Leveraging design thinking in enterprise automation strategy

Positioning automation programs for greater value

Does this sound familiar? Last quarter, you were able to execute on your top 25 automation candidates, based on your established criteria. These automated processes provided significant benefits, from freeing up 25 percent of a critical employee’s time to significantly reduce the need for a vendor that costs your organization thousands of dollars a year.

These are certainly success stories, and you plan to continue your automation journey. But collectively across the automation, you’re not seeing the operational transformation you know is possible.

Many organizations that have implemented automation at scale are in the same position. They have realized significant returns but are left wanting more: More value, more ROI, more impact. So how can you uncover new opportunities for larger-scale transformation? And how can you position your automation programs for greater value—right from the starting line?

The answer may lie in the use of design thinking—the discipline that consumer-focused companies have long used to develop new products and services.

Think about your favorite experiences as a consumer. Maybe it’s hailing a car using a ridesharing app or renting a fabulous condo for your next vacation. It’s very likely that design thinking techniques went into creating that experience.

Simply put, design thinking (aka human-centered design) is an immersive process that helps organizations build leading products and services by looking beyond individual tasks (requesting a car on your phone) to the larger intended outcome (arriving at your destination). Applied to automation, design thinking shifts the focus from individual business actions that accomplish specific tasks to broader strategies that accomplish entire outcomes, resulting in more comprehensive transformation and higher returns.

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The bottom line

Design thinking can turbocharge automation value. By applying design thinking techniques across your automation program, you can be better positioned to drive ROI exponentially, not incrementally. You can shift your focus from reducing defects and cycle times to reimagining business outcomes. And that’s how you’ll get out in front of your competitors.

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As the competitive advantages of automation continue to expand, and the use of automation technologies becomes more common, the need for organizations to accelerate their automation programs and quickly move to scale becomes more urgent. It’s time to move into the fast lane:

• Choosing the right lane forward: Streamlining automation opportunity assessment and prioritization

• At the intersection of control, speed, and agility: How to optimize enterprise automation at scale with a center of excellence

• Building for performance: Leveraging design thinking in automation strategy

• Going the distance: Measuring the ROI of automation
  
• Leaning into the curves: Automation lessons learned from the driver’s seat

Explore more

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Let's talk

Valeriy Dokshukin
Partner | Digital Risk Management Solutions Leader
Deloitte Risk and Financial Advisory
Deloitte & Touche LLP
vdokshukin@deloitte.com

Michael Koppelmann
Senior Manager
Deloitte Risk and Financial Advisory
Deloitte & Touche LLP
mkoppelmann@deloitte.com

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