The city of Las Vegas, known for its vibrant energy and life-changing shows, recently hosted an event of a different kind – one that might not change one’s fortune overnight but promises to revolutionize the way businesses operate globally. UiPath Forward VI, the monumental gathering of automation and AI professionals, unveiled innovations set to transform industries.

UiPath Autopilot: Navigating the Future of Automated Workspaces

The star of the show, UiPath Autopilot, emerged as a revolutionary tool designed to amplify productivity across various business functions. This intelligent system is the epitome of advanced AI, simplifying everyday tasks and complex processes alike.

With Autopilot for Assistant, users can seamlessly run existing automations or craft new ones in real-time, pushing the boundaries of attended automation. It’s an unparalleled level of support, making everything from routine purchases to intricate workflow management effortlessly executable.

For developers, both seasoned and aspiring, Autopilot for Studio is a game-changer. By enabling ‘Text to Workflow’ and ‘Text to Expressions’ features, it eliminates conventional barriers, allowing developers to communicate their automation needs using everyday language. The ‘Automated Code Generation’ further simplifies this process, translating descriptions directly into code, cutting down on development time, and putting an end to syntax errors.

Autopilot for Apps revolutionizes the way developers design user interfaces. By interpreting text, documents, or images, it creates intuitive, user-friendly designs, making application development more accessible and efficient.

In the realm of quality assurance, Autopilot for Test Suite is making strides by expediting every phase of the testing lifecycle. It uses requirements as a foundation to generate tests, transcribes comments into code, and derives insightful analytics from test results, ensuring software meets the highest standards of quality.

Empowering Business Analysts with Autopilot for Process Mining

Autopilot for Process Mining is not merely a feature but a powerhouse that leverages data to transform insights into action. Business analysts often grapple with the complexity of identifying automation opportunities within voluminous data. UiPath’s solution? A system that simplifies data exploration, making it more accessible than ever.

This innovative platform goes beyond traditional data analysis, offering real-time, dynamic insights. By analyzing operations at the front-end, it uncovers efficiency gaps, allowing analysts to optimize processes proactively. Its user-friendly interface means even those unfamiliar with data mining can generate and understand comprehensive reports, democratizing data and ensuring informed decision-making.

Moreover, with its ability to interpret extensive data sets, Autopilot for Process Mining stands out as a transformative tool for businesses. It underscores the fact that efficient data management leads to streamlined operations and, ultimately, a robust bottom line.

UiPath AI Trust Layer: Setting the Standard for Secure AI Interactions

The AI Trust Layer is UiPath’s strategic initiative to fortify the foundation of secure AI operations. In an environment where data breaches are rampant, and mistrust around AI is prevalent, UiPath is pioneering a framework that encapsulates robust data protection policies.

This comprehensive layer serves as a guardian, ensuring that all AI-powered interactions comply with organizational protocols and global data privacy standards. It allows enterprises to maintain control over AI’s decision-making pathways, fostering transparency and trust. By enabling a mechanism where AI’s reasoning can be tracked and understood, it reassures stakeholders that AI operations are performed within ethical and legal boundaries.

Accelerated Model Training with DU and Comm Mining

In the field of document understanding and community mining, UiPath has made strides with tools promising to cut down model training times significantly. The ability to train models quicker, without compromising on their accuracy, is revolutionary.

With these enhanced tools, what used to take months now takes weeks or even days, marking a dramatic shift in project timelines. This acceleration is not just about speed but also about the agility and flexibility it offers businesses. It means being able to adapt swiftly to market changes, customize offerings at short notice, and innovate continuously, all thanks to the reduced time-to-market.

Furthermore, UiPath’s approach counters the challenge of decreased precision in Intelligent Document Processing (IDP) seen with rapid training, by integrating advanced algorithms that retain accuracy, even as they work faster.

Expanding Horizons with UiPath Generative AI Connectors

The unveiling of Generative AI Connectors marked the advent of a new era in automation. These connectors are not standard tools but gateways to infinite possibilities, stretching the boundaries of what businesses can achieve with AI. They allow seamless integration with technologies like GPT-4.0, enabling capabilities from advanced image recognition to multilingual text generation.

These connectors stand as testimony to UiPath’s vision of a future where businesses are not limited by technology but empowered by it. They open doors to global operations, where language and geographical barriers cease to exist, and scalability is only a matter of choice. With these, enterprises can venture into uncharted territories, tapping into new customer bases and creating diverse product lines.

By equipping businesses with the power to generate content, understand multifaceted images, and break down language barriers, UiPath’s Generative AI Connectors are setting the stage for a global marketplace where the only limit is imagination.

Cultivating Expertise: UiPath’s Specialized AI Professional Certification

UiPath Forward VI also spotlighted the educational aspect, introducing the ‘Specialized AI Professional’ certification. This program is designed for professionals aiming to deepen their understanding and skills in AI, affirming UiPath’s role in fostering knowledge within the community.

From unveiling groundbreaking tools like Autopilot to emphasizing secure AI practices and offering advanced training, UiPath Forward VI was more than an event; it was a milestone in the journey of automation and AI. As businesses around the world watch and adapt, UiPath continues to lead the charge, redefining what’s possible in the digital age.

Conclusion: Embracing the Future with UiPath

The revelations at UiPath Forward VI underline a crucial narrative: the future of work hinges on our ability to embrace and integrate these technological advancements. With UiPath taking monumental strides, we’re not just spectators in this arena of innovation; we are active participants, shaping the future of our industries and our world.

Our previous internship was a resounding success, with over 100 RPA interns from across the globe joining us to explore the world of UiPath automation. Participants hailed from diverse locations, including Romania, the USA, the UK, Argentina, Spain, India, and Nigeria. Together, they collaborated with us to create UiPath Automations. Many of our former interns have since become RPA Developers in leading companies within their respective countries and continue to excel in their careers.

Now, we’re on the lookout for the next generation of enthusiastic interns who are eager to dive into the world of UiPath and embark on this automation journey with us.

