Instead of adopting Hyperautomation technologies in silos, we encourage our clients to take a cohesive, enterprise-wide approach. The establishment of a Hyperautomation Centre of Excellence (CoE) is the recommended way to embed hyperautomation deeply and effectively into the organisation – providing operational guardrails; and guidelines for pilots, production, roll-out, maintenance and support.
Hyperautomation is a belief that anything that can be automated, should be automated. If this is a philosophy that resonates with you, a Hyperautomation CoE is the ideal way to embed automation deeply and effectively into your organisation.
This CoE also provides a springboard for identifying and acting on the most suitable Hyperautomation opportunities, as well as sharing knowledge and resources for every stakeholder’s benefit throughout the Hyperautomation journey.
How to establish and deploy an effective Hyperautomation CoE:
- Create a Change Management and Governance Framework
To maximise Hyperautomation gains, you need to create an enterprise-level governance committee that evaluates various process areas across different business units and selects the most promising ones in terms of ROI and scalability.
This committee should also design a formal framework for selecting and prioritising feasible projects, factoring in the potential business impact, level of difficulty and degree of executive sponsorship required.
This committee should also:
- Set the guidelines and templates for assessment, design, development and deployment of solutions
- Manage the demand pipeline
- Assign roles and accountability
- Ensure effective collaboration and communication between IT and Business
- Scope frameworks and templates for change management
- Conduct impact assessments and drive continual improvement.
This framework should ideally include:
- A Hyperautomation Council to scope out and spearhead the initiative and set targets for tracking execution efficiency and outcomes.
- A Business Unit Governance Council for prioritising Hyperautomation projects across departments and functions.
- A Technical Council for formulating standards, working principles, guidelines and best practices.
- Select and Procure Software
Hyperautomation ties together multiple complementary technology capabilities, including AI, RPA, low-code automation and case management, process mining, integration and analytics.
The IT team should be extensively involved in software selection, purchase, negotiations and other components. The operations department should also be consulted during this process, in order to provide a functionality assessment.
- Build Skills and Capacity
The governance committee should appoint a multi-disciplinary Hyperautomation Operating Team.
The following roles can be made accountable for implementing and managing Hyperautomation efficiently and successfully throughout the enterprise:
- Hyperautomation Sponsor
An individual from the business side who can establish Hyperautomation as an enterprise-wide strategic priority and secure executive sponsorship.
- Hyperautomation Champions
Who evangelise and drive hyperautomation adoption across the organisation – ensuring a healthy hyperautomation pipeline, while leading the operational management of the digital assets.
- Hyperautomation Change Manager
This individual’s role is to communicate and enact the change management plan, ensure a seamless adoption of hyperautomation across the enterprise, and act as a catalyst in the transition process.
- Hyperautomation Business Analysts
These process subject matter experts are located in the business units. They manage the creation of the process definitions and process maps used for automation.
- Hyperautomation Solution Architects
They define and oversee the architecture of the Hyperautomation solutions, supervising development and implementation. They select the appropriate technology tools and capabilities, and ensure all solutions align with enterprise guidelines.
- Hyperautomation Developers
These individuals work alongside Business Analysts to design, develop, test and maintain the Hyperautomation solutions. They also support the implementation process.
- Hyperautomation Infrastructure Engineer
This role provides the infrastructure support for server installations and troubleshooting, helps complete the solution architecture for the Hyperautomation project, and leads infrastructure workshops during the implementation phase.
- Hyperautomation Supervisor
This individual focuses on continuously improving the operational performance of Hyperautomation solutions through the enterprise, conducting regular reporting and analysis.
- Hyperautomation Service Support
The first line of assistance for Hyperautomation solutions in deployment.
- Establish a Performance Framework
To ensure the Hyperautomation Operating Team delivers maximum value, you need a performance framework for determining, measuring and monitoring key performance indicators. Hold regular operational governance review meetings involving all relevant stakeholders and document your lessons learned. This will allow you to build an agile Hyperautomation roadmap for the entire enterprise.
- Launch the CoE
Once everything has been set up and all functions are in place, the CoE is ready to run. The team should now focus on making sure strategic expectations are met and a detailed roadmap is developed to sustain and develop Hyperautomation expertise throughout the enterprise.
Over time, the emphasis will transition from achieving rapid efficiency gains to creating higher business outcomes. Ultimately, the goal of Hyperautomation is to optimise and automate any process that can be automated.
- Pilots
When undertaking Hyperautomation pilots, it is essential for operations and IT to work together on solving business problems and driving ongoing business improvements, rather than just applying technology features to existing processes.
Initially, it makes sense to execute some simple pilots in business units where stakeholders are willing to embrace a ‘test and learn’ approach. Gaining quick wins in these areas helps to build confidence in the technologies and Hyperautomation approach as a whole, in order to encourage buy-in from key stakeholders. As the adoption of Hyperautomation matures, organisations can refine and scale up implementation use cases.
- Production, Maintenance and Support
Here, the focus is on monitoring Hyperautomation solutions to ensure quick, proactive identification and mitigation of adverse scenarios. It is also important to assign responsibilities for orchestrating process changes, and to update the technology solutions in line with updated processes and applications.
The scheduling, running and monitoring of Hyperautomation solutions should be centralised within the operations team, with IT provisioning the necessary infrastructure, and providing effective coordination for a smooth rollout.
Solution maintenance should be overseen by the Hyperautomation CoE – and include both operations and IT. This will bring the IT team closer to business to minimise technology outages on the ground, until solutions mature and stabilise.
In closing
Ultimately, this CoE acts as a framework for Hyperautomation success – enabling everyone in the organisation to share valuable ideas, and access the competencies and tools required to harness the full potential of all technology investments.
At the same time, the CoE ensures that Hyperautomation solutions are delivered in predictable timescales, adhere to pre-defined quality standards, harness the relevant expertise within the organisation, align with all stakeholder expectations, and continue to produce exceptional outcomes.