We tip toe down buzzword lane, discussing the difference between hyperautomation, intelligent automation, and digital transformation. Jason also dispenses with the myth that automation is only for larger companies, and why that’s true more so than ever with today’s technology in our third Two Question Tuesday.
Jason Burian is Vice President of Product Management at KnowledgeLake.
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Rather read (like me) than watch/listen to a video? The transcription follows, lightly edited.
We have with us today Jason Burian who was Vice President of Product Management at KnowledgeLake. We spoke with Jason a couple about a month and 1/2 or so ago about the the release of the Ontario product and in that in the April issue of DIR. If anyone is interested in having a sample copy of that look at look for my contact information in the in the in the detail box below and let me know. Jason as always good to talk to you. Thank you for joining us again.
Let’s dive right in. So today we’re gonna talk about my favorite thing, buzzwords. So, you know, there’s a newly minted phrase. Well, kind of newly minted: hyperautomation. And it’s starting to gain a little bit of traction. You see it everywhere, at least among the assorted talking heads, right. So in your view, what’s the difference between automation, intelligent automation, and hyperautomation?
Burian: By letter of the law, if you looked up the Wikipedia definition, intelligent automation and hyperautomation are kind of the same thing and they delineate themselves from regular automation by the addition of a couple of interesting technologies. So regular automation, you know, it’s evolved over years. It used to be business process management or business process automation and then workflow and then, you know, it’s really the orchestrating of work between people through a process.
And as we’ve introduced new tools like machine learning, AI, large language models, RPA, we’ve added more technology tools to the toolbox that is sort of morphed that into hyperautomation, right. So automation in the beginning, in my opinion, was about how do I get work from A to B to C between people to make it the most effective as possible.
As we move into hyperautomation, the focus has changed to how do we automate as many things as we possibly can and only involve a human in the loop in a workflow when absolutely necessary.
Okay. So almost, . . . almost convincing me there. But I’m still gonna hold my opinion on that one.
Burian: I think whatever you call it, what we’re seeing arising in organizations of all sizes is this need for this platform that sits in between other systems, that sits in between departments, that sits in this layer inside of an organization that is there to automate work, to automate connectivity, to streamline processes. And I think in the future we’ll see it as becoming as ubiquitous as, as CRM, right? Every, every company that has customers has a CRM. And I I think you’ll see every company that has processes will have some type of process automation platform.
A little bit of Shakespeare, right. A Roses is a rose, right. So the second question; much like digital transformation, there’s almost like this default assumption that hyperautomation is only for large organizations, Is it?
Burian: No, I think it used to be. So let’s take one of our common customers, a regional or community bank. This is a bank that maybe has a billion or two or three of assets under management. So a very successful organization. But they probably have an IT staff of maybe two or three people mostly focused on security.
So back in the back in the old timey days of on-premise software, when you’d have to stand up several servers and databases and licenses and install desktop clients; yeah, probably, there was a huge barrier to entry. I think with the adaptation of cloud and the focus on no code and low code tools. I don’t have to have a data center and I don’t have to have developers or engineering, you know, code-level writing resources on staff to create solutions to problems.
So, yeah, “back in the day,” which wasn’t really that long ago, yeah, it probably was a huge barrier for small to midsize organizations to take super complicated processes and automate them and bring tools to bear. But not anymore, right? There’s plenty of organizations, plenty of SaaS-based software companies on the planet that are here to help organizations that don’t have IT Staffs really drive digital transformation. Y
It’s really interesting that automation is for anybody regardless of regardless of company size. And I had had an argument with myself for how long it would take me to actually break my two question format by interjecting a comment other than the two questions. I thought I would make it to 6 or 7, but you broke me in three! So congratulations, Jason.
Burian: I take that as a compliment.
