-Rocking Robots-

Businesses face several challenges regarding automation. A returning challenge is the question where to start. They want to realize ROI quickly, but they do not know how to do that. Executives, for example people in the finance function, are overwhelmed with all kinds of demands. Robots as a Service and Process Mining as Service, provided by Humans4Help, offer a smart solution to this demand for automation.

Where to start in quickly realizing ROI in automation is a hot topic. Long implementations are more and more a thing of the past. Because of this, the as a Service-concepts are rapidly gaining pace, including robots maintenance, minor evolutions and Data analytics on robot performances. Humans4Help provides these concepts for RPA and process mining, two increasingly popular technologies in one place at their Smart Automation-platform.

“First we identify what kind of pain points customers have in their business”, says Lila Benhammou, Managing Director at Humans4Help. “In this we go hand in hands with them and show them the potential for automation. This leads to a roadmap with the customer deciding what they want automated. And then we are going to get some quick wins on the way. Eventually we address the pain points based on their functional needs, using the best fit in technology.” One of the popular solutions is the UiPath platform, including RPA.

“This is what we do whatever the space, whatever the industry. Because basically we do the same thing everywhere it was interesting for us to develop some off the shelf-offers.

We did this with VAT reconciliation and Bank reconciliation on KYRIBA, Fast closing on SAGE. So, whatever the system, we can just build up the connectors. This makes the gathering of data easier. And then it is almost always at 20/80: 80% is a standard core, and 20%, requires customization depending on the specific wishes of the customer.”

“Whatever the IT tool used SAP, Kyriba, Sage, Infor, Oracle, Workday, customers used the same connectors to get data faster. The time to market is key for businesses, that is why Smart automation is launched with a real ROI simulator to get businesses foresees their expected savings thanks to automation.”

This approach also paves the way for scaling of the automation. “We set up a framework with the customer, using a methodology in three steps ‘ Think BIG, start SMALL, scale FAST’ .

The first one is ‘think big’: What kind of processes might be into the backlog, which are not very much analyzed yet, but might be good candidates? This way we get a broad spectrum of what kind of processes might be interesting. An open discussion with businesses leads to some 20 processes that might be good candidates, and then we start small. This is the second step. It is important at this stage to get buy-in from the big stakeholders who are responsible and accountable. Scaling is the third step. This is where we set up a Center of Excellence. If necessary, we can help with the training of people.”

She emphasizes it is important to monitor this process closely: “You have to make sure people will not give up, because that is quite easy to do. Why? Because maybe you have chosen the wrong processes, and you do not get the ROI right away. That is what we try to avoid by really going step by step with them in this process and educate on these new technologies where training is included.”

Surprisingly, blockchain also plays a role in this approach to automation. Lila explains: “Take automotive. When you buy a secondhand car, you want to make sure the car is authentic by certifying it directly and increase the onboarding process this is where SmartOCR, RPA and blockchain come together.

Or jewelry, for example, you want to make sure that the luxury bag you buy is authentic and get your authenticity certificate, too. So, what we do is using blockchain. Using proprietary IP smartOCR, we read the documentation,get the data, filled it in the SI, and the blockchain is going to certify the documentation right away with a unique hash in the blockchain. In a fragment of second. That way you get smart automation.”