Over the last two-and-a-half years, businesses globally have witnessed disruption and digitalisation at a scale and speed never seen before. In 2020 alone, European companies accelerated their adoption of digital products and services by seven years. Almost every business had to rapidly implement new systems and solutions. It created a new understanding of the benefits of business transformation, process automation and advanced IT infrastructure. But with the number of platforms, solutions, and technologies in play within the modern business, not to mention the speed of deployment required to stay competitive, companies now need to do more than stay on top of digital transformation. They need to remove manual processes altogether.
Welcome to the era of ‘hyperautomation’.
What is Hyperautomation?
Businesses today have hundreds of different software, technologies, platforms and apps within their tech stack. To be efficient, these need to speak to each other. They must connect with various business applications and transfer and transform data between the systems according to the organisation’s needs. This exchange needs to be seamless. For that to happen, manual processes must be eradicated – and automated.
The term ‘hyperautomation’ was coined by market analyst Gartner. Gartner defines it as the “business-driven, disciplined approach that organisations use to rapidly identify, vet and automate as many business and IT processes as possible“. Accelerated by the requirements of pandemic work life, the trend shows no signs of slowing down in the post-pandemic world.
Why do we need it?
When it comes to digital transformation, the pain points are similar for most companies; the sheer number of systems used within an organisation today risks creating data silos. These data silos can slow down innovation and, worse -, business. In a Jitterbit study of German enterprise companies in 2022, 76% of surveyed companies said they currently struggle with data silos. Furthermore, 79% feel that the lack of integrated systems makes them less competitive.
Hyperautomation requires every facet of your business to be connected. This allows new solutions, services, and products to be developed and deployed rapidly with little or no need for code. It also ensures the right information is available at the right place, at the right time, and for the right person.
By removing manual processes and eliminating blind spots, business leaders can keep abreast of all business activities and make the most of the data derived from these.
What are companies planning to do about it in 2023 and beyond?
A 2022 Jitterbit survey of EMEA senior systems integrator professionals across Europe revealed that removing manual processes from internal workflows to innovate at hyper-speed is now their top priority. 64% said that hyperautomation was already a key business priority for their customers in 2022.
Jitterbit client Appnovation sees customers coming to them with specific problems for various stages of their business processes, where the solution lies in hyper-automation.
“This can be automating the flow of up-to-date information from ERPs to online estate via PIM and DAM products; the automated tagging of content at scale using AI/ML models, and the stitching together of new or enhanced business processes using ‘best of breed products with an API first approach,“ says Mandhir Gidda, Senior VP Technology at Appnovation.
“The ability for businesses to guarantee excellent customer experience is more reliant than ever on automation, being able to react to issues in logistics or supply chain to alert customers of delay or to mitigate for such issues – re-routing, alerting, or automate partial refunds against SLA’s. Process automation allows us to anticipate issues and remediate quickly.”
Gartner has predicted that by 2023, 40% of large enterprises will move away from monolith vendor strategies and toward an agile mix of best-of-breed solutions. Instead of risking both time and money to replace the whole system, companies are looking at ways to use integration solutions to achieve this exchange. 85% of our surveyed growth and enterprise companies agreed that integrating different software and applications within their business must be more automated. The study showed they know they have too many disparate, disconnected systems, preventing leadership from getting a complete view of the organisation.
How are they planning to achieve hyperautomation?
Our surveys and studies over the last three years have found that identifying the best ways of connecting platforms and applications with ease, speed, and efficiency is a problem shared by all our customers and prospects. To ensure growth and stay competitive, businesses must identify and eliminate any remaining manual data processes. In addition, they must empower their non-technical employees by giving them access to an easy-to-use integration platform.
77% of our surveyed growth and enterprise companies agreed that partnering with an integration platform would be the best way to accelerate hyperautomation in 2023 and beyond. 63% of the senior systems integrators we surveyed also saw partnering with an integration platform as the best way to hyperautomate quickly.
According to Jitterbit customers E2X, the commoditisation of integrations is becoming more of a reality, allowing systems integrators to concentrate on true differentiation for their customers.
“Interoperability will become an essential facet of the composable world. Product vendors built to interoperate with others in a nicely orchestrated fashion will succeed over those operating a walled garden or suite-based approach. This interoperability allows the customers to apply their opinion or brand to the systems that comprise their enterprise software estate. It enables them to customise and fashion the connections and products to the brand’s unique needs. Hyperautomation is the natural evolution of where the composable business will proceed,” says Dom Selvon, CTO of Apply Digital, owners of E2X.
An Integration Platform-as-a-Service (iPaaS) partner can provide low-code integration platforms and easy-to-implement API connectors to connect all a company’s systems and processes, often with no input required by overstretched IT teams.
Committing to digital transformation is not enough; to ensure a complete picture of business activities for data-led decision-making, leaders must ensure that solid foundations are in place to support seamless data exchange between systems. Our customers and prospects agree that partnering with an integration expert will help make the removal of manual processes a smoother and less painful exercise.
Our research across enterprises, retailers and systems integrators over the last three years shows that hyperautomation is now firmly on every boardroom agenda – and many business leaders view it as the gateway to continued competitiveness. Remember, without successful integration, there can be no hyperautomation!
Read more about how systems integrators across Europe are evolving in the age of hyperautomation here: https://www.jitterbit.com/emea/
Jitterbit is a global technology business serving over 3,000 customers around the world. We are dedicated to empowering your business transformation through seamless, automated integration. Automating your business processes means accelerated, more informed decision-making and better customer experiences. Our Harmony platform combines API Management, business process optimisation and no-code app creation to help you remove all manual data processes from your business and achieve hyperautomation faster. Find out more about Harmony here at www.jitterbit.com or follow us on LinkedIn.
