Mark Lockett, Vice President of Sales for the UK, Ireland, and Benelux at SS&C Blue Prism, shares insights into the company’s recent advancements, customer challenges, and strategies for optimizing intelligent automation tools.
Overview of SS&C Blue Prism
SS&C Blue Prism specializes in Intelligent Automation, offering products and solutions that fundamentally alter how clients perform their work. The company’s approach focuses on enhancing the human workforce by deploying digital workers to handle repetitive, high-volume tasks. This allows employees to dedicate their time to more impactful activities.
Intelligent Automation encompasses a comprehensive strategy to deliver work efficiently. This can involve orchestrating processes using business process management tools and identifying tasks ripe for automation through Blue Prism Process Intelligence technologies.
By automating and orchestrating daily tasks, SS&C Blue Prism creates significant value for its clients. Use cases include streamlining HR onboarding, optimizing finance processes, and transferring data between outpatient systems and electronic patient records. The versatility of a digital workforce lies in its ability to adapt to varying workload demands.
Recent Developments
The company has invested heavily in its Next Gen platform, a cloud-native solution that provides intelligent automation capabilities tailored to customer needs. This platform enables clients to benefit from cloud advantages while maintaining their data securely on self-hosted infrastructures. This hybrid approach is especially beneficial for businesses in heavily regulated sectors, allowing for improved delivery methods through the Next Gen platform.
Additionally, the company is closely monitoring advancements in Generative AI. SS&C Blue Prism has developed capabilities to integrate with various large language models, facilitating Gen AI adoption. In this framework, Gen AI serves as the “brain,” providing thoughtful responses, while the digital workforce executes tasks. This integration ensures that processes remain secure and auditable, addressing clients’ concerns about data security.
Many customers are exploring how Gen AI can manage interactions across multiple channels, such as phone, email, and chat, thereby enhancing engagement and response quality.
Understanding Customer Needs
Lockett observes that many end users feel the pressure to implement AI technologies but often lack clarity on how to proceed. While there’s a strong desire to adopt Gen AI, companies sometimes neglect to define the specific business problems they aim to address.
Conversations with clients often shift from a focus on technology to identifying the core issues they need to resolve. These discussions typically revolve around three main areas: customer interactions, employee engagement, and public-facing services.
Trends in Intelligent Automation
Lockett identifies several trends in Intelligent Automation. The increasing emphasis on Generative AI is evident, with many organizations keen to explore its potential alongside automation. Despite the hype surrounding Gen AI, the key lies in achieving better outcomes for stakeholders by leveraging both technologies.
Another trend is the growing adoption of process automation by organizations looking to enhance productivity and reduce costs. Companies that initially focused on cost control are now seeking to maximize their investment through process intelligence, which helps identify areas for further improvement.
Moreover, a growing number of clients are integrating Microsoft Power applications with SS&C Blue Prism’s technologies, fostering a collaborative environment rather than a one-size-fits-all approach.
Addressing Customer Challenges
Cost management remains the primary concern for many clients. As organizations face rising expenses, it’s vital to demonstrate the value derived from automation. Clients are encouraged to take a structured approach to assess the benefits of automation and articulate the impact on operational efficiency.
Organizations must evaluate metrics like FTE savings, the volume of automations implemented, and employee cost-effectiveness to substantiate their investments. Beyond mere cost control, customers should also highlight how automation can facilitate faster product launches and improve employee satisfaction.
Many clients operate their own centers of excellence, which necessitates ongoing justification for technology investments. This dialogue often focuses on how to consistently showcase the value generated by automation.
Recommendations for Implementing Intelligent Automation
For organizations considering Intelligent Automation, the first step is to define the specific problem they wish to solve. Often, businesses face challenges related to their existing technology systems, and Intelligent Automation can help mitigate these issues.
Understanding actual business processes is crucial, as there can be a disconnect between perceived and real workflows. Tools like process intelligence can provide the necessary insights to bridge this gap.
Support for ongoing automation efforts is equally important. Successful clients often have internal champions who advocate for automation across the organization. Once employees see the benefits of automation, demand for these technologies tends to grow.
Lockett notes that the concept of Intelligent Automation should not be mistaken for rudimentary robotic implementations. Instead, it involves utilizing computers to replicate human interactions, further enhanced by Generative AI.
Future Plans for SS&C Blue Prism
Moving forward, SS&C Blue Prism will concentrate on transitioning clients to the Next Gen platform, integrating technological advancements based on customer feedback. Companies are eager to find optimal deployment opportunities for Next Gen, particularly in global operations that benefit from centralized automation capabilities.
Additionally, there is a strong focus on harnessing the value of Generative AI. Recent projects, including those with public sector organizations, showcase how Gen AI can significantly enhance user experiences. The company anticipates that these initiatives will continue to evolve and improve over time.