Sync NI catches up with Tim Cush, Partner and Head of Intelligent Automation at EY, to talk about Intelligent Automation and how innovation is shaping the future.
Tim first established the Intelligent Automation practice at EY in 2016 at a time when automation was primarily focused on Robotic Process Automation (RPA); however, over the last number of years, this space has evolved massively. From automating low-complexity tasks as a tactical solution or as a lever to gain efficiencies within a business, recent software enhancements and tools available today have resulted in a quantum shift forward for all organisations globally. These new developments range from low code / no code solutions and chatbots, to highly complex AI-enabled solutions leveraging chatGPT and openAI. By incorporating these tools, the practice can innovate in ways that were simply not possible to achieve in the past.
Tim explained that leveraging intelligent automation as a means to innovate typically starts with careful consideration of the full ecosystem of the organisation, however before all of that, the first step is to understand a client’s business problem or challenge and only then can you consider what the right technology is and if it will deliver the desired business value.
An organisation will often leverage automation as an enabler to try and introduce and encourage the adoption of innovative ways of working, so when starting out on the automation journey, often it is the back office enabling functions such as finance, payroll and HR that deliver the quickest return on investment. It’s exactly these high-value use cases that are typically the catalyst for companies to get started and then build momentum using this as a lever, in order to progress and achieve greater benefits by adopting some of the more complex technologies.
Tim has worked with organisations across both the public and private sector, in a wide range of industries. Over the last number of years, he cites some of the amazing use cases delivered for some of his clients:
What might have initially started as an internal focus soon becomes externally focused in terms of improving the customer experience by enabling them to get accurate information faster and quicker, suppliers get more transparency and C-suite executives can get access to data in real-time.
Given the current climate where more and more daily tasks are becoming automated, we talked about whether it was actually possible or viable for every process to be automated and what the likely exceptions might be. Tim’s response was unequivocal, explaining how ultimately everything is premised on the business problem that you're trying to solve.
‘’ The short answer is no. I would always say there's no benefit in automating a bad process - if it's a bad process, then it needs to be standardised and optimised to a certain extent first before it could be considered as a suitable use case for automation.’’
The key to successfully implementing intelligent automation begins with an audit to formally identify and document all the desired outcomes. By defining the KPIs and principles at the outset, it's easy to apply these through an assessment process whilst at the same time ensuring bad processes and practices are eliminated.
Tim explained how his team at EY have accrued valuable knowledge and developed a wide range of different tools over the years to streamline the assessment process. As a result, these can be easily adopted by different clients to help them identify strong and high-value use cases for automation. This enables clients to prioritise and select from their backlog-specific processes to take forward into developing for automation. This also includes ensuring that the right technology is also applied, and with the democratisation of AI for example, previous barriers to entry to some of the more complex automation technologies have now been removed allowing organisations to harness them.
Tim leads a diverse team across the Island of Ireland, emphasising that the key to a successful workforce is the people. “EY invests a huge amount into Learning & Development, and it plays a large part in our success as a practice. Having such a diverse workforce encourages collaboration, better ideas and generally a culture that harnesses innovation.” There is no doubt that EY have taken huge strides since launching their Intelligent Automation practice and the industry is clearly evolving rapidly at pace.
Tim recently attended an event with one of his alliance partners who were able to demonstrate the latest enhancements to their suite of products and provide a few insights into the future of Intelligent Automation.As he explained ‘’Intelligent Automation is no longer just about simply automating tasks, but instead, it’s very much seen as a platform to drive digital transformation, right from ideation through to process mining, while simultaneously tracking and measuring the benefits of each task and process in real-time while in production’’
New enhancements enable automation tools and software to integrate with other core systems across a technology landscape, as well as off-the-shelf third-party SAAS applications on their tech stack. The ability to integrate easily is clearly driving the adoption of the technologies and ultimately unlocking their true potential and value for organisations. In terms of innovation, technology is only one part of it and Tim believes it’s people who are the key to driving the transformation. While new technologies in terms of their versatility and their usability have really opened doors by creating new opportunities, it’s advancements, particularly in some of the citizen-led development tools, that are driving the curiosity to really challenge the status quo around automation.
Looking at current trends, we are likely to see much more innovation around AI. While Artificial Intelligence has been around for a long time, the pace at which it has evolved has been staggering, particularly with the likes of ChatGPT. Specifically, Generative AI or large language modelling tools that are really capturing the world's imagination. ChatGPT for example, isn’t just limited to specific missions but it's more of a general AI tool that has a purpose-built chatbot in the background, so rather than just be seen as a tool for automated conversations, it can ultimately use those conversations to build out and automate numerous tasks.
For Tim, the convergence between all of these different tools across the automation spectrum is driving a real shift in terms of the mindset of his clients. ‘’There is a real demand in the market to really challenge and think about how we can bring all those kinds of technologies together, to really enhance and improve both the customer experience, as well as the employee experience. Ultimately, automated intelligence is a key driver to unlock potential and continue to be a catalyst to really drive innovation more broadly’.”
This article appears in the summer edition of Sync NI magazine. To receive a free copy click here.
