Revolutionizing Robotic Process Automation With IBM Watson Orchestrate

Mention “enterprise automation” and one is reminded of robots in manufacturing and automated assembly lines. The reality is that enterprise automation is not just about faster product deliveries and automatic manufacturing lines – but is about the business value of automating enterprise processes for more efficiency and greater speed.

Today, we find that over 85% of organizations are reducing their operational costs by adopting automation technologies like Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Natural Language Processing (NLP). However, challenges persist in quickly creating powerful, cross-functional workflows that span departments because of the complexity of integrating crucial business systems like ERP and CRM.

In this context, IBM’s launch of the AI-powered Watson Orchestrate tool is a crucial step towards democratizing the automation of business tasks. As IBM CEO, Arvind Krishna points out, “In the same way as IBM has electrified factories in the past, we will use the hybrid cloud to infuse AI into business software and systems.”

With this product launch, IBM is also capitalizing on the growing popularity of intelligent chatbots and the move towards hybrid clouds – which was the primary driving strategy behind the company’s 2019 acquisition of Red Hat. As Arvind Krishna states, “We shall look at this technology as the moment the world entered the digital century in full force.”

How does IBM Watson Orchestrate transform Robotic Process Automation (RPA) through its AI capabilities? Let us check that out next.

How IBM Watson Orchestrate powers RPA

Be it your daily back-office operations or front-office support, the IBM Robotic Process Automation technology automates more business processes and tasks through AI-empowered insights.

On its part, the Watson Orchestrate tool is designed for business users who need real-time access to vast volumes of business data that are typically underutilized. It caters to their desire to create automated workflows on the fly to address repetitive manual tasks to drive up the speed of processes. No longer is there any need to build large code bases or complex data queries that need the expertise of data scientists or automation engineers. In layman’s words, Watson Orchestrate is now the low (or zero) code version of RPA.

How does this have any meaningful impact on business processes? Let us look at some of its benefits.

Business benefits of IBM Watson Orchestrate for RPA

• Enables an easier and democratized mode of intelligent data extraction that is hard to perform with most data collection tools.
• Leverages the capabilities of the IBM Watson tool like NLP and its contextual language capabilities.
• Enable business users to build their automated workflows without writing any code.
• Easy to integrate and communicate with other applications like Salesforce, SAP ERP, Slack, and Workday.

Features of IBM Watson Orchestrate for RPA

IBM Robotic Process Automation is a bot-based solution that copies the behaviour of human users to perform repetitive tasks. Here are some features of IBM Watson Orchestrate that work towards effective RPA:

Automation of repetitive tasks

• With Watson Orchestrate at the heart of your RPA, business users now have the capability of automating repetitive tasks like data entry and processing. Software robots can now simulate (or mimic) human actions when interacting with applications. Unattended bots that can run through automated triggers (or schedules) can automate tasks with “zero” human intervention.
• Among its benefits, RPA reduces human errors and the costs incurred by constant reworks. Besides, it can also improve employee productivity by reducing the time they spend on manual tasks.

Low (or zero) code management

• Using low-code bot authoring tools, business users can now build thousands of new bots with prebuilt commands at a faster pace. With the capabilities of IBM Watson, IBM RPA uses technologies like NLP and machine learning to make it easy for business users to automatically capture and extract relevant content from unstructured data.
• With its low (or zero) code environment, business users turned bot developers simply need to select (or tag) their preferred data variable. Adding to that, advanced dashboards can be generated for every automated process, without any IT or technical support.
• Low or zero code management leads to faster and smarter bot creation, which can leverage enormous data pools for business benefits.

AI capabilities

• Dion Hinchcliffe of Constellation Research tweeted his opinion about Watson Orchestrate as a “powerful example of how to supercharge and streamline the #digitalworkplace.”
• With its in-built AI capabilities, IBM Watson Orchestrate enables business professionals to use natural language to perform tasks like sending an email or scheduling a meeting. This can boost the personal productivity of non-technical professionals in sales, marketing, HR, finance, and more.
• For example, a sales director can scout for more market opportunities and set up calls with customer leads – all using the AI-powered Watson Orchestrate at the backend.

Workload management

• With IBM RPA built on Watson Orchestrate, businesses have access to industry-scale automation using Workload management. More than just another queue management system, workload management enables the intelligent distribution of work among multiple bots.
• Designed to meet service level agreements (SLAs) at the enterprise level, workload management enables business enterprises to prioritize various tasks and processes.

Intelligent chatbots

• The use of intelligent chatbots in IBM RPA can speed up all routine tasks, manage your workflows, manage content, and seamlessly integrate with business rules and policies.
• With smarter bots, organizations can achieve business objectives and explore newer possibilities. RPA chatbots can also integrate with other automation initiatives like data capturing, automated decision making, and process automation.

Conclusion

The 2021 survey on the Global AI Adoption Index concluded that 80% of companies are using (or planning to use) automation tools in the next 12 months. Look for that promise to be achieved and exceeded with the coming of IBM Watson Orchestrate. Orchestrate RPA offers AI-powered automation capabilities that can automate more business processes easily using software bots.

Looking to leverage the capabilities of IBM RPA for your business processes? As an IBM business partner, Veracitiz believes in maximizing ROI for all clients. Contact us to learn how we can help.