The BPM

Evolution: From
Automation to AI
 The BPM Evolution: From Automation to AI

In this E-Guide:
As enterprises across industries molt out of their legacy monolithic platforms in pursuit of
agility, business process management (BPM) strategies are following suit. However, at the
Why digital process
end of the day, agile BPM boils down to the use of two technology choices – process
automation is now
automation and AI.
essential to BPM
In this E-Guide, explore how automation and AI are making their way into BPM strategies –
Is the future of robotic
and how intelligent technology advances are rewriting BPM’s future.
process automation
intelligent?

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Why digital process automation is

now essential to BPM
George Lawton, Contributor
Why digital process
automation is now Attitudes and technologies around business process management have changed,
essential to BPM particularly because of industrywide shifts from monolithic, legacy platforms and a tightened
relationship between BPM and rapid application development. This shift caused the analyst
Is the future of robotic firm Forrester to coin the term digital process automation as a way to describe the suite of
process automation capabilities that will be essential to any BPM strategy going forward. And according to
intelligent? experts, two technology developments -- robotic process automation and AI -- will play a
critical role in the future of BPM.

Changing attitudes toward BPM

The term BPM has suffered from the perception that it inhibits innovation, according to Rob
Koplowitz, senior analyst with Forrester. This is a characteristic that cannot survive in a time
where rapid software deployment has become a priority for many businesses, he said, and
this has pushed Forrester to create new terminology around BPM.

"Internal-facing and process apps are increasingly being deployed very quickly," Koplowitz
explained. "As such, Forrester has adopted the term digital process automation."

Industry experts also believe it is time for enterprise architects to let go of an outdated focus
on BPM and focus on business value instead.

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"Cloud, SOA [service-oriented architecture] and other software services should not be
based on BPM, but [rather on] capabilities," said William Ulrich, president of TSG, an IT
consultancy. "This is a consensus view among leading architects. If you keep using BPM to
drive cloud strategy [or] AI, you will [hit a] dead end."

One of these key capabilities is automation, which is where robotic process automation
Why digital process (RPA) and AI step into the BPM picture.
automation is now
essential to BPM The promise of RPA
Is the future of robotic
RPA is emerging as a strong BPM technology, according to Paul Gaynor, partner at PwC. In
process automation
fact, RPA resembles the screen-scrapers developers used many years ago, he said.
intelligent?
"We have moved beyond the simplistic nature of process toward using a higher degree of
automation," Gaynor said.

Part of the interest in RPA stems from the need for enterprises to keep up with new
regulations and government mandates, Gaynor explained. As a result, enterprises are
looking at how to both limit human intervention and address those regulatory requirements.

"We see robotic process automation and the term bots as the precursor to the landscape of
intelligent process automation," he explained.

In the short run, bots have tremendous promise, Gaynor said, because they can enable
enterprises to create an integration tier between legacy apps and new cloud services.

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RPA and cloud integration

Gaynor said that the cloud also plays a large role for organizations that want to increase
agility, unlock data and get the data into an environment that enables more predictability,
both from a usability and cost perspective.
Why digital process
"The cloud offers an intelligence layer that allows big data scans to take place at a more
automation is now
achievable compute cost," he said.
essential to BPM
RPA can help companies automate many existing processes, Gaynor explained. RPA can
Is the future of robotic
also make it easier to implement integration patterns that are not always baked into more
process automation
modern cloud applications. Many enterprise business processes depend on providing
intelligent?
stakeholders the right answers at the right time, he added, and RPA can help organizations
get answers faster.

"Enterprises have a set of stakeholders that includes employees, customers and regulators
looking for an answer," Gaynor said. "The faster you can provide that answer, the better the
experience you can provide them."

AI drives digital processes

Another trend that industry experts say will shape the BPM market in the coming year is the
development and implementation of AI software. This technology enables organizations to
automate more of their business processes and improve the efficiency of their organizations,
according to Jeff Kaplan, managing director at THINKstrategies, an IT consultancy.

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"Ironically, the biggest challenge facing organizations will be developing and implementing
the right AI and machine learning solutions to achieve their corporate objectives," Kaplan
said. "Therefore, enterprise architects will be key players in overcoming these challenges
and enabling their organizations to capitalize on the latest AI and machine learning
innovations."
Why digital process There is also increased interest in new interfaces, such as voice, for interacting with
automation is now processes, Forrester's Koplowitz said. In some instances, this could be a matter of
essential to BPM convenience, such as a user updating an address through a device like Alexa.
Is the future of robotic "The more interesting use cases involve new work patterns as with a field salesperson
process automation accessing critical content through a voice interface, delivered to a screen device, without the
intelligent? need to stop working with his or her hands to drive the screen," Koplowitz said.

