The evolution of Process Automation in Saudi Arabia:
At its core, automation has always been about eliminating friction; since the iBPMS evolution in the late 1990s /early 2000s , the notion of process automation has been looked at mainly through the lens of improving productivity, agility and most importantly, efficiency gains through cost reduction. Many iBPMS platforms, workflow solutions and case management frameworks have evolved and have been adopted with the aim to streamline processes and increase efficiency
In light of the above and especially here in our beloved country of Saudi Arabia, that has translated to an early wave of large scale investments in workflow systems that have on one hand, played an essential role in meeting automation objectives, but on the other hand, failed to meet key expectations, especially when it comes to scalability, flexibility and seamless user experience. The result? legacy workflow and ‘ticketing’ systems that have automated some processes, but left behind a bigger problem of disconnected user experiences and broken customer journeys….to make matters worse, the application landscape in any typical medium to large scale organization has become more complex…thousands of front office and back office applications, and the overall ‘CIO wish list’ of transforming a typical system of records (ERP, CRM) into a customer engagement platform, which unfortunately has never worked, and even made matters more complicated for the end user
What went wrong?
The biggest part of the problem back at that era, was not due to the BPM/Case management or workflow solution provider, but mostly due to looking at process automation through only one lens (Efficiency and cost saving). There is no doubt that efficiency is still an essential dimension to achieving Return on Investment (ROI) from process automation, however in a post COVID world, that dimension has not become sufficient. The pandemic has made process automation a ‘board level’ initiative at most organizations, and most importantly , has triggered organizations to look at process automation from the lens of both operational efficiency, as well as customer experience, where the latter becoming very difficult to achieve , especially with the endless digital channels that are opening up at organizations, and with a tech savvy, and mobile ready ‘generation Z’ entering the workforce. Addressing end to end process automation through an ‘inside-out’ approach is paramount in achieving operational excellence, but is definitely not sufficient in building sustainable and omni-channel digital journeys
The CompTechCo differentiating factor:
It took years of benchmarking, process maturity assessment and lessons learned for us to reach this stage of differentiation when approaching Process Automation projects. Firstly, CompTechCo’s platform for process automation ‘Orchestra’ , not only incorporates the ingredients for automation of your back office corporate processes, but provides a comprehensive Digital Service Platform , that delivers the most adequate balance of ‘inside-out’ process modeling and automation, as well as ‘outside-in’ customer journey mapping and digitization. Indeed, Customer journey mapping delivers an outside-in perspective that helps you develop empathy for, and a deep understanding of, your customers, employees and partners. By connecting the customer journey to your internal processes, you can develop a transformation roadmap and become the customer-centric organization your customers demand in today’s world
The Orchestra platform is carefully engineered and crafted based on a highly modernized, forward thinking and next generation architecture, which purely embraces micro services, API first, containerization and low code development. Below are the main reasons which make CompTechCo’s world class digital service platform, the ‘de facto’ choice for modernized process automation:
- Outcome driven platform: the reason we have processes in the first place, is to fulfil an outcome for your employees, customers and partners, whether it’s opening an account, onboarding a customer or filing a complaint. Our consultancy approach towards journey digitization is to focus on the journey and its related artifacts, rather than the channel. Many organizations have become victims of traditional/legacy approaches to Digital Services, which is on being channel centric (Portal, Mobile, Chat bot etc….), and that has forced them to hard-code business logic directly into each channel !
- Inside out and Outside in Balance: The adequate balance between ‘Inside-out’ and ‘Outside-in’ customer journey mapping: building business processes based on universal standards such as BPMN, DMN and CMMN (which are baked into the CAMUNDA BPM platform, the foundational Process engine on which Orchestra is built), in order to have sustainable organization algorithms (Processes) that are built properly from the inside out, combining that approach with the ‘Outside-in’ angle from the customer perspective, seamlessly across all digital channels
- Context aware: There are more channels and touchpoints than ever before, and digital engagement options are almost endless. Customers are looking for relevant, connected, and secure experiences. Their context and needs change rapidly as they click, browse, and engage. It’s almost impossible to predict what they will do minute to minute – much less script out an extended series of interactions. Brands are no longer in control of the journey at all – the customer is.
- Omni-Channel AI: Organizations will need real-time AI that can work across every customer channel and touchpoint to recommend the right actions to take and conversations to have, while continuously allowing for learning and optimizing each customer interaction. This can’t be a network of disconnected brains that are not unified into a customer-centric solution. It needs to be a centralized decision hub that knows – regardless of channel – when to recommend a service, when to suggest a payment plan, and when to offer a new product.
- Frictionless and Painless: CompTechCo infuses its world class Orchestra Digital Service Platform with AI enabled Automation Bots, in order to eliminate all tedious tasks which pertain to updating back-office applications, as well as extracting data from existing applications. The combination of Robotic Process Automation (RPA) with Digital Process Automation provides an essential foundation for sustainable Intelligent Automation for organizations, across all mission critical processes and service journeys
- API first: within the digital service journey, data needs to collected/populated from multiple internal and external sources, whether it’s your back-office system of records (ERP, CRM…) , or your external eco-system data (ABSHER, IAM, Other Ministries etc….) , the Orchestra platform is engineered from the ground-up with a best in class API first mindset; we can either embed our own API management gateway within the Digital Service Platform, or even seamlessly integrate in order to reuse any existing API gateway, such as Google Apigee or MuleSoft
- Rapid time to market: we are not only about creating unique digital services and service journeys, we are also about providing the required knowledge transfer to privileged users and citizen developers, so that they are able to easily configure business processes and journeys through simple, visual based and low code process and bot building approaches
Start building your Digital Service and Process Automation Journey with CompTechCo !