The internship will be conducted online, welcoming candidates from anywhere in the world. Our primary objective with this internship is to foster the RPA community by offering guidance to anyone interested in becoming a UiPath RPA Developer. Our seasoned team, with years of successful experience, is here to mentor you on this exciting journey.

Here is what Ovais says about our internship:

“My experience with Aggranda as an RPA Intern has been amazing. The hands-on experience has helped me secure my job as a full time RPA Consultant at the largest IT company from Pakistan. For someone who is new to RPA, this experience is priceless. They taught me tips and tricks regarding UiPath and shown that they really care about their Intern’s success.”

Here is what Meena says about our internship:

“At the time of completion of Advanced UiPath RPA developer certification, the internship at Aggranda has given me an opportunity to apply my knowledge and explore more about UiPath and RPA. It helped me to gain knowledge about RPA in a practical way. The experience of RPA intern at Aggranda led me to get my full time job as an RPA developer. Thanks Aggranda, for providing this opportunity!”

Internship structure

The internship is unpaid and spans one month, beginning on September 25, 2023. Each week, interns will engage in 2 to 3-hour sessions with our team’s two Senior Developers. During these sessions, you’ll receive the guidance and training necessary to successfully complete a comprehensive end-to-end UiPath Automation project, adhering to high-quality standards. You’ll gain practical insights from real-life use cases we’ve encountered during our automation journey, along with invaluable best practices, tips, and tricks to aid you on your automation journey.

Benefits

• Assistance in developing a fully functional UiPath Software Robot
• Learning from our top RPA Developers & Business Analysts
• Accelerated learning curve through hands-on practice
• Internship experience at Aggranda
• Personalized Certificate of Completion
• Featured blog presentation on the Aggranda Blog along with your contact details (LinkedIn, Email Address)
• Exposure to other RPA companies
• Recommendation Letter
• Opportunity to potentially join Aggranda

Requirements

• UiPath Academy – RPA Starter – Fully Completed
• UiPath Academy – RPA Developer Foundation – Fully Completed
• UiPath Academy – RPA Developer Advanced – Optional, Highly Recommended
• Proficiency in English
• Self-learning abilities
• Ambitious, motivated, and curious mindset
• Strong problem-solving skills
• Self-learning – emphasized twice because it’s THAT important 🙂

Location: Anywhere

Application Deadline: October 20, 2023

Internship Period: October 25, 2023 – November 24, 2023

Interested? Apply here

The goal for each intern is to construct a functional software robot using UiPath and gain an enriching learning experience in the process. Join us in shaping the future of automation!

Unlocking HR Excellence: Key Insights from Gartner ReImagine HR Event

The Gartner ReImagine HR event in London brought together HR leaders, professionals, and experts from around the world to explore the latest trends and strategies shaping the future of Human Resources. With a lineup of thought-provoking presentations, the event provided valuable insights and actionable takeaways for HR professionals looking to navigate the ever-evolving landscape of work.

Staying Bold: How HR Can Unlock Human Performance in Any Context

Presented by Anna Krasniewska, Group Vice President, Gartner, and Brent Cassell, VP Advisory, Gartner

In a world marked by extreme disruption, HR leaders have stepped up to drive innovation and adaptability in the workforce. Key takeaways from this session:

• HR leaders have an unprecedented opportunity to redefine work and boost impact.
• Becoming “everyday bold” requires building stability, initiating trust, and forging ahead.
• Organizations offering stability observe a 61% rise in employee engagement.

Keeping Score: Measuring the Effectiveness of Well-Being Investments

Presented by Brent Cassell, Vice President, Advisory, Gartner

With well-being programs on the rise, measuring their effectiveness is crucial. Key takeaways:

• Only 32% of total rewards leaders believe their organizations assess well-being investments effectively.
• Improving wellness can boost employee engagement by up to 60% and increase intent to stay by 11%.
• Demonstrating well-being value requires a comprehensive measurement framework.

Building a Vibrant Intergenerational Workplace in a Fragmented Setting

Presented by Rachael Marshall, Director, Advisory, Gartner

In today’s diverse workforce, cohesion across generations is vital. Key takeaways:

• Cohesion among generations is low, with only 29% agreement among Millennials.
• Team cohesion doubles high-performer percentages and increases intent to stay.
• Strategies include empowering teams, facilitating connections, and providing inclusive benefits.

The World-Class Recruiting Leader in 2024

Presented by Saikat Chatterjee, Senior Director, Advisory, Gartner

Recruiting leaders are preparing for 2024 and beyond. Key takeaways:

• Key forces shaping recruiting include talent shortages, evolving expectations, and automation.
• Focus areas include branding the employee experience and forecasting hiring needs.
• The candidate experience is just as important as pay and benefits, with 56% considering it.

Think Like a CFO: How DEI Leaders Can Lead with Authority and Manage Diversity as a Resource

Presented by Jane Alancheril, Senior Director, Advisory, Gartner

DEI leaders must navigate challenges while advocating for their functions. Key takeaways:

• DEI leaders can learn from CFOs by emphasizing risk reduction and organizational impact.
• DEI metrics should go beyond demographic data, focusing on intent to stay, psychological safety, and diversity of hiring pool.
• Leveraging power mapping can help build influence.

Addressing the Early Signs of Manager Failure

Presented by Vitorio Bretas, Director, Advisory, Gartner

Managers play a crucial role in talent outcomes. Key takeaways:

• 48% of managers are at risk of failure, impacting their teams.
• Predictors of manager failure include lack of self-awareness and empathy.
• Addressing these predictors can reduce the percentage of failing managers by 43%.

Beyond Demographic Data: Rethink DEI Metrics for Meaningful Action

Presented by Shannon Wiest, Senior Principal, Advisory, Gartner

Effective DEI metrics go beyond demographics. Key takeaways:

• Leadership’s failure to take ownership is a top challenge for DEI leaders.
• Metrics should guide future performance and go beyond demographic data.
• Measuring value requires a focus on outcomes beyond just numbers.

How Will Generative AI Impact Your Workforce?

