Intelligent Automation

At its core, a digital worker is exactly what it sounds like - an automated team member that has been "trained" (read: programmed) to carry out a business process the same way an actual, living and breathing human employee would. You may have heard of these digital workers referred to in the past as "bots," and they're capable of handling even complicated tasks like invoice processing, claims auditing, loan processing, journal entries and more - all as quickly and as accurately as possible.

The experts at IBM take things one step further and define a digital worker as any "software-based labor that can independently execute meaningful parts of complex, end-to-end process using multiple skills that go beyond what RPA tools alone can offer."

Part of how these digital workers are able to do this - and a big part of how they're able to exist in the first place - involves concepts like machine learning, which itself is an extension of artificial intelligence. Machine learning systems are based on sample data that is usually referred to as training data. It uses the information contained in these mathematical models to make predictions (or even decisions) without specifically being programmed to do so.

In our personal lives, the most obvious example of this involves what happens when you tag a series of photos featuring the same person on a site like Facebook. After you tag that person's name a few times, the system automatically recognizes their face in future photos and applies the name so that you don't actually have to. The system "learned" who that person was based on the training data you provided - meaning it drew from your past activities to inform its future actions. Digital workers are a lot like this in theory, although obviously on a much larger scale.

In a business sense, digital workers help automate every stage of a specific business process by leveraging concepts like robotic process automation, chatbots, natural language processing and more - all to free up the invaluable time of your actual human employees so that they can focus on those tasks that truly need them.

Not only can digital workers handle multiple tasks simultaneously, but they can also be trained to prioritize one task over another depending on your needs. So if you know that there are 10 tasks that need to be completed but tasks three, five and seven are the most urgent, digital workers can be "trained" to perform those tasks first and handle everything else afterwards.

Likewise, most digital workers are able to comprehend both unstructured data and tabular data, thus significantly increasing what they're capable of for your business. Unstructured data would be things like natural text, images and even videos. As the system is used more and more, it may be able to instantly recognize a photo of a particular object or even "understand" two different makes and models of a particular type of car without being told the difference.

Tabular data, on the other hand, is any information like financial statements, sensor streams and other data sources of that nature. This is the type of information that would be commonly found in your enterprise resource planning (ERP) or customer relationship management (CRM) systems, among others.

At that point, digital workers become the best type of employee of all: the one that is never late, that never has to eat, sleep or take a vacation and, most critically, the kind that never makes a mistake. Not only does this dramatically expand what your business is capable of, but it also brings with it the most important benefit of all: superior customer experiences across the board.

Why Companies Turn to Digital Workers

As stated, one of the major reasons why so many companies are turning to digital workers comes down to their versatility - they really do fit in with just about every type of business you can think of, regardless of size or even industry.

One of the most prominent examples of this is undoubtedly the chatbot - those powerful little programs that use artificial intelligence, machine learning and natural language processing to simulate a real conversation with customers via a straightforward text-based interface.

Chatbots allow customers to have a conversation with someone just like they would with a real person, all without ever speaking to another human being at all.

The benefits of this are enormous, but begin with the type of extensive customer assistance that would be difficult to offer through other means.

With chatbots, users can get answers to important questions, look up account information or even address concerns 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days per year. When you consider that most consumers indicate that the quality of customer service is one of the major factors they use to decide whether to do business with a brand in the first place, it's easy to see why this alone is an advantage worth paying attention to.

Chatbots can not only be programmed to give detailed, automated answers to common questions, but they can also immediately forward a customer to a live person when a more complicated resolution is needed - thus eliminating even more possibilities for errors.

This alone frees up the valuable time of actual employees to work on those tasks that require a human touch, all while guaranteeing better customer experiences across the board.

With all of that in mind, chatbots are a perfect way to increase customer engagement, monitor consumer data to gain insights and save money on your customer service efforts - all at the exact same time - it's clear why digital workers have become so popular in such a short amount of time.

There are other meaningful examples of digital workers in action, too. At Prolifics, we designed Archie - a new digital loan officer that can process PPP (Payroll Protection Program) applications and other types of financial tasks in as little as one minute or less. In the "new normal" that we're all currently living through, it's never been more important to be equal parts efficient and agile.

Therefore, Archie was designed as a way to help businesses handle not only those aforementioned PPP loans but also student loans, personal and business loans, mortgages and more.

It can read emails, recognize and collect applications and relevant data, perform consistency checks, verify and match loan data to accounts and more - all without pulling a human employee away from something more important.

Along the same lines, we also developed a digital HR assistant that can complete a business' onboarding process for new employees in just three minutes. When companies need to hire people quickly, they need to rely on more than manual data entry to find the best talent to fill available positions.

Our digital HR assistant can not only identify and understand IRS form W-4, USCIS form I-9 and other eligibility documents, but it can also connect to HR web systems to update information and setup new hire profiles, guarantee all compliance and provisioning rules are upheld and more - all faster and more accurately than a human being could ever do.

