When AI technology was coined in the mid-1900s, hyperautomation was largely a blackwater term. Until now, this mechanism is roiling the status quo and is more widely seen and understood by many companies. Those days of operating singularly are over as more companies turn on their radar for myriad ways to improve their productivity.
Unlocking Growth
In today’s business environment, enterprises are constantly looking for new and efficient ways to navigate their services. From AI-enabled end-user automation to automated process discovery using data mining, automation has landed a new stage called hyperautomation involving orchestrated use of multiple technologies, tools, or platforms.
Hyperautomation commonly marries AI tools with Robotic Process Automation (RPA), providing end-to-end processes by harnessing the power of multiple technologies and constantly engendering the changes companies want to see in the future. Suffice to say, money has piled into this market with no signs of stopping.
Globally speaking, the hyperautomation market was valued at USD 4.78 billion in 2020, growing at a high CAGR of over 21.7% between 2021 and 2031. By 2031, the market is estimated to reach USD 46.4 billion. In Asia-Pacific region, China has unlocked tremendous growth and hold the dominate position by carving the largest share. Through the forecast period, the country’s hyperautomation market is expected to reach USD 1.29 billion at a CAGR of 26.3% by 2031.
As the global hyperautomation ecosystem is indispensable to the deployment of RPA technology, RPA learning and practice help companies in all walks of life to navigate better intelligent automation talent strategies. The homegrown Chinese RPA leader Laiye technology has recently closed its Series C Round Funding at USD 160 million to accelerate the global rollout of intelligent automation in April of this year. Other giants include UniPath, Cyclone, and Blue Prism who are all heading into this blue ocean. In China, companies, such as Shanghai ENCOO Technology and i-Search Software also adopt the RPA tools to formulate talent development strategies. Last year, the Shanghai-based ENCOO bagged Series B Round Funding worth up to USD 30 million led by Sequoia Capital China.
Not to speak in a hyperbolic way, incremental spending on digitalizing business operations is touted by companies who refuse to continue repetitive and manual processes of handling their services. On the other hand, hyperautomation, relying on process mining, AI, and RPA technologies, enables a wider scale of automated activities spanning critical functions from sales, and inventory, to supply chain management. With the latest technologies, such as Optical Character Recognition (OCR) and Natural Language Process (NLP), hyperautomation provides end-to-end solutions to achieve fully digital processes.
China-to-Global Market Goes Viral
One of the forerunners in deployment of hyperautomation technologies is INOSSEM (英诺森), a leading technology company originally established in China that supports organizations in their digital transformation.
Headquartered in Nanjing, Jiangsu, INOSSEM China was founded by a group of senior managers who used to work for reputable international firms, including Accenture, IBM, and PwC, in early 2015. By thinking outside of the box, the group came to an early realization to help small-and-medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) by providing hyperautomation solutions. Despite RPA technologies, the company also provides the Real-time EPR (Enterprise Resource Planning) suite solution for digital business that helps customers to design a transformation roadmap and other systems to create an all-in-one-box solution.
Bing Wu is the Senior Vice President of Global Operations at INOSSEM, followed by the company’s international expansion goal four years ago when the company landed its first international office in Montreal, Canada. The company quickly expanded to 100 employees with six office locations in North America. According to the company’s research, the global AI software market is expected to experience massive growth in the coming years. Specifically, its revenues will increase from USD 9.5 billion in 2018 to USD 1118.6 billion by 2025. As a company holding the most innovative digital business models, INNOSEM aims to embrace the changes innovation brings as a primary driving force to accelerate the digitalization to a global level.
“At first, half of our customers are, what we called, China-to-Global customers. They are mostly China-headquartered companies who want to expand globally while not only selling products internationally, but they are also setting up supply chains and manufacturing factories overseas,” explained Wu.
INOSSEM Global stands to force a much-needed reckoning in hyperautomation and provide SMEs with outright convenient digital solutions. The company has separated into three critical steps of packaging client needs, involving advisory consulting services, digital core implementation, and AI-driven innovations to solve any existing pain points. From the first step of providing tailor-ma-made advisory consulting services, the company conducts IT strategic planning to design a roadmap for companies, followed by step-to-step guidance how to achieve business goals.
“Small-and-medium-sized companies need reliable suppliers to provide all-in-one-box solutions, which means one system can cover their full operations, including finance, supply chain operations, sales inventory, and manage the whole process within one system. The same system allows them to integrate with third-party logistics providers or retailers,” indicated Wu.
To subsequently build a digital core, the company emphasizes the all-in-one interconnected solution penetrating from finance, supply chain, sales, and other inventory management. The final step is to utilize AI-oriented tools to solve pain points of individual clients in supply chain and logistics services, depending on their individual size and market value. For example, INOSSEM Global provides intelligent warehouse solutions for optimizing and digitalizing the whole operations by leveraging the PRA solutions and their own software asset called Business Process Automation (BPA).
“We are the major player in the China-to-Global market,” said Wu, “Not many companies provide end-to-end solutions while we have a long-term vision and take the result-oriented approach, which makes us stand in a very unique position.”
By placing the objectives in future development, Wu disclosed that the company has recently completed the Seed-Round financing led by Montreal-based venture AISCA Group on June 1.”From the economic objectives, we are planning to fundraise over CAD 50 million for our A round funding. After two rounds, we plan to be listed on the Toronto Stock Exchange and continue to expand globally,” explained Wu, “One of the main purposes for this funding is to enhance our R&D capability in our existing technologies.”
The Bottom Line
On its face, it is a springboard to applying hyperautomation technologies in business operations to enhance efficiencies. This once-blackwater term has enabled many companies to overcome bottlenecks in their services and help them upskill any related experience. The end results for many companies to adopt the combination of RPA technologies, AI, and other automation processes have spurred on the next evolution of global business, with Chinese companies standing out among others.