Presented by Helen Poitevin, Distinguished VP Analyst, Gartner

Generative AI is reshaping the workforce. Key takeaways:

• Employees concerned about AI job displacement are 27% less likely to stay.
• AI impact on jobs will be uneven, creating new roles and redesigning existing ones.
• HR leaders should take an active role, monitor roles, and map their portfolio for AI impact.

The Gartner ReImagine HR event provided a wealth of insights, emphasizing the need for HR leaders to be bold, data-driven, and adaptable in the face of change. As HR continues to evolve, these insights will prove invaluable for organizations seeking to thrive in the future of work.

By joining our know-how and extended RPA expertise, we aim to better help our customers scale up their automation program and achieve their digital transformation goals.

The new extended team of versed professionals will be able to faster deliver high-quality automations and provide more advanced solutions to our customers.

Extended expertise and stronger capabilities

I fully trust this move, as RPA Box has a strong reputation among customers. They’re known for their tech expertise and high focus on understanding customer needs. Founded by two UiPath alumni, RPA Box delivers complex automations for companies like Virgin Group, Michelin, SGS, and many others.

In the founders’ words:

“Our continuous goal is to provide our customers with high quality and stable automations using the latest technology. By joining our forces with RPA Box, we bring more know-how and capabilities to faster deliver quality automation solutions. In parallel, we’ll continue to develop Link, our new product designed to give companies an easy way to manage and automate business processes in a single dashboard and a seamless experience for all employees.”

Cristian Ignat, Aggranda Founder & CEO

“It felt natural that we joined forces with Aggranda. Striving for maximum efficiency across the board for our customers is just one of the many common genes that are deeply rooted in both our companies’ DNA and we have a lot more to share with you on this.”

Tudor Tache, RPA Box CEO

What’s next for Aggranda 

The acquisition of RPA Box by Aggranda is part of our larger strategy to become a leading provider of automation services. Aggranda plans to continue its rapid growth in Europe and the USA. The company will focus on its strong partnership with UiPath and consolidate its services to help enterprises scale through automation and digital transformation.

Above all, this acquisition supports our mission to create time in companies and in people’s lives through automation. At this moment, we’re helping companies from the USA, the UK, Germany, France, Austria, Portugal, Romania, and other countries. USDA, Sunrun, Chloride, Liaison, BMS Group, BA Glass, INSEAD are some of the customers that trust us. 

By now, we have saved our clients over 200,000 hours of manual and repetitive work, helping employees to be more productive and happier. Aggranda invests in education through its annual internships, guiding 100 interns from all over the world during each program period. Several interns are now Digital Transformation Managers at large companies, which makes us very proud.

Stay tuned, more good news will follow.

Productivity, Costs, Customer Experience, Employee Experience, Consistency, Accuracy and Compliance. These are the markers of running any business.  Over decades the relative importance of these pillars have moved up and down, changing on the back of economic or social conditions and market forces.

Technology vendors have forever built their propositions around business ‘values’, and the promise of better solution outcome. Little is worth buying unless, whatever it is, can leverage one or more of these markers.

Intelligent Automation is the established phrase when referring to the use of automation technologies to improve our office, administration, and customer services.  It is unique because it impacts ALL of the markers listed above in much the same way the internet did  the same. It is why we call these technologies ‘disruptors’.  And its proof is abundant.

In the words of McKinsey and Gartner, ‘Intelligent Automation’ has become an established and “must-have strategy” for all businesses now and into the future.   Is this what they mean by the Fourth Industrial Revolution?

Personally, I don’t like the use of the word Revolution. It assumes upheaval, change beyond recognition, an uncertain time to come. It tends to instil fear at a time when business needs to be brave in the face of low productivity, increased employee unrest and demands to be a lower cost, higher satisfaction provider.  But put in the context of the evolution of the internet, which has changed the way we transact with and serve our customers, it is certainly a game changer. Except this time, change in the way we work and the way we develop our skills for the future.

Let’s take some examples.

Uber

A digitally native business born in the internet era and a business that changed forever the way we book a taxi ride.  Despite being new, with access to all the best technology of this era, they quickly had a need for automation. Why? Uber’s business grew quickly, its use of SAAS applications grew too as they sought to find solutions that met the very niche requirements of their fast growing business. Each new App means another database. And in order to report upon and plan the future of Uber, these multiple sources needed to be brought together digitally in preference to employing people to do a pretty mind-numbing task of gathering data and collating in spreadsheets. Upshot, they achieved $10m in annual savings and achieved a return on Investment of 350% in the first year of implementing intelligent automation. Read more here.

Spotify

Again, digitally native and born into and 100% dependent upon digital technology. Yet the rapid growth of Spotify created weaknesses and risk within its financial and administration processes. Automation projects stretched from Treasury to general Ledger and across all financial processes and meant they saved 45,500+ hours of manual executed business through the execution of a well-managed and a visionary Centre of Excellence for automation. Read more here.

AirFranceKLM Group

Well established businesses with a long legacy of difficult to use and out-dated technology are immediate targets for automation. The airline group focused on  higher labour intensity and low human value work by setting about the automation of finance, financial controlling and maintenance business processes.  With teams operating in Budapest, Paris and Amsterdam, they ‘competed’ to achieve the highest productivity increases and savings. Budapest recorded 610% RoI on their projects, Paris and Amsterdam centres achieved 710% RoI. And it wasn’t just about time and money savings. Increases in accuracy meant re-work dropped dramatically and customer services experienced increased value figures as customers were being served faster. Read more here.

Carglass / Autoglass

For many businesses, ensuring employees remain loyal employees is crucial. On-boarding and training can be costly in business that requires unique and expert skills. Engineers were becoming bogged down in daily paperwork and administration processes. The business was being bound up by the labour it needed to handle things such as Invoices and Suppliers.

Carglass took this seriously and focused on freeing up employees from repetitive and boring tasks and enable them to contribute more of their own skills to the business. Over 200 business processes were automated, and employee reflected 99% positive experience as an outcome. A great example of how to build and maintain a valuable workforce. Read more here.

