Building artificial intelligence into your business processes can accelerate work and boost employee productivity

Automation in business is nothing new. For decades, organizations have used bots to perform simple tasks. But what about the more sophisticated processes your employees execute every day? Jobs such as document processing and invoice reconciliation have stubbornly refused automation — until now.

Thanks to advances in artificial intelligence (AI), intelligent automation can now take these multi-step processes off your workers’ hands. If you deploy it wisely, the benefits of intelligent automation can include boosted efficiency, reinforced security, and improved employee satisfaction. Here’s how it works.

What is intelligent automation?

Traditional automation often falls under the umbrella of robotic process automation (RPA). RPA bots work best with explicit instructions and rigid guardrails. For example, a bot might be able to scan a digital form, identify predetermined fields, and pull data from those fields. It may even be able to transfer that data to another location.

As useful as RPA is, it has distinct limits. Bots must be carefully programmed to perform specific jobs. They can’t adapt or learn over time, and they can’t execute complex tasks. Intelligent automation aims to overcome those obstacles by incorporating artificial intelligence (AI).

Say a customer fills out a paper form by hand. Your document scanner can turn it into an image of the document, but your RPA bots can’t tell what important information it holds. Intelligent automation could use optical character recognition (OCR) to identify all the text on the page. It would then make the scan into a workable document. Next, bots could use natural language processing (NLP) to read the document and spot names, addresses, dates, and procedures. They could then use that data to label, organize, and route the document. Finally, they could copy that data to other databases.

Automating processes in this way can unlock the benefits of intelligent automation across several parts of your business.

Did You Know?:Ricoh partners with several leading providers of intelligent automation, including Tungsten Automation, Laserfiche, and Automation Anywhere.

5 benefits of intelligent automation

1. Increased efficiency

Most businesses are built on a handful of core processes. Tasks such as document processing are essential, but they don’t directly generate value for the business. They also take a long time and must be performed over and over. Employees constantly need to scan, label, organize, and pull data from documents. Anything that helps accelerate that process can pay major dividends over time.

Where a person might take a few minutes to fully process a document, intelligent automation can complete all of these steps in the blink of an eye. That can multiply the number of documents you process per hour, making your workplace that much more efficient.

2. Cost savings

Automations can do more than save time — they can also save money. Using only a fraction of the working hours, you can process the same number of documents. That allows you to keep headcount low and save on payroll. At the same time, your workers can refocus their attention on strategic and creative tasks that bots can’t handle.

3. Reduced human error

Humans are great at many things, but repetition isn’t one of them. The longer a worker spends on the same simple task, the more likely they are to lose focus. It only takes an instant of wandering attention for them to misfile a record or misplace a decimal point. And although the mistake happened quickly, fixing it can be time-consuming. For instance, if an invoice isn’t processed correctly, the accounting team has to investigate to find the error and correct it.

Intelligent automation eliminates the need for manual data processing. Instead, it can instantly identify data, copy it exactly, and place it precisely where it needs to go. Bots never slow down or lose focus, leading to more accurate information stored in the right place. When workers don’t have to worry about inaccurate data, the quality of their work can increase.

4. Improved compliance

Meeting compliance standards isn’t always easy. Your procedures and policies need to maintain security, but that can sometimes make work inconvenient or frustrating for workers. The more complex the procedure, the more opportunities employees have to fall short of your standards. That can expose you to costly compliance violations.

On the other hand, automations will always follow the process you design for them, no matter how complex it is. As long as you design that process to meet your compliance needs, your bots will be incapable of creating a compliance lapse. The result is better security and a significantly lower risk of exposure.

5. Greater employee satisfaction

Some workers are anxious about the introduction of intelligent automation. They may worry that these effective and adaptable bots could replace them. But one of the most exciting intelligent automation trends is that job satisfaction tends to rise at businesses that use intelligent automation.

One Salesforce survey found that 89% of employees feel more satisfied with their jobs as a result of automation. Those positive feelings even extend toward the company itself, as 84% say they feel more satisfied with their employer. According to the survey, most automation users claim time saved by automation solutions allows them to grow their skill sets, take on new projects, and even deepen their professional relationships.

Inside Ricoh’s intelligent automation strategy

Ricoh itself has invested in intelligent automation. In 2019, we partnered with Automation Anywhere to capitalize on the benefits of intelligent automation. One of our strategic pillars is “Fulfillment Through Work,” so we planned to use bots to take tedious manual tasks off of employee plates. However, we employ more than 80,000 people in over 200 countries. That created a complex web of regulations, training protocols, and processes to standardize.

We formed a centralized automation team to lead the charge. Using AA’s Intelligent Automation Suite and our existing Oracle system, they targeted high-volume manual tasks such as invoice processing, email automation, and customer orders. They also considered security and compliance when designing the new, standardized processes we would use company-wide.

As a result of their efforts, Ricoh established more than 60 automations across 50 tasks. They include:

• Invoice processing
• Customer service support
• Human resources reporting
• Service request emails
• Customer orders
• Supply chain management
• Sales functions
• Annuity and service functions

These automation save up to 500 working days each month, delivering more than $100,000 in monthly savings.

Did You Know?:TMC named the RICOH fi-8170 as a Future of Work Product of the Year 2023. TMC recognizes "companies that showcase the most innovative and disruptive products and solutions that have positively supported hybrid work experiences across the globe." Click here to learn more.

Our recommendation: Trust the experts

Any business can tap into the benefits of intelligent automation, but it takes careful attention and thorough planning to maximize them. Having a trusted partner at your side can ensure you bring intelligent automation to your business in a way that makes sense and delivers real value. The solutions experts at Ricoh have worked with scores of companies to design intelligent automation that works for them. Get in touch today to learn how they can do the same for you.

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