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7 essential elements to scaling automation in utilities

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based on report in partnership with

Identifying the barriers and opportunities within your organization

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Automation is now a key component of any digital transformation plan. Business leaders everywhere have seen the potential benefits ranging from business efficiency to freeing staff for value added tasks. But while many see the potential benefits, the challenge many face is how do you move from tactical early initiatives to strategic automation at scale.

In a recent report with Teknowlogy, we investigated this question and identified essential elements for utilities organizations looking to scale their automation. In this eBook, we look at each individually and demonstrate why organizations need to do a number of things, from developing internal skills to managing lifecycle and virtualization.

7 essential elements to scaling automation in utilitiesIdentifying the barriers and opportunities within your organization

Internal Skills Development

25% of utilities automation leaders have faced challenges with lack of resources when scaling automation

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Skilled technical staff are hard to come by, especially, in relatively new areas such as automation.

But this needn’t stall the scaling of your deployment. In fact, many organizations are finding that they can cultivate the right skills by establishing internal development programs, as well as picking platforms requiring little or no-coding, such as Blue Prism Cloud.

In practice, this means establishing a training curriculum and making sure every department understands the potential of automation. The result is the ability for your business to scale across departments and a wide spread of skilled staff. Simple automations can then be handled by process

subject matter experts in departments, whilst your core team concentrate on the not-so-easy automations and strategic implementation.

One of our customers is a prime example of how, with the right platform and dedication, you can create a dedicated team to work on your automations. Darren Atkins, CTO, at one of our healthcare customers ESNEFT (East Suffolk and North Essex Foundation Trust), originally thought he’d need to hire automation experts. But, when he discovered how easy the Blue Prism Cloud platform was to use, he started to develop himself and created training for staff members to build new careers as automation leads.

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Internal skills developmentthe new drivers of automation in financial services

Bring together different departments

25% of utilities leaders said engagement between business and IT stakeholders was a main operational challenge to scaling automation.

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Bring together different departments25% of Utilities Leaders said engagement between business and IT stakeholders was a main operational challenge to scaling automation.

If you’ve already started out on your automation program, you’ll understand the need to get every department engaged. It’s essential to get business and IT stakeholders on the same page from as early on as possible. While many see may see this as obvious, Intelligent Automation deployments aren’t just a technology play that require IT from the get-go.

Intelligent Automation is about changing the way people work across the organization. This is clearly shown by the fact that 55% of organizations said their CEOs are involved from the outset. However, this does not mean IT should be sidelined: actually quite the opposite should happen. This means as a Utilities leader you can unleash the power of

automation with a broad scope, from smart meters to optimizing water supplies.

55%of respondents said their CEOs are involved from the outset

Win over your workforce

25% of utilities leaders state that workforce buy-in is a main operational challenge to scaling automation

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When people hear the word automation, there always seems to be a degree of panic in their tone. With all the scare stories buzzing around the internet and media, it is easy to see why people would think like that. But of course, these worries are unfounded. And, when people think like that, they understandably don’t get onboard with automation right away.

With that in mind, it is essential for all utilities leaders to get workforce buy-in early on. You might be thinking, what does that really consist of? Well, first thing’s first - listen intently to their concerns. Once taken onboard, demonstrate to them through internal communications and committed strategy from leadership what automation can do for their day to day life.

A useful tip that some of our customers have found is that by nicknaming their digital workers they rightfully stop seeing automation as a threat, and more as an opportunity.

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Win over your workforce25% of Utilities Leaders state that workforce buy-in is a main operational challenge to scaling automation

Aim for improved productivity

42% of surveyed utilities leaders said that improved productivity was a key aim when scaling automation

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Shifting the conversation away from straightforward goals such as efficiencies and cost saving is key, especially if you’re thinking of automation as an at-scale strategic project. By doing so, organizations have the ability to evolve their approach towards higher productivity and accelerating speed to market.

