This article first appeared in Digital Edge, The Edge Malaysia Weekly on September 12, 2022 - September 18, 2022

The last two years have been nothing short of a never-ending storm of challenges. The pandemic set off a chain of events that forced companies to navigate a world of constant disruption, compelling businesses to change the way they operate.

One major shift is where and how employees work. In many organisations, employees are no longer tied to a physical desk or office.

While it is true the initial mandate to work from home was seen as a temporary solution, the positive results have opened the eyes of business leaders to the benefits of a remote workforce. Cost savings in office space, improved productivity, and better employee satisfaction in many cases have given remote and hybrid work real staying power.

But a borderless organisation has its own set of concerns that can quickly turn a sunny day into a dark and stormy one. A distributed workforce needs access to seamless technology from any device and location. But it has to be cost-effective, and secure.

Then, there is all the data that needs to be managed. There is a tonne of value in it for businesses, especially when artificial intelligence (AI) is applied to improve workflows. But how do you ensure you can unlock it and gain valuable insight while still meeting compliance requirements in disparate regions?

In an effort to battle these harsh conditions, most organisations have accelerated their digital transformation journey. A big piece of this puzzle is the cloud, which has quickly been upgraded from a nice-to-have to a need-to-have. The cloud keeps remote and hybrid workers connected and productive — but also improves security and compliance. It is everything businesses need to weather the storm. Cloud-based automation, in particular, is helping companies become resilient and agile, regardless of the forecast.

We have already mentioned the biggest challenges to managing a distributed workforce — a seamless experience, document security, data management and compliance. When you add in conditions like staffing shortages and supply chain issues, the forecast looks even bleaker.

A closer look at specific workflows within a typical organisation demonstrates just how hard it is to build a resilient and agile organisation when everything is so dispersed.

Invoice processing, for instance, becomes increasingly complex if your accounts payable (AP) team is scattered around the country (or world). Working with paper invoices no longer makes sense, but just digitising the intake, classification, review and processing of invoices is only half the answer.

That is why a traditional automation platform is not enough. It may keep you dry for a while, but it will not provide lasting protection against the elements. Traditional platforms require expensive on-premise servers and hosting solutions that take time (and money) to design and deploy. They also need regular updates from your IT team. As your organisation grows, so must the number of servers you house.

Print management is another example that is trickier to address with a hybrid or remote workforce. In calmer days, IT teams used to manage fleets of multifunction devices (MFDs) housed in the traditional office building. Employees were automatically connected to a secure server, and there was total control and visibility into who was printing to which printer. Now, the “office” can be anywhere.

It has to be easy for workers to find the right printer, so someone in Singapore does not accidentally print an item in Spain. More importantly, the information being printed must be kept secure, especially if you need to comply with specific regulations like HIPAA (Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act) in the US, which provides data privacy and security provisions for safeguarding medical information.

Your IT team may also be short-staffed, making it hard to stay on top of these demands. Organisations need a print management solution that can provide compliance, security and ease of use so employees remain productive. And do not forget it has to be cost-effective too.

How can you ensure you do not get caught out in the storm without so much as an umbrella to keep you dry? The answer is to look beyond the storm clouds to a different kind of cloud — cloud-based automation.

The majority of organisations believe in the power of digital transformation and automation as an effective way to deal with the unpredictable and challenging conditions in today’s business world.

Business leaders in Asia-Pacific (Apac) in particular know the status quo just will not cut it anymore. In fact, 92% of those surveyed said automating business workflows post-Covid will ensure business continuity, according to the 2022 Kofax Intelligent Automation Benchmark Study.

Almost just as many (90%) believe digitally transformed companies have a competitive advantage.

When asked what is motivating them to automate and digitise, the top responses among Apac business leaders were:

• Optimising customer acquisition and retention (94%);

• Running business operations (93%);

• Maximising IT investments (93%);

• Enhancing employee productivity and satisfaction (83%); and

• Ensuring compliance, data management and security (80%).

It is clear from this list that stormy conditions like staffing shortages, supply chain issues and having to manage a distributed workforce are playing a big role in the shift to automation. Businesses cannot afford to lose customers or employees, but they also need to keep their sights on becoming agile, so they can respond quickly to the next disruption. Security and compliance must remain high on the priority list as well.

Automation and digital transformation can help accomplish all of these goals. But it is not always sunny and calm on day one. According to the Apac business leaders surveyed, the most common obstacles to automating high-value workflows were:

• Manual processes (93%);

• Fragmented systems (93%);

• Poor data insight (91%); and

• Data security (75%).

Organisations looking for a faster path to fair weather are turning to a cloud-based intelligent automation platform. A platform approach enables organisations to take advantage of a comprehensive suite of automation technologies like document intelligence, process orchestration and connected systems so it is easy to adapt to changing needs and market conditions.

A cloud-based solution provides additional protection from the elements with four key advantages:

• Speed and cost savings: Design and deployment are exponentially faster than an on-premise solution, saving valuable IT resources and delivering a lower total cost of ownership.

• Automatic updates: Software updates are taken care of automatically and seamlessly. You can be confident that you always have the latest version.

• Access from anywhere: A cloud system supports your workers, no matter where they are. All they need is a web browser. Software-as-a-solution services also keep your customers, partners, vendors and suppliers easily connected without having to be in your physical building.

• Scalability: Cloud-based automation scales easily as your organisation grows since it is not housed on-premises.

Looking back at our invoice automation example from earlier, a cloud-based approach enables organisations to support AP team members no matter where they are working from, ensuring invoices are processed quickly and accurately.

A cloud platform equipped with AI technology can analyse, classify and extract structured and unstructured invoice data, regardless of layout. Pre-packaged connectors and application programming interfaces (APIs) to business-critical systems break down information silos, and the ability to track and manage key performance indicators and service level agreements, or SLAs, provide valuable insight that helps the company make rapid, smart business decisions.

Print management also benefits from the cloud. Automatic discovery of print networks and intelligent print driver selection make printing simple and efficient for remote and hybrid workers. A seamless unified experience makes it easy for all employees to print from anywhere, while secure release and print later technology ensures confidential documents are not left lying around in a print tray. A secure multi-tenant cloud platform, encryption, endpoint authenticity validation and an audit trail further improve security and compliance.

The forecast in the post-pandemic world is extremely unpredictable. One thing organisations can count on, however, is the protection of cloud-based automation.

From supporting a hybrid workforce to security and compliance, a cloud solution provides the scalability, cost savings, speed and access required to weather the storms of disruption. Do not get caught unprepared when the next storm hits. Future (and storm)-proof your business with cloud-based automation.

Irene Hwa is senior director of field marketing, Asia-Pacific and Japan at Kofax, a California-headquartered intelligent automation software provider

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