Especially after the outbreak of Corona, it is becoming very clear for large companies how important digital transformation is and how it is becoming the decisive survival factor . To keep interpersonal contacts as low as possible, innovative approaches are required that enable a smooth process between colleagues, customers, and companies. The existing understanding of process automation and intelligent technologies can certainly be helpful here. Therefore, especially "digital intelligence" approaches can be a first step for companies to evaluate processes and data, so that appropriate automation and monitoring measures can be taken based on the knowledge gained.
Coronavirus (COVID-19): all-determining factor of 2020
The coronavirus (COVID-19) has become the all-determining factor of 2020 and the term “social distancing” has become established in our vocabulary for the redesign of human and business interaction. Since man is a social being, he searches in the time of social distancing for aids so as not to lose contact with the world entirely. We are now dependent on virtualization and try to maintain our relationships through technological tools. The new way we have to do everything from a distance is now testing how well our technologies and processes really work in our working world and how people interact with processes and data in this new normal.
In this situation, it becomes clear how important the digital transformation is for companies, and even an urgent need for survival and social distance becomes a side effect when life is only digital and employees can no longer go to the office or anywhere else. Video apps and chat platforms are becoming a necessary tool for all interaction and the integration of colleagues, friends, and family. Companies are trying to transform customer and employee experiences as quickly and easily as possible as smartphone apps.
Through the use of more intelligent technologies such as AI, geo-positioning, information visualization, and bots, frictional losses in all areas of our daily life are eliminated: online orders via delivery services are experiencing a boom, media consumption has been digital for some time now via streaming services and is now being experienced Tips and even doctor's advice take place, if possible, via digital channels. We expect the use of modern technologies to enable us to digitally replace our usual human experiences in business and personal interactions in any form.Right now, social distancing makes the need for digital transformation visible in the customer experience, since direct human interactions have to be replaced by app-driven ones. In the face of a global pandemic, the level of digitization of a company becomes the key factor in its survival.
A new era of virtualization
It is undisputed that the way the work is done has changed significantly in recent weeks . Since the federal states have launched various protective measures and prohibit social gatherings and urge people to keep their distance when shopping for essentials such as medication and food, most people had to prepare overnight that the work can only be done virtually. The use of web and video conferences, Facetime, Skype and related technologies has increased rapidly from one day to the next.We are experiencing a new paradigm for social and business interactions, which is about eliminating as many social interactions as possible. Accordingly, we are already seeing how the digital transformation can become the roof for creating shelters and social distance in business interaction. Where a safe distance, even isolation, is required, virtualization technologies become a necessity in today's business life. During this difficult time, it is important to rely 100 percent on technology to keep our business and personal interactions going.
Digital intelligence: making people, processes and content smarter
Social distancing is now a priority in digital transformation initiatives . According to this prioritization, companies have to start looking at the interactive processes between customers and employees. Because they are already focusing on using technology for smooth processing without personal contact in customer experiences, initiatives for digital transformation can benefit from new approaches to understanding and automating processes.The realignment of customer experiences and the search for more intelligent technologies to eliminate friction points are the driving force for the recent growth of investments in AI, machine learning (ML), robot-assisted process automation (RPA), customer service bots, low code / no code ,
Mobile and cloud applications.
The use of intelligent technologies in application-based interactions for a better customer and employee experience requires companies to take a close look at the people, processes and content that make up an experience - be it when buying goods and services or when submitting them an insurance claim, when managing banking transactions or when visiting a doctor.Digital intelligence mainly helps companies to ask themselves exactly how their customers and operational processes work by examining raw data with the right tools to view them from the right perspective. It is important to discover which processes should be changed, where and how people (customers, suppliers, employees) interact with them, where automation makes sense and what purpose it serves. It is also important to look at processes and automation from the perspective of a customer or employee, where there are points of contact and what happens in the process. Not only do you have to understand the pure workflow, but you also have to consider the behavior that occurs in a process.
When it comes to the provision of services, in particular, there is a myriad of customer interactions, for example opening accounts, submitting claims, processing invoices, and payments. An essential part of the interaction is the exchange and processing of documents. With the help of digital intelligence, it can be investigated how content (documents, messages, emails) enter and move through processes, what actions people take with them and how automation can contribute to their improvement.
Although most of the documents that go through these processes are now received electronically, via email, smartphone, or data transfer, the basic steps for their processing (classification, extraction, review, and approval) remain the same. Most of the time, the processes for processing documents are largely unchanged and the scan is sent to the archive at the end of the process, rather than upon receipt, where the step can be more productive and effective.Good process registration and evaluation can reveal these inefficiencies in processes and show which workload and which resources are used in each step.Companies already use solutions for the automation of processes (BPM, RPA, workflow), content (OCR, intelligent document processing), process evaluation and business intelligence. Each of these disciplines has a deep focus on their role (process, workflow), but not on the complex and often unstructured interactions between processes, content and the people who deal with them and use them.
This is where digital intelligence comes in. It can not only represent a process as a logical sequence of events and workflows, but also show variable human behavior in relation to variable data and content - a process with so many variables can only be made understandable through sophisticated visualization.
Cloud-based platforms are a good approach for the future: data is only processed via secure connections outside the company and there is no interpersonal contact. Since social distancing is now mandatory, cloud-based solutions help to change business processes so that interactions between people can be avoided.
Why digital intelligence and why now?We already know that social distancing is one of the few means we have to slow down the pandemic. In the coming months, as we face this sudden new normal, it will put more pressure on companies and institutions to accelerate the adoption of virtualization and contactless digital technologies . If these were not already part of the investment in digital transformation , we can expect them to become a top priority now.
Automation and workflow tools, as well as platforms for intelligent document processing, will not be available quickly enough if implemented traditionally. The focus will shift to finding effective tools for identifying and evaluating processes so that it can be quickly determined where processes have to change and can do so immediately. The application of a digital intelligence approach allows companies to evaluate processes and data in such a way that appropriate measures can be taken to recommend automation, monitor processes and adapt them as required. This is the only way to do justice to the status quo of social distance and the continuing customer needs.