For utilities organizations, this means that they can start to concentrate on new ways of delivering to their customers. This is not just because they are free from the mundane and time-consuming tasks usually placed upon them, but because with digital workers, they can achieve things they never could before.

One of our innovative utility customers, Utilita, has aimed to improve productivity

with automation. Within a year they’ve automated 24 different processes, starting out with processes such as payment cards, top-ups and tariff swaps for efficiency, before aiming at productivity improvements with the application of AI for email triage.

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Aim for improved productivity42% of surveyed Utilities Leaders said that improved productivity was a key aim when scaling automation

Accelerate automation with distributed teams

77% of utilities leader respondents said that expanding distributed expert teams was the best way to accelerate adoption of automation

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Just 24% of overall companies have created a dedicated Centre of Excellence (CoE): a somewhat surprisingly low number. But this isn’t to say that automation strategies have stalled, actually quite the contrary, many have seen new ways to spread their expertise.

Where organizations once may have just had a central point for excellence and process automation, today is different. As some organizations have scaled their automation, they’ve found that having distributed expertise means they can pollinate automation across departmental lines. In doing so, they’ve accelerated adoption within their businesses. What’s more, by adopting distributed models, they can quickly implement specialized departmental automations such as switching customers on to certain tariffs, or onboarding

of customers under Supplier of Last Resort.Utilita has put their own unique spin on how to accelerate automation adoption. They’ve combined a Centre of Excellence with a certain type of distributed model. The Centre of Excellence handles the big strategic automation projects and members of each team handle the small tactical automations in their own team. This delivers widespread adoption and a strategic approach to automation.

Of course, this approach might not be suitable for everyone, but it’s certainly encouraging utilities organizations to think differently and innovate with their scaling initiatives.

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Accelerate automation with distributed teams77% of utilities leader respondents said that expanding distributed expert teams was the best way to accelerate adoption of automation

Effectively manage automation lifecycle

25% of utilities leaders said engagement between business and IT stakeholders was a main operational challenge to scaling automation.

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When you get stuck into early automation initiatives, bot lifecycle management rarely comes to light. The challenge only slides into view after several months or even years of working with automation within the business, usually when the number of digital workers grows and becomes more difficult to manage.

There’s a big difference between building, testing and launching a single process, and doing the same for multiple, or even hundreds at scale, using multiple digital workers. This is why many utilities organizations are turning to automation solutions like Blue Prism Cloud, which provides built-in centralized management and orchestration technology. In doing so, they can easily manage hundreds of digital

workers, while they perform multiple processes, and rest assured they’re fully utilized, secure and compliant.

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Effectively manage automation lifecycle25% of utilities leaders said engagement between business and IT stakeholders was a main operational challenge to scaling automation.

Managing licensing and virtualization

33% of Utilities Leaders respondents named software licensing and virtualization costs as the main technology challenge to scaling automation

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When an organization starts out with automation they don’t see the challenges around scaling. This often means that when they go from a few digital workers to many, they stumble when trying to keep on top of licensing and virtualization. The result is a fragmented automation landscape with many deployments that don’t necessarily follow a coherent strategy.

By using a SaaS platform, virtualization and licenses are taken care of under one simple licensing payment. This removes an unnecessary headache so that utilities companies can concentrate on the new compliance which has just come over the horizon, and more importantly, keeping customers and business leaders happy.

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Managing licensing and virtualization33% of Utilities Leaders respondents named software licensing and virtualization costs as the main technology challenge to scaling automation

About Blue Prism Blue Prism is the global leader in intelligent automation for the enterprise, transforming the way work is done. At Blue Prism, we have users in over 170 countries in more than 1,800 businesses, including Fortune 500 and public sector organizations, that are creating value with new ways of working, unlocking efficiencies, and returning millions of hours of work back into their businesses. Our intelligent digital workforce is smart, secure, scalable and accessible to all; freeing up humans to re-imagine work.

To learn more visit www.blueprism.com a follow us on Twitter @blue_prism and on LinkedIn.