Data R&D Journey #1: The Quest for Efficiency
As we said in our introduction to this series, our experience working with a wide variety of clients has shown us that no matter what an organization needs to do to get more value out of its data, there are really only four different types of different data-intensive R&D journeys. Today, we’re going to discuss the automation journey.
Picture this: your business is facing an evolving market. You see that continuing to rely on outdated processes means you risk falling behind. To stay competitive, you’ll need to accelerate and automate key business processes and optimize resource allocation. Beyond that, your highly skilled employees are bogged down with repetitive tasks and manual work like data management, scheduling, invoicing, and servicing customers. These time-consuming, repetitive tasks could be more efficiently handled by automated systems, allowing your team to focus on creative and strategic work that will drive growth and innovation across the organization.
Sound familiar? Organizations on this path are often looking to:
Boost operational efficiency;
Reduce costs;
Streamline processes;
Better engage and utilize their staff in higher-level work functions.
Sure, makes sense. But what does this actually mean for your business? What does the journey from here to there actually involve? How long will it take, how much will it cost, and how will you mitigate the risks?
Many consultancies might say “Don’t worry about it! We’ve got this!” and give you some magically short time frame for project completion they never have any intention of hitting. That’s not how we work. Instead, we offer you the good, the bad, and the ugly of how these projects typically go. Let’s start journeying.
Where exactly are we going on this journey?
There are many types of automation journeys (Fraud detection! Surfacing business opportunities!), but to keep things focused and concrete, let’s say your organization relies on manual data entry from paper forms. There’s a clear business case to replace manual transcription from paper to Excel with OCR automation that extracts the information and inserts it into a structure (and location) where it’s accessible by all the tools and systems that need it. By automating this work, you speed the process up, improve employee experience, and free up your employees for more engaging, higher-level functions.
How long will this journey take?
An automation journey varies in length, depending on the state and preparedness of the organization’s current systems and data. The timeline can be affected by a variety of factors, including the utility of the current systems in place, the clarity and internal agreement around the problem, and the willingness of the organization to change. But at the very least, the journey inevitably consists of three main stages:
1) System Design & Integration
In this phase of the journey, we'll dive deep into your existing processes to identify the critical path for your automation opportunities. Our goal is to understand your systems inside and out - from inputs and outputs to the underlying logic and data flows. We'll assess existing company-approved tools to determine if they can be configured to handle new automation requirements and configure them as needed. If current tools are insufficient, new tools will be selected, deployed, and integrated into the company's architecture. Our emphasis will be on identifying robust open-source options to minimize costs by avoiding expensive annual licensing fees.
2) Intelligent Process Orchestration
If data drives your ops, we’ll program machines to manage the flow. Some of the highest ROI automation opportunities are the manual processes which pass data between your systems, between you and your vendors, and between you and your customers. Machines are uniquely good at retrieving, cleaning, processing, and sending data in ways that humans aren’t. If you want the same data-centric task done exactly the same way every time with consistent quality, you don’t want a human on the job. We’ll replace this manual work with slick data integrations, smart data warehousing, and custom algorithms that you can actually understand (no black boxes here).
3) Team Training & Empowerment
Finally, we’ll help you reallocate resources in your post-automation world. Your people are your single biggest asset, and they always were. Now that your repeatable tasks are in the hands of very capable machines that answer to you like good little soldiers, your investment in automation has earned you an opportunity to better leverage human intelligence. We’ll be able to assess your team’s capabilities and help you to optimally deploy them on higher-impact problems where they can do the work that machines are not good at, having worked alongside them throughout this project. Imagine a world where you can upskill a group of ex-data entry monkeys into a newly minted business analysis team. Komodo will lead you through realizing these returns on your automation investment.
Who is on this journey with me?
In almost any organization, the team on this journey will consist of decision makers and gatekeepers.
The decision makers are usually:
Executives and senior management, especially
The CIO or CFO, who is often the person instigating this journey,
The IT Manager is responsible for the security and efficacy of the tech systems;
Operations Managers.
Your gatekeepers often include:
Legal - the current process is legally compliant. Change complicates things.
Security/Compliance - the old system was working safely. Change is a big risk.
Finance - why are we spending all this money? Prove the ROI to us.
Who will benefit from this journey?
We actually encourage our clients to consider not just who will positively benefit from these projects, but who will negatively benefit. For example, in this particular automation journey, the positive beneficiaries could include:
Staff, employees who do more meaningful work;
Customers, more time for them! Faster service, more streamlined;
Business owners.
Negative beneficiaries may include:
Staff who aren’t on board, or are unable to learn and adapt to a new way of doing things.
Where will we be at the end of this journey?
Like we said at the start, there’s good, bad, or ugly possible in any journey. Outcomes in this situation might look like:
Good → The automation project succeeds, freeing employees from tedious tasks. The company saves time and money, which can be reinvested in growth or employee benefits.
Bad → The company invests heavily in automation but fails to properly implement it. This results in layoffs, wasted resources, and a need to revert to old systems.
Ugly → The automation is implemented successfully, but creates unforeseen complications. The new system processes data much faster but overwhelms downstream systems, causing bottlenecks and errors that require constant manual intervention to fix.
And there are definitely risks to a journey like this, possibly including:
Regressions, things that worked but no longer work.
Loss of control and inability to express proprietary and custom business logic.
Loss of functionality / no backups.
Security risks from passing data around.
But if you go into these projects with open eyes, a united team, and reasonable expectations for the possible, there are more than enough compelling rewards to justify the journey:
Increased efficiency and productivity, leading to significant cost savings.
Ability to reinvest resources in high-value areas of the business.
Competitive advantage through faster customer service and response times.
Enhanced employee satisfaction through more meaningful work and career growth opportunities.
No matter the industry or the current state of their operations, organizations bring us in to identify the key activities their people no longer need to perform to keep things running. We help implement cost-effective (read: open-source, NOT enterprise-licensed) machines that understand their business logic, so they’ll be able to take their people off the front lines and put them in positions where they can shine, all while saving serious money.
Next up, we’ll discuss the 2nd data-intensive R&D journey: The Path for Deeper Insights. In the meantime, explore ahead with our R&D Journeys Process page. Or if you’re ready to jump ahead and get started on your own journey, why wait? Let’s chat now.