Organizations can also use AI to improve application development workflows, Koplowitz

explained.

"The last major pattern we've researched is the application of the AI to optimize the
performance of the application itself," he said. "For example, rather than just applying
analytics to a process, could the system start to determine root causes of issues and adjust
accordingly?"

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Is the future of robotic process

automation intelligent?
John Moore, Site Editor
Why digital process
automation is now The future of robotic process automation isn't what it used to be.
essential to BPM
When RPA became mainstream around 2015, cognitive RPA was considered the
Is the future of robotic evolutionary path for the technology. Basic RPA was useful for automating repetitive tasks,
process automation but the rules-based approach worked best with structured data. The cognitive variety,
intelligent? however, would add optical character recognition (OCR), natural language processing (NLP)
and machine learning to handle semi-structured and unstructured data -- expanding the
efficiencies of RPA to a wider range of enterprise activities.

RPA vendors since 2015 have indeed pushed RPA technology in the cognitive direction,
adding AI capabilities. But not everyone is convinced this is the ultimate destination for the
technology. Ron Schmelzer, managing partner and principal analyst at Cognilytica, a market
research and advisory firm that focuses on AI and related fields such as RPA, believes
intelligent process automation, or IPA, is the shape of things to come.

IPA diverges from RPA in that it goes far beyond recording a particular business process
and repeating it again and again. IPA aims to harness AI to learn how to adjust and improve
the process flow, creating intelligent processes.

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'Unintelligent at its core'

So, is infusing RPA with NLP and other technologies an exercise in pouring new wine into
an old cask? Schmelzer seems to think so.

"Cognitive RPA is still RPA, which means, it's unintelligent at its core," he said. "Simply
Why digital process
using OCR or NLP or machine learning approaches doesn't make the systems less cut-and-
automation is now
dried automated as they are now."
essential to BPM
Schmelzer isn't alone in this view of the future of robotic process automation. Management
Is the future of robotic
consultant McKinsey & Co. last year published an article on IPA, describing it as "an
process automation
emerging set of new technologies that combines fundamental process redesign with robotic
intelligent?
process automation and machine learning."

Intelligent process automation, the article continued, augments the "[t]raditional levers of
rule-based automation with decision-making capabilities thanks to advances in deep
learning and cognitive technology."

The result is "radically enhanced efficiency," according to McKinsey.

The end of RPA?

Smart IPA tools that adapt to new situations and expand beyond templated or recorded
activities "will supplant RPA of any sort," Schmeltzer contended.

That possible future of robotic process automation has yet to materialize, however.
Cognilytica has created a scale to assess the capabilities of next-generation IPA systems.
The yardstick starts at Level 0, which represents RPA products that have yet to embed AI,

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and peaks at Level 3, which represents technology that can learn from itself to determine
better ways to handle a given process flow. At that stage, hard coding disappears and the
system relies entirely on machine learning.

Why digital process

automation is now
essential to BPM

Is the future of robotic

process automation
intelligent?

According to Cognilytica's assessment, no vendor or technology has reached Level 3.

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"We are nowhere near that goal," said Kathleen Walch, managing partner and principal
analyst at Cognilytica. "Some vendors have that [high-level IPA] in their vision and are
starting to realize the limits of RPA."

Walch said some RPA vendors have reached Level 1 or 2. Level 1 capabilities include NLP
and OCR, while Level 2 systems can automatically identify process flows in new systems
Why digital process and mitigate process flow exceptions, according to Cognilytica.
automation is now
essential to BPM Cognitive RPA as the future of robotic process automation isn't necessarily a dead end for
RPA vendor companies. Schmelzer said cognitive RPA tools that "embrace real data
Is the future of robotic science," focus on "how the business process works" and are able to model and discover
process automation explicit and implicit business processes, can become intelligent process automation tools.
intelligent?
"IPA does require new technology, but it doesn't require new companies," Schmelzer said.

UiPath, an RPA vendor based in New York, is among the companies building AI into their
products. The company has reached Level 2 on Cognilytica's AI scale.

"Neural networking and machine learning … should be embedded as part of any process
automation platform," said Param Kahlon, chief product officer at UIpath. "We see that
process automation and AI go hand-in-hand."

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