Automation Roadmap

Introduction

Developing an automation roadmap essentially involves 2 steps - Process Identification & Process Prioritization. In order to prioritise processes, it is essential to determine the feasibility, complexity, effort and cost of automating each process (or set of processes), working out the expected savings, and then developing a business case (ROI model).

This process in itself can be costly and time-consuming because:

• Companies have complex structures and there are a very large number of candidate processes to sift through.
• Developing the business case requires a lot of data including FTE count and estimated reduction post-automation which can be difficult to establish in a precise manner.

Acronotics had developed a sensible and practical approach to carry out this analysis quickly and efficiently. It involves the following steps:

The first step in launching an automation program is identifying processes that are ideal candidates for automation. Acronotics' approach is to use a combination of technology and process discovery experts. Our Process Mining & Discovery uses three main levers:

• Use of Advanced Process & Task Mining Tools: We utilize powerful process and task mining tools like Microsoft Process Mining, UiPath Process Mining,Celonis, and Soroco Scout to gain detailed insights into your business processes. These tools help uncover inefficiencies, bottlenecks, and automation opportunities. As strategic partners for most of these tools, we bring deep expertise in leveraging their capabilities for optimal process discovery
• Expert led Process Discovery Workshops: Acronotics process discovery team conducts a series of focused workshops with process owners from the business areas being considered for automation. These workshops have the following key characteristics:
  • Well-Defined Use Case Repository: Acronotics’ Business Analysts are equipped with a comprehensive repository of industry-specific and functional use cases (e.g., Finance, HR, IT, etc.). We use these proven use cases to quickly drive the discovery process and create a practical, actionable automation roadmap.
  • Pilot Process Identification: During the workshops, we identify a pilot set of 5-6 processes that can be automated quickly and with minimal investment. These pilots act as proof points to demonstrate the potential value of automation to management, providing a clear path to scale.
• Pragmatic Feasibility & Complexity Analysis: Acronotics uses streamlined templates for Feasibility,Complexity,and Effort Analysis,focusing on the key data required to develop a clear plan. This pragmatic approach avoids lengthy theoretical studies, ensuring that the business case for automation is built efficiently and effectively.

By combining industry knowledge with cutting-edge process mining technologies,Acronotics ensures a data-driven, practical approach to process discovery. Our strategic partnerships with UiPath, Microsoft, Celonis, and Soroco enable us to uncover automation opportunities faster and more accurately, delivering significant business value from day one.

Once candidate processes have been identified through the process discovery workshops, the next step is to analyze and prioritize them. This involves assessing the following for each candidate process:

• Feasibility for automation
• Complexity to automate
• Effort & cost to automate
• Savings from automation
• Return on Investment (ROI)

Most consulting firms use elaborate models to carry out this analysis, which takes a lot of time and involves a substantial upfront investment just to develop the business case for automation.

Acronotics is able to expedite this process by ensuring that the key data elements for this analysis are gathered during the process discovery workshop itself. Our approach focusses on delivering the following outcomes:

• Getting the program off the ground as quickly as possible
• Getting the first set of bots into production fast and with limited investment
• Minimizing the Cost per Robot (CPR) and Time to Market (TTM) for the overall program
• Finding the optimal intelligent automation solution for each process combining RPA with Machine Learning & other AI technologies

Feasibility Analysis

Typical approaches to evaluating feasibility focus on what extant RPA software packages can or cannot handle.

These criteria are quite helpful in identifying quick wins that can be automated using a standard RPA tool. More complex processes with greater business impact get excluded in such analysis, in particular processes that:

• Involve judgement calls or qualitative decision-making by a human operator
• Involve scanned documents

The Acronotics Intelligent Automation Framework helps organizations design automation solutions for complex processes that RPA alone cannot handle. Feasibility is established not based on what RPA alone can automate, but what a combination of RPA & AI technologies can automate. This approach also enables us to develop a high level blueprint for automating the process right at the onset.

Complexity Analysis, Effort & Cost Estimation

Once feasibility (and high-level automation approach) have been determined, the next step is to estimate the complexity to automate the selected processes.

• Acronotics has developed a data-driven model that enables us to estimate the complexity of automating each process.
• Once the complexity level has been established, the model correlates it to the effort and cost of automation for each process.

Savings & Benefits Assessment

For each process (or a group of related processes), we estimate expected FTE savings by:

• Establishing the current FTE count that is allocated
• Determining the % of automation that is possible

For example, if a process has 5 FTEs allocated to it, and it can be 80% automated, the expected FTE saving is 4 FTE (leaving 1 residual FTE to carry out exception processing).

Besides FTE savings that can be more visibly measured, automation can deliver several other benefits with substantial $ savings, but these savings can be harder to quantify. These include:

• Error reduction (once correctly built, bots don’t make mistakes)
• Business agility & enhanced CSAT (faster, straight-through-processing)
• Employee productivity & ESAT improvement (elimination of boring, mundane work)
• Better regulatory compliance (bot-based reporting, monitoring & analysis)

Since it is not easy to nail down these savings, Acronotics recommends building the ROI model for automation based on hard savings from FTE reduction/ reallocation only. Even with only FTE savings taken into consideration, most well-designed RPA programs deliver a payback period of less than 1 year and a very solid ROI over 3-5 years.

ROI Calculation

To calculate the ROI for an automation program, we need to bring together the following data elements:

• Current FTE headcount allocated, and the fully loaded cost thereof
• Residual FTE headcount after the processes have been automated
• One-time cost of developing the bots (derived from the complexity & effort analysis)
• Recurring cost of running the bots (license cost plus bot maintenance cost)

Once this information has been assembled, it can be plugged into the Acronotics ROI Model to arrive at the business case.

Summary – Developing an Automation Roadmap

• Process Discovery Workshops – Leverage Acronotics Use Case Repository to identify candidate processes and capture relevant data for subsequent analysis
• Apply Acronotics Intelligent Automation Framework to establish feasibility of automating the candidate processes as well as determining a high-level solution approach
• Estimate the one-time cost of automation by carrying out Complexity Analysis followed by Effort & Cost Estimation
• Estimate the running cost of automation by sizing the infrastructure (licenses & hardware) and working out the support requirements for the automation solution
• Estimate the expected FTE savings from the current FTE allocation & expected % of automation
• Put it all together into the Acronotics ROI Model.