critical:
1. Transform operations: Redesigning Journeys
Mapping Journeys & Designing Workflows. Simple processes outside the core business (e.g., report submissions, expense reports, workplace booking systems, or remote work orders) are suitable as initial use cases, especially in the case of path dependencies due to the company's legacy state or existing links between external and internal processes. Transparent digitized journeys enable fast and accurate process mapping and thus uniform implementation of new interfaces even for more complex operations (in the cloud or on-premise). Systems and data are connected to the IPA platform so that employees can quickly access the information provided (e.g. to fill out forms or create reports).
2. Define clear corporate goals: Journeys as an organizational principle
Concretize desired business goals through specific (external and related internal) journeys or end-to-end processes that can be evaluated. For strategic discussions and designing cross-departmental operations, use enterprise-wide end-to-end "heat maps" - with potential effects (on customer satisfaction and cost reduction) and scalability. Behavioral economics shows, for example, that default settings for forms should be used to organize options clearly and focused on the final touchpoint.
Use complete IPA portfolio for maximum impact and implement sequentially for interaction effects. Holistic IPA optimization programs with fundamental process and workflow redesign bring about a profound and sustainable transformation and exploit the potential ROI particularly effectively. Implement systematically and turn the heatmap into a roadmap (with all journeys and the resources and functions required for this). Run different sequencing scenarios for implementing technologies and operations functions and evaluate their implications. Assign a score to the effects of each element on cost and customer satisfaction and derive an optimal implementation sequence.
3. Develop Minimum Viable Product (MVP) at an early stage
Based on this roadmap, you can implement incrementally. The systematic and selective approach (based on factors such as effectiveness and speed) enables an early MVP (minimum functioning product version to complete the targeted task) that shows fast results and can be adapted effortlessly.
Building momentum and securing performance: sustainable functions for sustainable results. IPA implementation combines rapid results with more extensive long-term developments. The detailed roadmap sets the path for the long-term, sequential implementation of automated modules. Here, the process is the goal: incremental and iterative, so that each step leads safely to success.
Holistic process optimization with Konfuzio
Konfuzio is an integrated IPA platform and all-in-one tool for automating document processing across the enterprise as part of intelligent process optimization. Konfuzio's AI-powered automation makes journeys more transparent, tangible and easier to organize. Especially complex enterprise-wide operations can be effectively optimized. Result: better decisions, faster services, at reduced costs.
Konfuzio's IPA platform combines core automation tools like Smart Workflows and AI-powered RPA with a library of specific automation modules - including ML models we've pre-trained, so you can get started with as little as one document.
With our Partner ecosystem we also offer a network of experts that enables comprehensive integrations. Even when optimizing existing automations, Konfuzio can scale AI-powered automation across departments to successfully drive your digital transformation.
Intelligent Document Processing as part of process optimization
With Konfuzio you automate and optimize the entire operational workflow when processing documents: Accept invoice and scan, recognize invoice type, categorize correctly and archive, relevant data correct extract and arrange them in the correct fields (e.g. Provider, date, price, article, payment terms, due date), mapping of data to an accounting system (e.g. ERP or Excel), mark posting codes, set payment date, pay invoice, balance and estimate next invoice date.
With Konfuzio's platform you automate the entire Document Management and streamline the workflow enormously. This worldwide unique Intelligent Document Processing Toolchain makes data engineers even more productive, the IT operation of AI more secure and the users more satisfied.
Make intelligent business process automation a priority and continuously improve your workflows - whether they happen centrally, on networks, or peripherally.
Selected functions of Konfuzio:
- Intelligent Document Processing with OCR text recognition for text and handwriting for automated processing of documents and images
- Input management: Processing of your mail and e-mail receipt with automatic data extraction From PDF, image, Word, PowerPoint, and Excel documents such as invoices, bills of lading, contracts and system reports, purchase orders, lead notifications, system alerts, and trip confirmations
- Automatically categorized filing thanks to Document classification
- PDF conversion & automatic rotation
- RPA Integration. Connect Konfuzio's platform to an RPA system to automate entire end-to-end journeys
- Document Validation UI
- Automatic blackening (PDF security: Removal of security-critical content in documents and repair of broken PDFs).
- Preparation for DMS/ECM and document archive: Automatic preparation and correction by categorizing, assigning and filing in the document archive
- Secured and qualitative collection of index values and search filters for sophisticated indexing and search functions for easy automatic storage, processing and retrieval of documents
- Triggering further workflows by information contained in the document
If your documents or images have special features that the AI should take into account, you can, for example, mark various fields as important and teach the AI what further steps are necessary. In addition, for Konfuzio thanks to Low-code capabilities both technical and non-technical users automate complex workflows. These functions are just the beginning, because the potential uses of AI today lay the foundation for new areas of application tomorrow.
Konfuzio is the only German provider with a powerful and flexible AI platform for intelligent document management and thus the general Process optimization in your company, that of your customers or users. You can train the AI yourself: so specific requirements are also met. At the same time, the evolving AI ensuresthat your company remains competitive.
