ROI benefits in AI and Automation projects

When I first began with AI and Automation, I used to find it awkward and wonder why people want this automation animal to enter this computer world. I only had fascinations about robots and automation in the movies or in the cartoon films where this magic would work as per the director’s choice. But slowly as I moved in this world of automation and learnt how this happens; I understood that this is certainly possible if we dedicatedly work towards it and make it happen. I got the insight and now I do it and as an Automation Business Analyst, I gather all the information and provide inputs on how and which process can be automated and how much ROI will it give based on the number of people working on it manually and once a bot does that work.

ROI Effect

I think the ROI we only calculate using the number of FTE’s currently doing that work manually and time taken by Bot. But there is much more to it, not only this much. We should undertake all the following things also to increase our ROI, which is not yet used by the people who do assessments for the projects for automation. Following are elements that also should be considered:

1. The bot is available for all the 24 hours to work on that repetitive tasks: Today’s bots are intelligent enough to do all the repetitive tasks easily if they are configured correctly. The employee who is doing that task can monitor for first month and what ever issues he has he can inform he bot developers and they can make those changes and then once it can do those tasks as per the satisfaction of the employee then there is no looking back and checking it always. The mail that will come is more than sufficient to see that both is functioning well.
2. The bot will never do any mistake once it is configured accordingly: This is then a very rare scenario, when the net is down, or the connectivity is not established then only it can fail. There is no other reason for it to fail.
3. The bot will work efficiently and effectively: This will certainly prove that all the tasks assigned to the bot, they will keep doing them properly and with complete efficiently and 100% effectively.
4. The employee will be utilized on another project: Another aspect of ROI is that the employee who was doing the repetitive task, will not be utilised in doing something more non-repetitive task, that would require another employee and he can be utilized there. So, this is one more place where we can be sure that we are saving on our ROI. When the employees are on leave, it can proceed its work without them being present at the place. Only if the bot fails then they will be notified accordingly.
5. Employee retention: When the employee will be freed from that repetitive task and, he will get leaves on vacations and holidays that he would have to come to office earlier to monitor the process. Also putting him on doing some important and other non0repotative tasks, this will encourage employees to be in that company only and they will not think of quitting the company.
6. Customer satisfaction and retention: When the customer will come to know that their work is now handled by the efficient bot which is been thoroughly tested and supported by the team, and it’s been monitored carefully, the customers satisfaction will increase many folds, and this will help us in bringing more customers and more business for same customer.  We know how difficult is to get new customers and more difficult if we lose our current customers. The whole game of calculations can change if we lose one customer and that due to unsatisfactory remark.
7. AI technology learning curve: The technology like the ML, DL, and NLP are most effective in creating the automation of the process. These are easy to learn and easy to implement technologies. The simple tool is Python and in this the packages and function that are prebuilt makes up the platform to easily change any process into automation. It is not tough. This is another ROI if we train our employees with these technologies, then we need not even hire experts from outside, since there is not much of expertise required to work on these tools. The main aspect is the idea and the planning to implement those using the tools and that comes only from the experience and we have experiences business analysts and assessment teams who investigate this and decide which processes to be automated.

The ROI will keep on increasing day after day, when the bot starts working on the repetitive tasks. Where there is manual intervention there too the use whose manual intervention is required will get the notification on time and that will make sure that this manual approval or task should also be done on time.

There is a huge impact on ROI even if we do one process automate and make it perfectly ok to work satisfactorily. This will help the company with so much of saving as discussed above and the investing in such a great technology will prove beneficial.

Conclusion

The ROL calculation that is done only by using the FTE count and multiplying with the time that bot will take to complete the task is just one aspect of how we calculate the ROI. There are many other aspects as defined above and each one as major role to play in saving more ROI than we just calculated. Each one is important from the managerial point of view, the customer, and the employee point of view. The HR team also can benefit from this as well as the top management who wants to retain both its employees as well as its customers. This is the work of the team who is responsible to do the automation and they can take advantage of the above points in calculating the ROI of their project. In my view even the simplest and the repetitive task that is converted into automation holds a great potential of ROI.

The author is Manager - IT at Atos India