Covering Disruptive Technology Powering Business in The Digital Age

Authored by: Irene Hwa, Senior Director of Field Marketing, Asia Pacific and Japan – Kofax

Most of us roll our eyes when we hear phrases like “new normal” and “unprecedented times.” The pandemic—and all of the obstacles caused by it—aren’t receding. The times are now precedented, and they can be summed up in one word: “disruption.”

Organisations have been dealing with one disruption after another ever since the pandemic began. First, companies had to immediately shift to a remote workforce. Then there were supply chain issues. Let us not forget the staffing shortages brought on by the Great Resignation. It may seem impossible to keep getting back up after one hit after another. But the ability to do so can also be summed up in one word: “resilience.”

Organisational resilience does not just happen on its own though. It requires analysis, understanding, thought and planning. We are seeing industry innovators using intelligent automation to build strength and resiliency into core processes and workflows. Companies with an unshakeable core of resilience are doing more than proving they are hard to knock down; they are strengthening their position in the market and actually growing their profitability, market share and customer satisfaction despite turbulent conditions.

How to Build a Stronger Core with Intelligent Automation

Ask any personal trainer, and they will tell you the key to long-term health and success begins with a strong core. It provides balance, stability and even agility. In a word, it makes us resilient. The same principle can be applied to organisations.

“It may seem impossible to keep getting back up after one hit after another. But the ability to do so can also be summed up in one word: ‘resilience.'”

What makes an organisation’s core strong? You need satisfied customers, happy employees and efficient operations. To achieve these goals, your key customer, financial and operational workflows must be healthy and strong. An intelligent automation platform makes it possible to automate, manage and orchestrate these workflows at scale.

You are probably wondering by now which specific workflows are the best places to start for optimal results. By automating these high-value workflows, organisations can improve employee efficiencies (even among remote workers), align disparate platforms among suppliers and customers and provide employees with better systems and data.

1. Accounts payable automation. Automatically manage approval workflows and route exceptions for review to improve speed and accuracy. Maintain an audit trail of documents for better compliance. Track and manage key performance indicators and service level agreements for better supplier relations and greater financial control and visibility.
2. Transaction processing. Improve trade document processing times, extract required information and automatically send it to proprietary systems. Enhance compliance checks related to international sanctions and white-and-blacklist screening activities. Know who is interacting with sensitive data through reporting and auditing features.
3. Document security management. Protect confidential information and improve compliance with watermarking, redaction, encryption and content-aware document workflows. Improve employee productivity with touchless printing and mobile device authentication.
4. Invoice automation. Process invoices coming in from multiple channels and formats in a fraction of the time with fewer errors. Stay on top of the global shift towards electronic invoicing with a secure e-invoicing option. Overcome data silos through seamless integration with business-critical systems so information is always updated.
5. Bank statement processing. Save time and reduce costs by reducing manual work and data entry. Streamline validation and approval processes. Improve fraud detection and the security of sensitive customer information.
6. Claims processing. Improve customer service through a fully digital process and status tracking. Accelerate claims processing times while reducing costs and freeing employees to work on higher-value tasks.
7. Customer onboarding. Provide a frictionless onboarding experience via mobile device, improving completion rates without sacrificing security. Give employees access to up-to-date information, so they can work more efficiently. Get real-time visibility into the onboarding process.
8. Digital mailroom. Create high-quality digital images of information coming in for improved accessibility. Automatically extract key data from documents and integrate data from internal and external systems for faster decision-making.

The Disruptor Training Kit for Optimal Resiliency

Whether you are looking to automate just a few of these high-value workflows or all of them, you will need a quality intelligent automation platform to get you there. When you do your research, keep an eye out for some key features you’ll need in order to achieve scalable, enterprise-wide automation.

• Cognitive capture. The ability to process documents faster and with fewer errors allows your employees to spend more time on strategic thinking—like how you will deal with the next disruption. Customers also benefit from faster and better service.
• Robotic Process Automation (RPA)i. Smart robots that can act upon and interpret data enable you to maximize capacity and efficiency for an agile, scalable workforce.
• Process orchestration. A digital workforce you can scale and manage on-demand gives you the adaptability needed for true resilience. You can monitor resources and costs and react quickly as needs change.

“What makes an organisation’s core strong? You need satisfied customers, happy employees and efficient operations. To achieve these goals, your key customer, financial and operational workflows must be healthy and strong. An intelligent automation platform makes it possible to automate, manage and orchestrate these workflows at scale.”

• Artificial Intelligence (AI). Technologies like Machine Learning and natural language processing can extract and analyse data from structured and unstructured content. There is no shortage of claims for AI from vendors, so look for real-time decision-making capabilities, as well as advanced analytics to provide actionable insight for faster, smarter decisions when the next disruption occurs.
• Connected systems. An open architecture and pre-built connectors make it easy to unite critical business systems like enterprise applications across internal and external systems. The ecosystem is almost as important as the core.
• Low-code platform. Unlike that stationary bike covered in clothes in the corner of your room, a low-code platform is so easy to use everyone will be able to jump in and contribute to automation initiatives. With citizen developers pitching in, you can put their business knowledge to work and automate more quickly.

Forget about just surviving the next disruption. Intelligent automation gives organisations a real competitive advantage. Will you get knocked down by the next disruption or rely on a strong core built on intelligent automation to forge ahead and lead the way to success?

Be disrupted or be the disruptor. The choice is yours.

(0)(0)