A host of other businesses such as Atlassian, Salesforce, Slack and more have experienced 100,000’s of hours saved, huge increases measured at 98% and more in the speed to complete financial and administration and 75% increase in the time to market measures.

The pandemic experience includes a host of examples where businesses used intelligent automation solutions to grow support for a ‘work from home’ necessity. We know of business who went from supporting 3,000 to 19,800 home workers in just 3 weeks by leveraging intelligent automation solutions.

IAG noticed that the BA Holidays booking processes led to significant manual error and the need for rework was costing holiday destination providers, airlines, and others. Enter automation and its implementation became so successful that Disneyland Orlando switched their preferred airline to British Airways. Bookings coming through BA became error free with increased efficiency and accuracy. The result was happier customers and an additional estimated £5m revenue generated by BA which would previously have gone to a competing airline.

The facts are these:

The Technology is proven and Tested

• The technology, from a broad choice of vendors, is well proven and tested with thousands of customers. Newcomers should have no fear of being at the leading edge or risking their investments.

Business needs this for Productivity and Efficiency

• Businesses continue to consume SAAS Apps. This creates an increasing need to ensure information generated in one application becomes relevant to the data in another application. Should we hire more people to do this boring work? Of course not. Continued take up of new SAAS solutions is a 100% guarantee that intelligent automation will remain an integral part of Business and IT infrastructure for the foreseeable future.

We are creating Robotic jobs

• In most businesses, we have employed numerous people to enter data, transfer data and manipulate data for the purpose of ordering, invoicing, reconciling, onboarding and measuring. These are all tasks in which we are asking intelligent and often University qualified humans to complete. These are actually robotic processes. This has to stop if we are to upskill our workforces and create higher value jobs.

We must upskill for better lives and living

• No matter what industry, no matter which country, no matter digitally native or legacy bound, every business using computer applications in their daily routines MUST implement automation to create a more skilled workforce for the future. It is essential that business reduces the bad habit of creating further low-pay, data-entry / data-transfer, screen and keyboard centric tasks.

Savings and  Productivity increases are fast and significant

• Businesses that have worked with Intelligent Automation have, over the past 10 years, achieved savings of up to 800% within one year by quickly identifying the routines of their business which can be automated. Every business can achieve substantial savings and productivity increases.

Huge Corporations have Invested billions and Tested and Proven this thousands of time over

• World leading businesses have invested millions (up to $3billion in one customer instance alone) to automate their processes, upskill their employees and re-model their businesses for a world that needs higher skilled service delivery, greater productivity, lower costs and vastly improved customer service.

Customer Service improvements are easily achieved

• Contact Centres and every business that depends on their customer service to win more customers and retain those they have are seeking all the time to reduce call waiting times and achieve higher levels of service. This is happening in all telecommunications providers worldwide because they know we hate waiting on them to answer our calls.

Scary to Start

But let me ask. Is your business taking the action it needs to take? Where are you in planning to improve the working lives of millions of employees, increasing your business productivity and creating scope for growth?

Why are some businesses hesitating? What is preventing every business, large and small from having a defined automation strategy?

If you are a Builder in the construction industry, you have already invested in digging and lifting machinery so that you move move and lift earth and stone faster, in order to build faster and reduce the volume of employees using picks, shovels and spades

If you are an Accountant you have invested in skilled people, applications and excel in order to maximise the productivity you can generate and thus more fees and profitability. Yet you will find you have thousands of employees manually intervening in processes to get data from one application to another.

If you are a Baker with ambition, you have invested in machinery which can make more dough, mix more ingredients and create consistent high-quality products at a better price margin.

So why then are some businesses taking their time to implement Intelligent Automation? Its just the same principle – with digital intelligence rather than machine muscle.

Out of the Comfort Zone

For the majority of businesses, implementing intelligent automation solutions introduces new challenges not previously faced.

• Do we fully understand the processes within our businesses? If we are to automate them we must surely have a clear sight of what they are, isn’t that correct?
• Not exactly. It is true to say that software applications have taken over much of the heavy lifting of data processing and that humans are employed to answer the phone and principally to type data in and transfer data across applications to fulfil the business need.  It’s pretty terrible work to be asking our employees of the 21^st Century to do.
• But even as these may be well established routines, Process and Task Mining tools can very quickly provide you with the blue print of your business and immediately identify the processes, map them accurately and set you up for automation. Once you start the Discovery Phase of your automation plan, things become far clearer.
• Do we know how to engage our employees so that they are comfortable with Automation and not spooked by the false assumption that jobs will be lost
• For sure, few of us want to create a movement which ultimately leads to the loss of someone’s job. And that is why the most successful automation implementations include all employees from the start.
• Most employees in a busy business environment can offer insights and intelligence on how the job could be done better and faster. Most employees can describe in detail how if one or two of the office processes were changed, they would have more time for customers
• Driving an automation strategy means engaging everyone, especially those whose work will be impacted. But managed correctly, we have witnessed that these employees often add the most valuable insight into how to be better.  Think of using an Automation Hub tool, where ideas can be gathered, analysed, actioned and measured
• Finally, make sure that your strategy includes upskilling for employees. After all, if someone in Finance no longer has to read and re-type Invoices for example, they will probably be very adept at helping understand where they could add more value to the business.
• Projects involving IT have been difficult to manage and oversea in the past – there is a fear of getting into another technical engagement and long drawn-out exercise
• Applying Intelligent Automation to your business is, first up, a business decision with business benefits. It must be led by those tasked to make the business run at optimal cost and speed. Rely on IT to ensure the necessary resources are available. IT brings important hands-on experience in setting up and managing technical environments however all the benefits of your Automation strategy will be realised in business operations. IT is a tool just as a spanner is important when building a car.

Conclusion

Do your Discovery

The facts are that once you can get an oversight of how business flows across your various internal departments, which system depends on which other, where people are intervening and solving challenges today. Identify all those points across your business where a human intervenes and adds value and/or just transfers data and knowledge. The rest becomes clearer.

