Spotlight on Hyperautomation

Combine multiple technologies to make your business more efficient

Every year since 2004, the research consultancy Gartner has predicted the next year's top technology trends. In 2019, hyperautomation joined the list for the first time - and it joined at number one.

The news jolted the worlds of business and technology. In the twelve months before the announcement, the news-tracking company Gale had listed only seven stories about hyperautomation. In the twelve months after, Gale found more than 200.

Today, according to forecasts from Emergen Research and Coherent Market Insights, the market for hyperautomation should expand at a compound annual growth rate of more than 18% through 2027, when it will be worth more than $22.8 billion.

But what is hyperautomation?

It's the combination of advanced technologies like robotic process automation (RPA), artificial intelligence (AI), and machine learning (ML) to automate as many business processes as possible. "Hyperautomation extends across a range of tools that can be automated but also refers to the sophistication of the automation (i.e., discover, analyze, design, automate, measure, monitor, reassess)," Gartner explained.

Hyperautomation is especially useful for tasks such as:

Customer service

Hyperautomation can supply fast, satisfying responses to customer questions and concerns. Tech consultant Cem Dilmegani explains, "NLP natural language processing, a hyperautomation tool understands email, documents, and queries. Machine learning algorithms classify information by category. RPA bots or scripts provide for sending the mail to a particular person or responding with a templated message."

Managing orders

In a hyperautomation system, "a robot could process documents to extract the relevant information from a customer order and automatically generate the corresponding picking order," says the supply-chain company Interlake Mecalux. "Solutions like these are a real opportunity for speeding up and automating document and administrative management."

Generating sales leads

Using hyperautomation tools, "website/mobile app owners can identify the profiles of leads that are browsing," says Cem Dilmegani. "This data can be automatically fed into an outreach platform which can ... display advertising to these profiles and send a series of emails to these profiles, and once they respond, they can be routed to the sales team."

Nearly any business can apply hyperautomation, but it's particularly helpful to companies in:

Banking and finance

In an industry that involves millions of calculations and transactions, "hyperautomation, along with technologies like optical character recognition (OCR), can reduce manual intervention while ensuring high-quality results," according to a report from IBM. Yashasvi Raykar, vice president for innovation and technology consulting at the digital transformation company Opteamix, explains, "Hyperautomation can furnish managers with higher-quality financial data and provide customers better information, equipping them both to make more informed decisions."

Insurance

The artificial-intelligence news site AiThority observes, "The insurance industry entails many routine, repetitive, and manual tasks" ideal for hyperautomation to streamline and speed up. India's National Association of Software and Service Companies explains that with hyperautomation, "the physical data provided by multiple stakeholders to the insurance agencies can be verified and checked against client certifications with ease and precision, and a lot quicker as compared to their human counterparts."

Retail

"Retail companies have to really invest in customer experience and support, and hyperautomation can help," says Oscar Charlton, editor-in-chief of the news site Hyperautomation.world. "It is very important to address the customer grievance on platforms like social media, especially Twitter, as it plays a major role in affecting the brand image. RPA bots powered with NLP and AI can identify brand-specific content, understand the intention, and notify the support/brand management team. ... A well-trained bot can even provide a relevant reply to these messages."

Healthcare

"The healthcare industry, with so many repetitive processes, contractual obligations, and regulations to comply with, is in a prime position to use hyperautomation ... to provide automated services, speed processes, reduce costs and provide higher quality," says IBM. Opteamix's Raykar notes, "From automating billing cycles and customer communications to patient record management, hyperautomation enables healthcare providers to administer more accurate treatment plans."

It sounds like hyperautomation can do everything but make your dog sit up and beg. In late 2021, two years after Gartner brought hyperautomation to wide attention, the consultancy made another announcement:

"Hyperautomation has rapidly changed from being optional to vital because of the relentless demand to shift to digital business models. IT leaders must use hyperautomation as an ongoing catalyst ... to achieve agility and resiliency."