Digital transformation takes a customer-driven, digital-first approach to every aspect of a business, including its business models, customer experiences, processes and operations. It utilizes digital technologies such as artificial intelligence, automation, hybrid cloud and more to leverage data and drive intelligent processes, faster and smarter decision-making, and real-time response to market disruptions. And ultimately, it changes customer expectations and creates new business opportunities.
The automation market was already experiencing strong growth before the pandemic, in particular because of these advances in AI technologies and other capabilities. Robotic process automation (RPA) is a highly successful automation tool available to large enterprises and small businesses alike, offering cost savings, efficiencies, improved customer experience and ease of getting started. It can be even more powerful within an end-to-end automation platform, uncovering opportunities for organizations to prioritize and continuously improve their operations.
However, traditional automation programs have been fraught with challenges, including requiring employees with software development backgrounds to deploy and maintain them. This can create large backlogs and impacts to the business because of the effort and skills required and the gap in talent to fill them.
The Low-Code/No-Code Promise
Low-code is a visual approach to software development that enables the author to create an artifact by writing anywhere between 1% and 99% less programming. A low-code model promises faster delivery of applications by making the user experience more accessible, even for citizen developers, or empowered business users who are able to build applications to make their work easier without the help of the IT department.
However, we believe that no-code is the true answer for business users. No-code, in which many artifacts (such as RPA bots) can be created without writing a single line of code, utilizes intuitive visual interfaces and drag-and-drop capabilities that even business users are well accustomed to. Technical users may then implement low-code solutions to augment an application—for instance, with some more complex logic, pre- and post-processing—but business users are able to handle the bulk of their own day-to-day automation tasks.
Building Trust in Bots and Process Automation
Learn how Lojacorr Network, the largest independent insurance brokerage network in Brazil, was able to add value from end-to-end in order to generate profit for the insurance companies working with them and the brokers who are their main clients.
Download NowRebuild and Empower Your Workforce With No-Code Digital Labor
We believe the most exciting developments in this space are with digital labor—software-based “employees” that work alongside humans. In this hybrid workforce, humans can train and delegate work to these digital employees, powered by AI to act with confidence to successfully complete the work. A digital employee can take care of a wide range of menial, repetitive, programmable tasks across functional areas such as marketing, sales, finance and HR, via an intuitive interface. This frees up people to focus more on high-value responsibilities like customer service relationships, complex brainstorming and strategic collaborations.
Technology providers like IBM and its business partners offer both low- and no-code solutions to bring exciting new functionality to market quickly. Free trials and hackathons provide a valuable opportunity for developers, business users, designers and even students to get hands-on experience right away. IBM’s recent Build-a-Bot Challenge, with thousands of participants worldwide, tasked developers, business analysts, students, designers and others with developing a bot for social good or for an industry use case using a free trial of IBM's AI-infused RPA tool. The contest, with the tagline “Think outside the bot,” yielded a range of innovative new use cases, such as AI-automated prior authorizations in healthcare, bots to help fight depression, smart survey tools, broadcast teaching tools with real-time interaction, and a 24/7 tutoring service.
This is a new and exciting market with far-reaching potential, and organizations can vet prospective vendors' low-code and no-code claims carefully with a hands-on proof of concept. Instead of taking weeks or months to deploy automation, organizations of all sizes are using IBM technology to reap the benefits of automation faster than ever and focus instead on their most important business priorities.