Identify and expect to Measure what you intend to achieve

Work with your teams to find the best ideas, incentivise improvement programs and have a clear vision of the Before and After scenario.

Choose a Partner to work with

It helps considerably if you can find a solution provider who listens to you, understands the entire automation landscape and can work with you for the Outcomes your business expects.  Make sure they are experienced in all disciplines and can you to map the business as well as provide the automation technicalities

Take short sharp steps to begin.

Help everyone understand and buy into your goals. Do some obvious task automations to begin, ensure everyone witnesses the benefits and plan your second and subsequent stages into more complex and more rewarding automations.

Not so many years ago it was not uncommon for a business to go through a lengthy procurement exercise to choose an ERP solution or CRM solution or other major enterprise-wide core solution.  The culmination of perhaps a years evaluation, workshop, pilot and trial ends with a purchase of millions of dollars of software and the prospect of a project of implementation which could take 1, 2 or even 3 years. Finance signs the check, a solution provider enters the business and for a year or more, hundreds of executives hope the outcome is what they expect. The money is spent, the requirements have been captured and now the implementation fires into full speed.

Sadly the first user acceptance tests start and users are ‘challenged’ to understand what has happened. Changes are identified, misunderstandings are clarified, changes are made and the process continues. We’ve all been there.

Intelligent Automation introduces new methods and new outcomes. It doesn’t demand you change your applications or your operation (though it may help you identify how things could be better) but helps unlock all the potential of skilled and intelligent employees. By getting them way from robotic desk bound jobs, we can free up workforces to be more creative, care for our customers, focus on the things that help you grow and create a better working environment for your people. Did I mention ‘churn’? Creating a better work environment, allowing people to express themselves and carry out more fulfilling work is a huge contributor to keeping your staff with you and helping you grow a more profitable business.

Never has it been more important for HR leaders to become a critical part of the corporate management. The workplace is changing substantially. Employers are struggling to get and keep the right people. Talk of attrition and resignation as trends are consequences of the way we have developed the workplace over the past 3 – 4 decades. The best positioned leaders to help guide employers back to a better work environment are the HR Leaders.

Much is being made of the trends in attrition and resignation across our workforce. Some see this as a manifestation of social media influences on the millennial population. Others see it because of the pandemic and the trend exposes a simple refusal on the part of the employee, to be told where to work.

The truth is that it is probably caused by both of these together with a culmination of several decades implementing various technologies focused on the systems.  The combined impact on our employees has now reached a tipping point.

Goldman Sachs are amongst those who published reports on personal productivity rise and fall from the 1980’s and how that peaked in 2000 and has fallen ever since (Byrne Oliver & Sichel Dept of Labor – Goldman Sacks Investment Research). The causes of this are too many to examine here.  Suffice to say technology has consistently been implemented to address the business process and not the needs of the employee. The impact has led to a substantive decrease in personal productivity output for the past 20 years.

Software solutions have been implemented over decades to carry out the heavy lifting of processing data. Since 2015, enterprises have grown the number of software solutions they use by 65% (Source).

This has most certainly helped to maintain business productivity. At the same time, however,  personal productivity fell as the software became the principal engine for processing of business data and the duty of the employee was increasingly focused on pressing the keys and filling the boxes.

Business Process Reengineering is a phrase that many became familiar with 10 – 15 years ago. And indeed, some businesses re-engineered some of their processes. However, there is no statistical information to support what that benefit was or is. In many respects, digital transformation, a term we hear referred to time and time again, actually took place when manual processes became the workload of software. With this transition however there was no ‘re-engineering’ of the processes – rather we mimic’d our manual processes and had the software carry out the tasks in the same way we had been doing it manually. Did any ERP project across an enterprise take less than 2 years? What took so long? We saw the software working in the demos and the presentations and we ok’d the return on investment as a three year or even five year project.

What we did was to make the software vendors, and many very wealthy implementation businesses, transform the software to run the way we did things ourselves. We even helped the major and less major consulting businesses rename their genre and gave birth to the Global Systems Integrators. These GSI’s embraced what many businesses wanted – for the system to take on responsibility and to run the processes that everyone had become so familiar with. Customising the software meant we did not have to retrain the workforce to work a different way.  Instead, we would teach the workforce how to use the software.

It was at this point we started the movement toward whatever it is we have today – attrition, resignation, displacement, obstinance.

People are happy to change, happy to embrace new technology and new ways of doing things. But there is an un-stated condition they should be included in or drive the change process.  Placed in the position of being a subject of change is a different thing. When we consistently change our work practices and organisation, its goals and objectives, we consistently disenfranchise our workforce and tell them in subtle form, that their job is to obey the transition and ‘fit in’.

Decades of software installation, implementation, re-engineering and more has made most of us slaves to the software. The GSI’s are now being employed in many instances to unravel the spaghetti of processes which have been deployed in our software and help the business understand what they are actually doing. One example being a UK telecommunications provider which spent £6m over a nine month period for the output only to be a description of what the processes deployed within the software now do. This is common place. Re-engineering of processes is a high-cost activity and it’s not entirely possible to determine if the money spent doing this yields a return. So, we continue to re-invent manual processes in an ever increasing portfolio of On Demand and SAAS services. So what?

Throughout this entire time, we have made the resource and the return more important than the people that do the jobs. How often do we hear businesses promote their employment record and contest to be “Best Place to Work’? Cynically, it is possible to interpret these sorts of programs as a realisation by the employer that the work is generally boring, so they have decided to run programs which counter this. Are they conscious that these jobs are dependent upon how the software works and that there is little dependency on the employees? We like to be depended upon, don’t we?

To compensate for the uninspiring nature of so many jobs, there are nights out, employee workshops, team building exercises and many other forms of encouragement to accept the work as it is and enjoy it more for the ancillary activities that come with it. In short, a lot of work has become boring. We know it has. And finally, we have reached the tipping point I mentioned in the second paragraph.

Throughout this whole term, from simple business processes to software to web and SAAS services we have focused on making the software fit the processes we created for business to function. Little thought has been given for the people on whom we will ultimately depend. The R has been more important that the H.