Based on examples like those outlined above, it's important to understand that the goal of digital workers is not to replace your human employees.

Quite the contrary - they're supposed to support and empower them, allowing them to spend more time focusing on the tasks that matter all while automating as many business processes as possible.

Companies turn to these digital workers for not only increased productivity and an improved customer experience, but also to enjoy faster digitalization and error-free processes.

This alone can create an environment where innovation is allowed to thrive, which can revolutionize any workplace and create the type of genuine competitive advantage for your business that will serve you well for years to come.

Blockchain is a term that refers to a relatively new type of technology that records all transactions within an enterprise into a digital business ledger. Once those transactions have been entered, they cannot be changed or altered beyond their current form.

Additionally, all records within the blockchain (referred to as "blocks," hence the name) are linked together using cryptography. The information contained within these blocks is not only easily verifiable - at that point, it also becomes a matter of public record. Blockchains are known for their decentralized nature, meaning that the data is shared with all computers on a network and is made freely available to all, no matter what.

Why is all of this important to a modern business? In short, because it helps them solve a number of critical challenges that are usually present regardless of industry, essentially all at the exact same time.

If you had to make a list of some of the most common ways that businesses lose money in today's fast-paced environment, issues like procedural delays and old-fashioned human errors would undoubtedly be on it. Not only that, but businesses are always paying significant numbers of fees to middlemen as they handle the financial side of running an organization.

By its very nature, the blockchain is a way to address all of these problems - it can speed up processes to help businesses get paid faster, can help eliminate human error and can remove the need to work with these middlemen as well. In the end, this creates maybe the most important advantages of all: not only is a business suddenly far faster and more efficient than ever, but it's also more cost-effective as well.

Blockchain is based on a peer-to-peer (also known as P2P for short) infrastructure. This means that rather than storing data in a single location, information that is critical to your business is stored on thousands of different servers all across the globe. Despite that, anyone on your business' network can see all relevant entries in the blockchain in real-time. That makes it difficult - and in most cases, impossible - for any one person to gain control of the ledger and make changes that would call the validity of all stored data into question.

Within the context of your average business, Blockchain allows for the secure sharing of business processes like contracts, vital business records, business activities and more between not only people within an organization, but also with external sources like clients or other customers.

What you're left with is the most accurate history of a business' transactions, activities and other related matters that currently exists - allowing key decision makers to always have accurate and trustworthy information to work from when making decisions at all times.

Why Companies Turn to Blockchain

More and more companies are turning to blockchain thanks to the wide array of different benefits they simply won't be able to achieve through other means.

One of the major sources of innovation that blockchain brings to the table takes the form of smart contracts, for example. As the name suggests, a smart contract is a self-executing contract that has all terms written directly into the code at the moment of creation. The code itself - along with those critical, legally binding terms - exist on the decentralized blockchain network and cannot be altered after creation. Once all parties agree to the contract, that's it - everyone knows exactly what they are supposed to do in terms of the contract and there is absolutely no room for misconception.

If a business employed smart contracts when delivering products and services to clients, for example, it would help guarantee they get paid on-time once they deliver on their end of the bargain. If the other party backs out on their end of the contract, there would also be terms outlining exactly what would happen in that situation. This eliminates the need to hire an expensive team of lawyers to figure out what to do next, or to rely on middlemen who charge exorbitant fees to settle arguments.

Blockchain technology can also be hugely beneficial for organizations who are in the process of seeking out and hiring top talent to fill available positions. It's no secret that sometimes candidates will exaggerate on their applications to make themselves look better than their competitors. A lot of times people do this because they know you'll never have time to double-check their references thanks to the sheer volume of applications you're receiving.

But with blockchain technology, you can have easily verifiable records associated with new prospects available at a moment's notice. This includes not only things like academic records with K-12 and higher education institutions, but also data pertaining to extracurricular activities, past employment records and more. All of this information is stored once again on a digital ledger that cannot be modified in any way - meaning that an applicant can never make subtle changes to make themselves look better before coming in for that interview.

All this means that if you encounter someone who is particularly impressive, you can quickly confirm that their resume is as accurate as they say it is. So not only are you making sure that you're ending up with someone who is perfect for the job in the first place, but you're also making sure they're not lying to you - thus speeding up the hiring process significantly as well.

Finally, another major reason why businesses of all types are turning to blockchain technology has to do with the benefits it brings to their marketing efforts in particular. Keep in mind that successful marketing is all about getting the right message in front of the right person at exactly the right time. The only way to do that involves developing a deeper understanding of the people you're trying to reach in the first place - which is exactly where blockchain comes in handy.

Not only can blockchain be used by businesses and marketing professionals to better keep track of existing client information, but it can also be a great way to track changes to consumer behavior over time as well. Armed with this data, it's easy to spot trends that are developing as quickly as possible - thus presenting an opportunity to shift your marketing campaigns in a new direction to capitalize on them, improving return on investment at the same time.

