Being a software-based solution, Intelligent Automation helps companies improve business productivity. Reduced costs, speedy processes, optimized decision outcomes, quality, and compliance are just a few of the immediate benefits of implementing IA.

But here's the big question.

What can IA Do for Your Business?

A variety of sources agree on the top 3 priorities when discussing the agenda for CEOs and business owners, IA playing a crucial role in all of them.

1. Identifying new growth opportunities, such as new business models or disruptive technologies.
2. Find cost-saving technologies that can also improve productivity.
3. Every executive, including CEOs, should be able to improve their digital skills.

Intelligent automation: A better way to improve business productivity

Over the past two decades, CEOs used many techniques to improve business productivity. These included lean programs, shared service centers (SSCs), and enterprise resource planning or ERP. These initiatives can take many years to implement. They require significant changes in the company's processes and people, and the ROI can take between two and five years.

IA can be implemented in months instead of the years mentioned previously. How? Because it is easily scalable to any level, and the ROI is less than a year in most cases.

Create new business strategies

Two recent business ideas built on an IA foundation make a huge impact.

1. Building a digital business
2. Data Ecosystems

These concepts show how IA can be used to create new business strategies.

Building new digital businesses

To be competitive with only digitally-native companies, organizations such as energy providers, telecommunications, insurers, or banks must digitize. It is often more efficient to create a new digital business than to digitize existing ones.

A digital business uses technology to develop and deliver products and services.

This business strategy improves customer experience by making it easier for customers to access cheaper, quicker, more seamless services.

Sometimes, the digital business creates a new core for the company. 

LEGO is an excellent example of a successful, newly built digital business. When the toy market began to shrink, LEGO created a social network, video games, and a design crowdsourcing platform. If you're a fan of blockbuster movies, LEGO movies are something you must have seen. This action boosted LEGO's net profit by four times the amount it earned in ten years. LEGO's 2019 net profit was EUR1.1 billion, compared to the EUR300 million in 2009.

Data Ecosystems

An ecosystem of data is a collection of services that provide users with access to various related services through a single interface. An ecosystem of data is a collection of actors working together to share information and resources to offer a set of interconnected services.

Users don't have to switch between services. You don't have to change services when all of them are available through one interface. This strategy also lowers costs for clients and partners in the data ecosystem. Let's take the banking industry as an example. According to The ecosystem Playbook: Winning within a World of Ecosystems, ecosystems of data can save customers as much as 10%-20% in customer acquisition costs (CAC).

Intelligent Automation results from the companies' increasing need to enhance functions or processes, speed up delivery, make time for other activities, and give people the opportunity to think about more important matters. Using it at full scale means taking your business to the next level, making it competitive on the market and more visible to any prospect or client. 

Invest in new technologies and capabilities, improve your digital knowledge and skills, and see a change for the better sooner than you expect. Let technology help you in your journey to success.