Intelligent Automation is our way out of this conundrum. We made the people a slave to the software however, we also have the technology to make the software take care of itself and have the humans take on more creative, more challenging and more innovative roles. All that investment that Customer Services said they needed to look after customers better can now be invested. The new products and services the business has wanted to bring to market but could not because of the costs they have for running the business today, can be brought forward. Thousands of employees across thousands of businesses can be freed from the monotony of typing, cutting, pasting and data entry.

Will this alleviate the attrition or resignation? Well, it will certainly help. Examine the key reasons for employees leaving their jobs and you will find that money is rarely the driver.  Neither are good working conditions or the number of nights out in the year. People are bored and feeling under-valued.

Process Automation is a means of ‘teaching’ a digital agent what exactly a business processes is for, and how the human normally interacts with it. The Agent learns how to do the jobs where there is high degrees of repetition and the where ‘rules’ are applied by the employee. We have hundreds of these positions in almost any business you can imagine.

Tied up on cutting, pasting, typing and running reports every day, the employee is tied to a routine and dictated to by how the systems work. Their work is measured by the volume of transactions they process, the level of accuracy they achieve and the commitment they show to achieving goals (set mainly by the systems). Process Automation releases this time spent completing robotic tasks and gives time back to employees and employers. This is time that can be used to ask employees for advice, to re-design the processes so that business, create new products, serve customers better and to deploy people into roles to which they are suited – an opportunity to tap into personality & cognitive skills for example. And when we tap into these things, we create more valuable work and the opportunity for higher salaries.

At the grass roots of almost any business is a cohort of people who understand what the business is trying to do. They are able and qualified to comment on what does and does not work well and will happily engage, within the right structure, to make it better.

In this context, the role of HR leader has never been more important. Businesses have been very quick to maintain the cliché “Our employees are our most important asset” and “We are a People company”. But few have demonstrated this clearly internally. And it is this that has driven the Attrition and Resignation. Today’s HR leader must not only seek to improve the lot for their own HR employees, making on-boarding and off-boarding and assessments slicker , faster and more accurate. He or She must play an integral role in helping the business understand how making work more inspiring and engaged is the key to tomorrows more productive workforce.

The HR leader is responsible not only for the processes around pay hiring, firing and payroll etc but for the entire workforce. They owe business a service to demand more inspiring and motivating work activities and to work tirelessly to create a working environment where the employee is no longer a slave to the software. The HR leader needs to be first in line to explain the attrition and resignation to the other business leaders. Strategically there must be a program to automate the processes than can be automated, and free up time for employees to make a greater overall contribution.

We all like change, provided we have some control and contribution to make. We all dismiss change when it is being enforced upon us.  Automation is a means of cutting out the type of work that is of no human interest or development potential. It is a means of creating a working environment that nurtures employees once more and can help bring an end to the attrition / resignation debate.

We need a strategy to make the ‘H’ more important that then ‘R’ and who better than HR leaders to drive this?

First, there’s the Great Resignation! Who would have thought that during a pandemic, with all the accompanying business disruptions, people would choose to deprioritize their employment?

Second, offices are finally opening back up, but nobody seems to be eager to return after two full years of working from home.

The HR market has changed dramatically, both internationally and locally. HR practices of the early 2000s have already become obsolete, while newer practices are having a much harder time catching on. That’s why right now is the best time to reinvent them.

Reinventing everything HR-related is the core reason why Gartner, the world-leading tech research & consulting company, is organizing ReimagineHR. The event is expected to host discussions primarily among CHROs and executive development consultants. The general agenda is set to cover a broader range of HR and recruiting issues that companies are facing today.

So why does this event deserve a separate blog post? Because Aggranda is attending, obviously! And not just attending, but participating as one of the event’s partners.

There is a whole list of reasons, big and small, why you should participate as well. In this post, we’ll be focusing on the top five.

Five reasons why we expect to meet you in person at Gartner ReimagineHR

1. If you can’t be a trend-setter, be a trend-spotter

Gartner’s name requires no introduction, obviously. Everyone in the international business world is familiar with the famous Magic Quadrants. But Gartner’s analytical reports are just the tip of a massive iceberg of the company’s diverse research activities.

If you are looking to get back to in-person events this year — place your bets on an event with ROI guaranteed. You’ll get back to your office with a bunch of insights to test, a thick pack of business cards, and dozens of new contacts on Linkedin.

2. Seeking answers to uncomfortable questions

If you look at the agenda of earlier events by Gartner, you would instantly notice that the company is brave enough to discuss questions that someone else would find inconvenient to even formulate:

How to reconcile performance and social fairness when shaping an internal wage strategy?

What is the most realistic approach to building a company’s culture when you have a geographically dispersed workforce?

Where is the limit in being proactive when it comes to talent acquisition?

These and many other sensitive topics will be discussed on the basis of real and successfully implemented use cases.

3. Recruiting and reward strategies need to be rewritten from scratch

Hybrid work mode and long-distance hiring now require the development of brand new approaches to how we find new talents and retain them later on.

Candidates these days have radically different expectations (and not only salary-related ones), but they also tend to ask rather unanticipated questions, and recruiters are not always prepared to answer them.

Performance is much harder to measure fairly these days since employees work in different time zones, often choosing flexible hours instead of the traditional 9-to-5.

Time-proven perks, like gourmet in-office lunches or branded swag, are simply not enough anymore.

Looking for some inspiration? Let’s not reinvent the wheel. There are always people who tried something, failed, and then tried again. And these people come to ReimagineHR to share their experiences, both positive and not so positive.

4. Looking to hire and onboard faster? It’s time to dive into tech and automate

It is no secret that during the pandemic, and subsequent lockdown, absolutely every industry became much more sophisticated and tech-savvy. HR and recruiting are no exception in this regard.

Suppose you are already at the stage of acknowledging the problem and you are well aware that HR processes can be digitized and at least partially automated. In that case, it is time to talk to a professional.

Aggranda chose to participate in ReimagineHR because of our most successful experience in automating recruitment and onboarding processes (and paperwork, most importantly!).

