In our C Suite guide part 1 we explored
the 10 top tips for getting ahead with the
RPA gold rush.
Most organizations cannot (and perhaps
should not try to) achieve this with the
existing skills base in their IT organisation
and choose instead to engage an
automation partner.
Once you know your level of ambition
and the scale of your automation
programme [for more on this look at
part 1], you can apply the following nine
criteria to help choose your partner:
Truly Experienced Staff – The
Process Automation industry is growing
much faster than the service provider
community can train and ramp-up their
people. Experience in all areas: strategy, process
identification, implementation / technology
integration, testing and support is critical.
Experienced Automation Practitioners do things
very differently: they will look at solving business
problems and fulfilling business needs through
automation projects as well as the impact of FTE
reduction.
Process Automation is a relatively straightforward
undertaking at the tactical level where a single
technology is applied to reduce headcount within
functional areas where there are groups of people
performing similar functions. It gets far more
challenging when automation is applied at a higher
level, across multiple functions or disciplines and
this is where experienced resources truly
demonstrate their value.
Here at Virtual Operations we have a core team
that we call “The Tech Spine”. These are our most
experienced technical people and they get
involved on almost every project where there is a
new technical challenge such as a new interface to
create or diverse technologies to integrate for the
first time, or a process that is failing but the cause
is obscure. The Tech Spine is invaluable to us and
to our clients. It is vital that your chosen partner
has such a Tech Spine team.
virtual-operations.com
Dedicated Personnel for you –
Experience is only worthwhile if you
sustain it. Your chosen partner must
commit to maintaining a named and
full time A team for at least for the first 12
months. If they cannot commit to this, it will
result in your programme losing of vital experience
far too early.
Established training Academy
– Whether you choose to outsource,
build your own capability or work
alongside your partner - it is vital that a
formal training process is in place. The reality is
that most training is conducted ‘on the job’. This
slows down the client programme and the market
is becoming flooded with project failures. Even a
formal Academy approach requires graduates to
be supervised for many weeks, with supervision
diminishing over time as the graduates become
comfortable with the technology. The fastest way
to learn (all disciplines) is through attendance
at an intensive training Academy, followed
immediately by supervised project work. As an
example, within Virtual Operations the Academy is
two weeks plus post-graduate supervision and we
continue to pair experienced technical staff with
graduates until they have more than a year of
experience and have run complex projects.
Genuine Ability to Scale –
Through practical experience we
strongly advise our clients to achieve
rapid scale by increasing the skills and
capabilities of their own staff. Leverage and scale
comes from training (Business Analysts and
Developers) and education (internal automation
champions and business leaders). In our opinion,
the optimal model is to form Joint Agility Teams by
mixing experienced provider staff with client
graduates and champions. This is by far the best
way to transfer experience and skills and thereby
achieve scale rapidly and safely. It also ensures
that you are less reliant on external help over time,
significantly reduces the programme cost and
maximises control by retaining skills in-house.
Also, staff are also being redeployed and trained
rather than released. Be sure to check that your
partner can support you to achieve scale in
each geographic area you require.
Joint Agility Teams – Carefully
consider your partner’s ability to
educate C-suite and functional leads to
become Automation Champions. This
ranges from building sufficient understanding of
risk and benefit through to deep-dive training into
applying Automation holistically. It is far more
effective to conduct the Process Automation
discovery process working alongside your partner.
You and your staff know your processes, the
culture and how to get things done, and your
partner knows how and where to apply
automation. We strongly recommend you neither
outsource the discovery phase nor try to do it
all in-house.
virtual-operations.com
Solid Methodology – All
Automation Programmes of any
significance will require a Centre of
Excellence (COE) to be built within your
Target Operation Model (TOM). The COE will cover
many aspects including standardisation, strategy,
governance (in close co-operation with IT),
prioritization, support and even a development /
resource pool. Effectively it is a low cost, but highly
effective, support unit that does the work that it
doesn’t make sense to repeat across the
organization. The COE will provide best practice
tools, checklists, templates and best practice
approaches as well as build a repository of
Business Objects and Process Flows that can be reused in future projects. Check that your
automation provider has a full methodology not just tools and templates - but also
approaches and best practice (eg. for strategic
application of automation technologies) and that
they understand how these can be built into a
design that works for you.
Technology Integration skills –
Robotic technology alone is highly
unlikely to meet your automation
objectives. This is because it can only be
applied to digital inputs and rules-based processes
and most large organisations still use paper and
other unstructured inputs. Whilst Robotic
Technology will almost certainly play a major part,
it needs to be combined with other technologies
for maximum benefit. Typically, it will be bookended by simple AI at the front and analytics at the
far end to generate management information
from the Robotic data. Virtual Operations
pioneered integration of AI and Robotics in
Automation whilst most of the market still deploys
a single technology approach. Understanding the
power of analytics also helps us to look at the
business case for candidate processes differently;
often the business case is created by a
combination of indirect benefits and direct
benefits. The most prevalent indirect benefits
emerge from analytics. Find a partner with these
integration skills and experience.
Rigorous Support Facility –
Once in production, maximum
efficiency is ensured through good
governance and highly efficient support
& maintenance; when the robots stop working you
need recovery to be as fast as possible. Support &
maintenance can now be outsourced to a
specialist provider. The bank of Robots will require
24/7 monitoring with rapid-response issueescalation. We highly recommend outsourcing
support to a specialist provider for at least the
first 12-18 months.
virtual-operations.com
Established Consulting and
Programme Management
Skills – All major Automation
Programmes will, by definition, be
disruptive. Redeploying or removing employees is
a major change that must be managed properly
from the start. Communications, stakeholder
management, project management and
governance are all essential components, all too
often overlooked in the Automation Industry.
There is a balance to achieve between ‘getting
on with it’ and over-engineering the
programme preparation. This balance requires
experienced pragmatic consultants. Equally
important is the ability to adopt a strategic
approach to Automation. Tactical Automation
involves releasing FTE’s from easy to identify
processes (often called the ‘Low Hanging Fruit’).
Strategic Automation goes far beyond this and is
deployed when the client organisation has
confidence in and substantial experience of,
process automation.
virtual-operations.com
Look out for part 3 where we will explore the operational framework required to bring new automation value to life.
Virtual Operations UK Ltd
Palladium House
Argyll St
London
W1F 7LD
+44 2035 891 549
[email protected]
 virtual-operations.com