Integrating your marketing efforts with blockchain technology also gives you a verifiable overview of everything you've done to this point. If you executed a particularly strong campaign that worked wonders, you'll easily be able to see why in a way that also allows you to repeat the process. If something didn't work or if a mistake was made, you'll know more than just what happened - you'll know when it happened, why it happened and who was ultimately responsible.

When you also consider that blockchain allows marketers to easily verify that the traffic they are receiving is from actual people as opposed to being inflated by bot activities, it's clear why this is an investment that so many businesses are making in the modern era.

The technology behind the blockchain may sound sophisticated, but the benefits that it brings to businesses of all types could not be more straightforward. Not only is it a way to rise up and meet the challenges of today using cold, hard data that cannot be changed, but it's also a way to position your organization to better adapt to the changing markets of tomorrow, too.

All of these are advantages that would have been unthinkable even as recently as five years ago, but thanks to the blockchain they are hear and ready for you to take advantage of them right away.

There's been a lot of talk over the last decade in particular about the potential benefits - and dangers - of automation in the workplace. The classic example of this is a factory floor where all human employees have been replaced by robots that can easily perform the exact same jobs on an assembly line but that can do so 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year without ever stopping, slowing down or needing to take a break of any kind.

While that does technically fall within the definition of enterprise automation, there's a critical bit of context that most people are missing. Automation isn't about replacing your living, breathing human employees at all. It's about going over all of your existing processes to figure out which jobs are better suited for machines, software and other digital workers. At that point, those actual employees will be able to focus on the more valuable work and tasks that truly need them - rather than getting bogged down with the types of repetitive jobs that are important, but that also take up a tremendous amount of time.

Generally speaking, there are a few different types of automation that all fall under the larger umbrella of enterprise automation. The first is basic automation - that is, automation that is focused on simple tasks and communication-related jobs. If you use a chat-based application across your business to send automated messages to team members while everyone is working remotely to keep everyone on the same page about what important deadlines are coming up, that is a very common example of basic automation in action.

Process automation takes things to the next level by allowing you to both document and manage your teams processes to make sure that everyone always knows exactly what is expected of them. By breaking common jobs down into a series of smaller and more manageable steps, you make it easier for even the newest employees to successfully complete those tasks. As a bonus, this also gives you better insight into which processes aren't as efficient as they should be - thus creating opportunities for improvement almost constantly.

The most powerful type of enterprise automation (and the one that most people are focused on these days) is commonly referred to as integration automation. This is where the idea of a team of digital workers enters into the conversation.

With the right type of software, these digital workers can essentially "observe" the repetitive tasks that your employees are performing on a daily basis. At that point, they can also complete the same jobs faster and more efficiently than a human ever could - thus freeing up as much time as possible for your employees to focus on more important things.

So again - at no point during this discussion are your employees replaced by digital alternatives. Rather, it's like you're giving all of your employees reliable digital assistants - all so that they can work smarter, not harder, on a daily basis. Not only does this significantly improve the amount of work that they're able to get done, but the quality of that work increases, too - which is probably the most important benefit of all from the perspective of your customers.

Why Companies Turn to Enterprise Automation

Truly, the importance of adopting enterprise automation in your own business simply cannot be overstated. As a concept, this investment can pay huge dividends over the lifetime of your organization - something that is true regardless of the type of business you're running or even the industry that you're operating in.

Once those tasks that are better suited for machines have been identified, the immediate advantage is that machines will perform those tasks faster than a human ever could - all with absolutely no possibility for human error. Even your best employees sometimes get tired or distracted, both of which can lead to mistakes. The same isn't true with enterprise automation.

This also means that those tasks are carried out in the exact same way every time - improving the consistency of your workflow across the board. Even basic automation dramatically improves both efficiency and productivity to that end.

But from the perspective of your human employees, all of that time and energy they used to spend on menial administrative tasks is finally freed up so that they can focus on more complicated and valuable work. Not only are you saving time and money with regards to your current operations, but you're also allowing the employees you're actually paying to get more done, too. Plus, by allowing them to focus on work that is by its nature more engaging, they're more connected and invested in their jobs. Even this can lead to a dramatic improvement in terms of productivity, not to mention gains for your company culture by way of a more engaged workforce.

Another one of the reasons why so many businesses are turning to enterprise automation ultimately comes down to the massive cost reduction that it typically brings with it. Remember that when you make employees perform manual tasks one at a time, they're getting done far slower than they would be had you automated those same duties. Anything performed slower costs more money in the end. If an employee takes two hours to perform a job that could be automated and they're making $30 per hour, you've essentially paid $60 for that work to get done. Had that task been automated, it potentially could have been completed in a matter of minutes. Yes, you'd still be paying that employee $30 per hour - but the work they did during the same period would have generated far more value for your business.

Indeed, if you had to sum up the major benefit of enterprise automation in a single word, "value" would undoubtedly be it. Enterprise automation is all about maximizing both your efforts and your time in a way that helps push your business forward, which is something that organizations of all sizes can benefit from.