For First Bank, Aggranda has developed a HR software robot that now performs the most mundane tasks for the bank’s recruiters — summarizing data on potential candidates into reports, generating standardized job offers for the selected candidates, managing onboarding documents for all new hires, and so on. According to the calculations of recruiters, our software robot saves them at least 120 hours each month!

Then, we also have Arya — a UiPath HR software robot that we have built for Provident, a home loans company. Arya manages 99% of all onboarding and offboarding paperwork at Provident, including job position announcements, background checks, and employment offers. Thanks to Arya’s ability to take over all mundane paperwork, all onboarding documentation at Provident is processed in a fraction of the time without human error.

Sounds tempting? Come to ReimagineHR and let’s talk!

5. No more Zoom presentations! Just first-hand, real-life experiences only.

In our professional opinion, the best part about any in-person event is the exhibition hall.

Powerpoint presentations can be convincing enough, YouTube videos may look really professional, but nothing beats an actual conversation with a developer.

This is why Aggranda is not only the Silver partner of ReimagineHR but is also exhibiting its use cases at an actual booth.

Come to meet our team and bring your questions along with you.

The Gartner ReimagineHR Conference will take place on September 15-16 2022, in London, UK. Early-bird registration is still open!

Here are some of the highlights from the last year.

Invested in Education

We continued to educate the RPA market. Our team wrote 20 rpa articles on our blog. We wrote technical articles but also business articles to help companies to choose the right processes to automate.

We have 84 applicants to our RPA internship from the following countries: Italy, India, Egypt, USA, Romania, South Africa, Argentina, Nigeria, Portugal, Canada. During the internship we shared our knowhow and speed up the learning process for the interns.

Helping hospitals

We launched a campaign to help 3 hospitals anywhere in the world with their automation challenges using the UiPath products.

100,000 hours saved with UiPath

We’ve saved our clients from doing over 100,000 hours of manual work. And we celebrated this with some great ads in Times Square. The number of hours saved grew significantly by then.

Saving 10,000 hours / year for a single client

We have a new UiPath case study that shows how we are saving over 10,000 hours / year for Provident:

We are very proud that this case study was mentioned on the official UiPath website.

First round of investment

I’m extremely happy that we closed Aggranda’s first round of investment last September. The best part is that every single investor contributes with more than money: their time, their know-how, network of connections, creativity and many more.

Beside this, Vikas Jain joined Aggranda as our Technical Advisor. We rely with his huge experience from UiPath and we are very happy to have him close.

UiPath Forward IV

We were present at the UiPath Forward IV in Las Vegas, the largest RPA event in the world. At some point, someone from Amazon came to us after he noticed Aggranda’s logo on our badges. He told us that he is amazed how well we are adversing ourselves. For a company as our size, having someone from Amazon to know about Aggranda means a lot. It gives us more confidence that we are going in the right direction.

We made new connections and friends from the RPA world at the event and I am sure that with some of them we will work.

Our Team

Our team got bigger and smarter. I think we have some pure geniuses in our team, and I’m not joking 🙂 We developed worked on large projects automating processes that helped our clients to have happier people in their teams.

We had an amazing team building where we had some great time that helps us working even better together.

Our clients

We increased the number of large enterprises that we work with. Among our new clients, we started to work with one of the largest Oil & Gas companies from Europe, one of the largest BPOs headquartered in the US and one of the Big 4. Beside that, we established very strong relationships with some partners in the USA and in the UK.

Aggranda is now a mature business delivering high class Digital Transformation projects for large enterprises from all over the world.

If you read until here, I recommend to stay in touch with us by following us on our LinkedIn page.

According to Gartner, global RPA software revenue is set to reach $1.89 billion in 2021, an increase of 19.5% from 2020. Moreover, despite economic pressures caused by COVID-19, the RPA market is expected to grow at double-digit rates through 2024. 

Automation optimizes business operational processes using software robots that can perform repetitive, high-volume tasks, that require a lot of time and are prone to error when performed by humans. Robotic process automation brings a lot of benefits for companies from any industry: from cost savings, increased efficiency and productivity, to a seamless customer experience.

To reach all of these, the implementation process needs to be carefully planned and executed. Otherwise, the RPA project may fail and create even more inefficiency for your business processes – such as errors and unnecessary costs. 

The good news is you don’t have to go through this by yourself. Having the right RPA implementation partner is crucial in order to embed a successful implementation project and get over challenges that may naturally arise. Specialists have vast knowledge and experience when it comes to RPA, and they will help you achieve your objectives for long-term success.

If you’re just now considering to start your automation journey, consider learning more about what are the correct steps that you should take in order to get off to a good start. You can read more about that in our article about how to start your RPA journey in 5 easy steps.

What should a company specialised in RPA implementation do for your business? Well, they should understand your goals, analyze your business operational structure, and help you discover your automation needs. They should also create an automation strategy and execute it in order to achieve optimization while maximizing return on investment (ROI).

It’s important to mention that there is no universal recipe for a successful RPA deployment, since every company has different needs and goals, so this is why you will need a customized approach. 

Before choosing the right partner for you, make sure you establish a clear goal for the automaton and ask yourself what processes you need to automate. 

Tips on choosing the right RPA implementation partner

We have prepared a list with some tips you should keep in mind when selecting your RPA implementation partner:

1.     Understanding your company’s automation needs  

A potential RPA partner should have, on the one side, the technical knowledge, and on the other side, they should understand what processes are suitable for automation in your company in order to achieve your goals. 

They should be capable of identifying the areas where your company can make the most of robotic process automation. This is why you should make sure they will balance both technical skills and operational skills.

2.    You should consider the commercial model of the partner

The RPA vendor who manages the implementation will impact your cost reduction, so it is very important to know from the beginning what their commercial model is. For example, Aggranda is an official UiPath partner company that trains software robots using RPA technology on the UiPath platform. 

We make business process easier by transferring ordinary tasks from employees to software robots. All of our team members are UiPath RPA certified and we have developed software robots for global industry leaders from various fields, such as: accounting, finance & Banking, HR, BPO, healthcare, retail, telecom and so on.