Konfuzio combines efficient document management with flexibility:
- Scalable
- Particularly intelligent: already learns from the individual case (only 1 document required)
- No hardcoded rules, no rigid layouts, user friendly
- Scanning of documents and images possible (optical-semantic hybrid AI)
- Optimized document management through AI software with extensive integrations for seamless work (REST API, Google Docs, Airtable, Microsoft Teams, Microsoft Excel Power Query, further RPA, ERP or CRM systems, implementation via cloud or on-premises)
- Customization and training options for individual document workflows configurable via web interface or AI and UI module (e.g. personalize which fields of a document the AI should read)
- Particularly accessible and comprehensive software documentation for API and SDK development
- Partner ecosystem to support the implementation of AI solutions (in the cloud or on-premise)
Get in touch for more information about Intelligent Process Automation with Konfuzio and registerto try out the Document Automation workflows directly.
Use Cases: Where can IPA be used?
IPA applications are available across industries and increase the efficiency of many business areas, freeing employees from routine tasks and allowing them to turn their attention to strategic and creative aspects. The Hybrid AI in Konfuzio enables an ever-growing range of use cases for the intelligent document processing in every industry.
The associated benefits (due to the use of ML models trained on large data sets) are motivating many companies to make forward-looking business decisions now. Previous IPA use cases at companies in all industries show impressive results:
- 75 % Time saving for manual tasks
- 65 % lower innovation costs
- 99 % Classification accuracy
- 93 % Extraction accuracy
To expand the application possibilities of automation in companies, AI solutions must be able to take on more complex and cognitively demanding tasks. Konfuzio is Artificial Intelligence bundled in one platform.
Cross-industry application possibilities
Konfuzio's Intelligent Process Automation platform is designed to simplify data processing for systems houses, consultancies, government agencies, and large enterprises (e.g., processing insurance claims or automating customer inquiries). Our state-of-the-art AI provides insightful data and analytics to manage documents wherever and whenever you need them.
The powerful platform of Konfuzio for the Document management offers a wealth of business-critical functions as well as diverse integrations for an intuitive and smooth workflow. Individual changes are possible thanks to numerous source code modules for tech-savvy users. The data extracted from the documents is available in seconds for workflows in your own ERP, DMS, BI or CRM tool. Before transferring the structured data, Konfuzio can apply further customized rules, depending on your company's requirements. This streamlined process greatly simplifies complete document management and can be used in a wide range of industries.
Document typesthat you can automate with Konfuzio are for example:
- Invoices & receipts
- Insurance policies
- vehicle documents
- Delivery notes
- Forms
- payment advices
- Energy certificates
- Salary statements
- Rental agreements
- ID cards
- Certificates
- Customer information
- Credit applications
- Orders
Medical facilities
Intelligent automation with Natural Language Processing (NLP) is used for consistent data collection and analytics of data as well as decision support for diagnoses and treatments (e.g. chatbots in remote appointment for shorter diagnosis suggestions).
Customer Support of all Industries
IPA enables huge time savings here when classifying documents, extracting data and assigning workflows - important attention that your employees can give to your customers.
Banks and Financial Facilities
Optimized document processing (e.g., recognizing, translating, and filing international ID documents) reduces the risk of errors and frees up important resources for more complex activities. With AI-powered workflows, employees receive accurate customer information and personalized service recommendations in real time. This leads to enormous efficiency gains in service times in branches.
insurance
IPA enables, for example, more consistent adherence to compliance regulations (fewer data entry errors) and facilitates the risk assessment of a private or legal entity and the calculation of the appropriate insurance rate.
Frequently asked questions
With the help of machine learning, systems can recognize patterns in existing data sets and independently find solutions to problems based on probabilities. Machine learning is a subfield of artificial intelligence.
Hyperautomation is defined as a combination of rule-based solutions (RPA) and artificial intelligence to automate and optimize processes - and thus support employees. The interaction of expertise, business processes and data is optimized much more economically and effectively.
The sequence of interactions that a customer goes through with a company to purchase goods or services. Examples of customer journeys include creating an account via online banking, submitting an insurance claim, or subscribing to a premium service. Examples of related internal journeys are order-to-cash or record-to-report.
OCR stands for Optical Character Recognition. OCR software extracts data from PDFs or scanned documents and automatically converts the text into editable formats such as Word, Excel or a plain text file. With an AI-powered OCR software like Konfuzio this document processing workflow becomes even more efficient and resource-saving.
With Smart Workflows or Business Workflow Automation (or Business Process Management, BPM). It concerns Software for integrated process management (e.g., for statistical data on bottlenecks, real-time tracking of the status of end-to-end processes, managing handoffs between entities, including between bots and humans). This enables greater agility and consistency of business operations. BPM has evolved into DPA (Digital Process Automation), a particularly agile collection of IPA technologies. Insights into enterprise-wide data flows provide a holistic perspective that helps you identify and implement improvement opportunities faster.
Are you considering intelligent automation of processes in your company? Or have you already started and are looking for optimization opportunities? Feel free to write your opinion on this topic in the comments!
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