Think digital transformation. Think beyond ERP : Digitization beyond ERP

Authored by: Gautam Nimmagadda, Founder & CEO,Quixy

A few years ago, the business definition of "digital transformation" went something like this - using new, quick, and constantly changing digital technology to solve challenges.

It involved converting manual or non-digital procedures to digital processes. Enterprise resource planning (ERP) solutions, such as the powerful, virtually ubiquitous software from SAP and other ERP suppliers, were quickly adopted by businesses to standardize their operational procedures. They eventually gained enterprise centralization, standardization, and integration across internal and external business processes cost savings despite their monolithic systems – some flexibility (compared to the previous chaos).

A quick glimpse into ERP:

Organizations that aim to manage their business processes inside a centralized and integrated system use enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems. Companies involved in the supply chain frequently utilize ERP to keep track of all the moving elements involved in production and delivery. However, various industries can use ERP, including healthcare, charitable organizations, construction, and hospitality.

Businesses can use ERP benefits to manage their inventories, customers, and employees. It allows all departments to work with the same data because it keeps all entered data in a single database. Customer management, human resources, business intelligence, financial management, inventory, and supply chain can all be integrated by ERP.

But is this a sustainable way in the day and age of machine learning?

Businesses will significantly invest in automation to reduce costs and streamline operations, and they need to map and mine their business processes for the most significant impact. But even before the epidemic, the race for automation was well underway.

Digital transformation has become synonymous with digital automation. Today's digital transformation revolves around standards and structure but increasingly involves automation. In actuality, automation has become far more critical than functional standardization post-pandemic. Businesses place a lot greater emphasis on procedures that can be automated rather than those that can be "tracked" and "managed." In the ideal world, RPA and other intelligent bots will do much of the work that current "users" of workplace apps do. User interfaces and experiences will eventually lose their appeal.

Not many organizations will be implementing ERP in the next ten years. Instead, they will:

Determine and simulate business issues

Process mining to map and improve corporate processes and find opportunities for process optimization.

Determine, gather, verify, and apply structured and unstructured data to specific business processes.

Match issues, procedures, information, and machine learning techniques.

Apply the strategy to as many procedures as they can.

All of these operations are geared toward automation. To put it another way, they are concentrating on automating and replacing ERP modules and processes such as customer management, human resources, business intelligence, financial management, inventory, and supply chain capabilities. The internal and external business cycle can be automated in large parts. But automation goes beyond purely tactical objectives. What are the most profitable business tactics? Which emerging markets are most sensible? The best way to innovate is. We can transition from tactical to strategic automation when we widen the scope of algorithmic applications across supervised and unstructured machine learning.

Revolutionizing Digital Transformation with no-code automation

Although most firms know that automation promotes better KPIs and business growth, the typical amount of automation in an organization is just about 20%. Reason being:

* The leadership lacks the requisite vision and will to automate outdated programs and create an agile workforce that can adapt to changing operations, technology, and business requirements.

* Organizations need the necessary tools to create automation solutions that are quick, flexible, and agile.

* Organizations improperly define the extent of automation; ultimately, they automate nothing despite their plans to automate everything. Finding the ideal automation solution requires work because there is no one-size-fits-all option. For instance, some automation solutions are simple yet have little functionality (you can automate but cannot customize workflows). On the other side, some provide customization yet are challenging to use.

Enterprise-wide process automation demands significant human resources and cannot be solely an IT concern. Therefore, democratizing software development is necessary for process automation, and it calls for inclusive, adaptable, and cooperative teams that can develop apps independently for their most important priorities.

This is where no-code comes in

70% of significant automation initiatives fall short of their objectives. Traditional coding and low-code development methods have not held up over time and are out of step with the current digital ecosystem.

* It makes software development more accessible.

* Converting non-technical staff into citizen developers promotes inclusivity (business users who build applications with no-code platforms).

* It lessens the need for IT teams.

* It enables quick customization.

Without writing a single line of code, non-technical staff (HRs, marketers, salespeople, etc.) can construct custom applications by dragging and dropping components like lego bricks. Teams from the marketing, sales, operations, or human resources departments can use technology to innovate quickly while feeling equally empowered.

Conversely, no-code applications are easy for IT teams to monitor and maintain. Instead of being saddled with routine maintenance, they can use their knowledge to pursue more ambitious innovation goals.

No-code development has a substantially reduced software development life cycle than traditional development or low-code, making it ideal for situations including agile transformations and ongoing iterations. Minimizing the need for highly qualified or experienced programmers allows business users to participate in the solution-building process, lowering costs.

An example of achieving automation with no-code

To significantly reduce process pains, 100% automation essentially means going paperless. By developing intelligent automation solutions for their top priorities without writing a single line of code, business users and IT teams can work together to create a paperless workplace.

IDP (Intelligent Document Processing) is the poster child for no-code automation. Users can extract valuable data from unstructured and semi-structured data with this next-generation solution. It classifies, extracts, and verifies pertinent information from various unstructured sources using natural language processing (PDF documents, emails, images, etc.).

Other no-code solutions are as significant as that may hyper-automate CRM, help desk support, CRM, travel & expense administration, and organizational training management, to mention a few.

What does the future hold?

Businesses will switch to platforms that automate business processes and models independent of a single application after COVID-19 and for the rest of the time instead of huge centralized, standardized, and integrated enterprise apps. Other vendors will adopt a different strategy than ERP firms, eager to automate their tasks.

* Business problems will be identified and modelled.

* Business processes will be mapped and optimized (via process mining) well beyond those already built into ERP applications.

* Structured and unstructured data will be identified, collected, validated, and used.

* Problems, processes, data, and machine learning algorithms will be matched.

All of this will be pursued outside of the restrictions and limitations of their ERP solutions. ERP-based "automation" will fall behind next-generation digital transformation as it transitions to digital automation as long as it is limited to the automation of processes embedded in the ERP application itself.