Take a look at some of our RPA case studies to see real results we obtained for our clients: 

• HR software robot for First Bank
• Piscot: processing orders in retail
• Arya: the HR software robot
• Alex: processing invoices in accounting
• Rosy: download reports and manipulate Excel files

3.     Having proven experience 

You should take into account the experience of your potential partner. Find out more about the automation projects they delivered: the complexity, the type of processes that were automated, their governance model and their approach. The right RPA implementation partner should be able to prove their experience and their results. Pay attention if they delivered projects in the same industry. 

4.       Having a good maintenance program 

Maintenance is another important direction of the RPA implementation program. Software robots will require an efficient maintenance capability, in order to solve the technical problems that may occur and to perform well. 

Choose an RPA partner that can provide this type of support, in order to have 24/7 operational software robots. Clarify these aspects from the beginning and ask about a structured cost for this service. 

5.     Having cultural similarities

This is an aspect that doesn’t refer to the technical skills of your potential partner – on the contrary, it refers to their soft skills and human side. When selecting your automation partner, set aside for a moment the technical knowledge they might have and pay attention to the clues that show you if they are compatible with your organization’s culture. 

Since they will be an important part of your company, it’s vital to share a similar organizational culture. Otherwise, this might interfere with the success of your RPA implementation and achieving your goals.

6.     Looking for customer references

Let’s face it. Now we rely on customer references more than ever, regardless of the service or product we want to buy. This is also valid for choosing the right RPA vendor, so we encourage you to ask for customer references.

Consider whether your potential partner has the capability to meet your needs and to navigate through problems and challenges. A good indication might also be how many clients continue to work with them after the program is implemented – this will give you an idea of their level of satisfaction.

Conclusion

Selecting your RPA partner might be a very demanding process, but it’s better to do your research before signing a contract to ensure a successful RPA implementation and long-term collaboration for setting up a robotic Center of Excellence, training your internal teams, and more.

We have offered you some quick tips for managing the selection process, but please know that the right decision will come only after you establish clear automation goals. 

After the implementation, your company will benefit from better business results and improved efficiency, translated into higher revenues, cost savings and a higher level of productivity for each employee.

The latest game-changing trend is using specialized robotic process automation solutions to automate work with SAP systems.

This article will discover the main barriers, difficulties, and advantages of automating work with SAP systems using robotic process automation.

What is SAP Automation?

SAP (System Applications and Products) automation streamlines tedious, repetitive business workflows in the SAP product ecosystem with the help of automation tools.

The SAPinsider Benchmark Report, published in Summer 2020, surveyed more than 200 SAP customers. It showed the increase in adopting automation technologies to fully embrace digital transformation, maximize process efficiency, and ensure a complete work-life balance for their employees.

There are two main reasons for automation. First, SAP has a complex interface that takes time to learn how to work with it. And the second problem — at the end of 2027, support for the SAP Business Suite 7 business applications will expire. There is only one option left — to migrate in advance to SAP S/4HANA*.

*SAP S/4HANA is a new AI and machine learning enterprise resource planning (ERP) system.

The first driver of robotic process automation is the employees, who want to focus on the intellectual activity instead of a manual working routine. The second is the imminent transition of companies to SAP S/4HANA.

According to the same study, the leading automation objectives for SAP customers are:

• end-to-end automation between SAP solutions and other systems of the company (58%);
• standardization of processes within the SAP S/4HANA migration (40%);
• setting up and running software robots for process automation (RPA) (40%).

The main difficulties that limit automating work with SAP systems are the enterprise’s legacy IT systems and multiple non-standardized workflows.

Many of the surveyed by SAPinsider use customized and isolated ERPs, making it challenging to implement and scale automation solutions.

Enterprise architects could more easily scale automation systems across the organization if every department and ERP system worked with the same standardized processes. Therefore, many respondents said they now see SAP S/4HANA as an opportunity to start over, streamline processes, and implement automation.

For automation to be effective, businesses must seamlessly integrate automation across all systems used by an organization. Therefore, for many companies, the complexity of existing systems is a critical obstacle.

The most popular types of automation for SAP today are RPA platforms and workflow modeling and monitoring tools. 

Benefits of RPA Automation for SAP Systems

Whatever path the company chooses for itself shortly: continue to work in SAP ECC or migrate to SAP S/4 HANA — robots will be helpful.

Barriers limiting the implementation of solutions to automate SAP are not a problem in the case of robotization. The software robots will work equally well with a standard SAP system and a customized one with a large number of Z-tables.

At the same time, processes handled by software robots can include work with different systems, allowing automated end-to-end processes.

Another advantage of a successful RPA implementation in SAP is that it simplifies the work with complex user interface systems. Automation reduces interaction time with the system and the time required to train new employees to work in SAP.

RPA services provide tools for designing, building, and running bots in various applications, and some platforms also include integrated test automation, process and task mining.

SAP Automation Best Practises and Most Common Use Cases

The most popular area for automation is finance. For instance, a software robot can detect in-house billing differences between data sent from one subsystem to another and send it to the IT department for correction. With RPA for SAP, companies can automate:

• processing of receivables;
• processing of accounts payable;
• invoice management.

In addition to finance, organizations automate a wide range of processes:

• SAP S / 4HANA testing;
• data migration for SAP S / 4HANA;
• onboarding of new employees;
• ERP risks and control;
• payroll processing;
• processing of production orders;
• warehouse operations.

Example of SAP Automation with UiPath

Conclusion

When deciding to automate an SAP system, a user must pay critical attention to their chosen RPA vendor. 

Software should provide you with an intuitive visual interface, making setup fast and easy. It should allow you to automate any business transaction, from inside the SAP application to legacy systems. An RPA platform has to be secure and trusted by users and UiPath partners. 

Once you find the right tool for your SAP automation, you will save your business tons of time and money. SAP automation ensures that everyone in your organization is free from tedious routine tasks and can develop new skills and create exciting projects.