What is hyperautomation and why does it matter?

What is Hyperautomation and why is it one of Gartner’s hottest technology trends in 2021?

Below, we’ll discuss why an enterprise-proven, low-code automation platform is the key enabler to deliver hyperautomation - and why an RPA solution is simply not enough.

In the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, organizations had to rapidly react to a suddenly-ambiguous economic environment and instantly enable distributed workforces, all with limited resources at their disposal. Trying to quickly solve any one of these challenges individually is difficult enough; tackling them simultaneously is exponentially more complex. 

Technical and LoB collaboration is critical to digital transformation efforts 

Unfortunately, many IT leaders and CIOs quickly realized that legacy automation solutions simply weren’t cut out to solve their broader digital transformation requirements. 

The reason IT leaders and CIOs are talking about hyperautomation in the wake of COVID-19 is that most teams are not looking to simply digitize paper records and remedial data entry. Without the ability to connect to APIs, RPA tools provide limited value since they cannot connect and orchestrate modern, cloud-based business processes.

The proliferation of SaaS applications and the flexibility of the APIs in modern business applications has meant that organizations have had to respond organizationally by creating new functions outside of traditional IT, such as business technology. New functions can collaborate directly with business stakeholders to understand and solve fossilized business processes to deliver critical business results.

Due to evolving technology and organizational needs, an automation-first mindset combined with modern, low-code automation platforms are requirements to actually deliver digital-first initiatives at scale.

How low-code automation platforms enable hyperautomation 

Delivering hyperautomation means enterprises must now deploy hundreds or thousands of automations and reinvent business processes simultaneously in order to keep pace with the demands of business. It's a citizen-led movement. And it's forcing those who are driving change - often line-of-business users, to compare the traditional tools they have, or the developers they often rely on, with what they need. And increasingly, teams are finding their tools and resources fall short.

Hyperautomation is a team sport and demands collaboration, but most legacy tools aren’t designed that way. Many require technical skills, such as scripting. But business teams are looking to orchestrate and reinvent business processes visually and iterate frequently. 

And reinventing and improving business processes, such as improving your customer experience, requires a confluence of application integration, data integration, API connectivity, and other capabilities that are spread across different toolsets. Hyperautomation requires velocity, with results in days, not months.

The fact is hyperautomation is driving the need for a new kind of automation platform: one that's unified, collaborative, and able to rapidly deliver digital transformation.

What’s next for hyperautomation?

While RPA vendors were the first to describe the importance of task-based automation across the enterprise, COVID-19 has made low-code automation platforms the key enabling technology to deliver digital transformation. Low-code automation platforms have become a necessity for the enterprise due to their advanced orchestration capabilities, key collaboration functionality, and ability to enable citizen development.