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Here are the key learnings Alex shared with us on how they could scale.
Secure a sufficient level of buy-in from top management
Buy-in from top management is crucial to the success of your automation program. Without it, your program will struggle to gain traction and secure the resources it needs to scale. To gain buy-in, it is important to invest primarily in business-facing capabilities with strong advisory capability towards C-suite/senior management. This will help ensure that automation is seen as a strategic priority and not just a tactical solution.
Build CoE with strong governance
A Center of Excellence (CoE) with strong governance is essential to the successful scaling of your automation program. It ensures end-to-end accountability and builds the capability required to manage automation effectively. This includes establishing clear roles and responsibilities, defining processes for identifying and prioritizing automation opportunities, and establishing robust governance and oversight.
Build partnerships with IT and external partners
To scale your automation program, you will need to build partnerships with IT and external partners. This means creating an alliance with CIO and IT to secure delivery capability and volume flexibility by leveraging one or several delivery partners. This will help ensure that you have the resources you need to scale your program and meet the demands of your business.
Technology ramp-up
Start with Robotic Process Automation (RPA) and then gradually build up to more advanced automation technologies, such as artificial intelligence and machine learning. This will help ensure that you have the right tools in place to automate the right processes and achieve maximum efficiency. Secure strong technical and IT competence, but don’t forget it’s a business transformation.
Communicate and engage
Effective communication and engagement are key to the successful scaling of your automation program. You need to market positive change and create positive buzz, remove all fears of automation and job loss, and celebrate and reward success and progress. It is also important to drive adoption, with C-suite first, to ensure that your automation program is embraced throughout the organization.
Ensure funding
Ensuring funding for your automation program is critical to its success. It is important to pay centrally for creating an automation ideas pipeline, not for projects. Make businesses pay for the delivery projects as and when they see the business case, this way you can fund scaling. This will help ensure that you have the resources you need to scale your program and meet the demands of your business.
Monitor and track closely
Monitoring and tracking your automation program closely is essential to its success. Don’t focus only on FTE savings. Instead, align with strategic initiatives and KPIs/OKRs that matter to the executive team. This will help ensure that your automation program is aligned with the overall goals of your organization and is delivering value where it matters most. |
