WO2018061033A1

WO2018061033A1 - System for business process automation recommendations and a method thereof

Info

Publication number: WO2018061033A1
Application number: PCT/IN2017/050438
Authority: WO
Inventors: Adithya VASUDEVAMURTHY
Original assignee: Vasudevamurthy Adithya
Priority date: 2016-09-29
Filing date: 2017-09-29
Publication date: 2018-04-05

Abstract

The invention provides a system and method that relates to a technology consulting platform that is capable of collecting various inputs of a business, where the inputs may include Organizational data, Business Process data and Stakeholder data. The data may be collected through predetermined questions or through IoT devices. Based on the collected data, the Business Mobility Evaluation Module builds a technology execution plan, which involves identifying of business areas that need automation, comparing Real Mobility Index against Ideal Mobility Index of different companies and providing Business Process Automation Recommendations.

Description

System for Business Process Automation Recommendations and a Method thereof.

The invention generally relates to a technology consulting framework and more specifically, the invention talks about a system and method for providing Business Process Automation recommendations for different business are as based on data collection from multiple sources.

A business involves numerous processes connected with each other in order to deliver worthy products, services, goods, or information to its customers. These processes demand huge care and utmost human attention. The act of defining organizational processes and representing them in a predefined form is known as business process modelling. Once created, a business process model can be analyzed to achieve various improvements in an ongoing business. Some of the areas that are commonly analyzed using these business process models include reduction in cycle time, improving quality, customer engagement, reducing error probability etc.

The process of executing a business process design without human intervention can be summarized as Business Process Automation, where an organization can integrate different office applications, restructure labour resources, and redefine the overall workflow steps to achieve the desired outcome faster, easier and without errors.

Now the question is how we know what automation tools fit what business, which tools yield desired outcome for a specific business type and importantly what improvements can be expected by automating business using specific tools. There are various tools that concentrate on automation of specific business areas such as marketing, sales, finance etc. However, there is no known framework that analyzes the interactions between various stakeholders in a business to recommend business wide automation solutions. The existing systems do not fulfil comprehensive automation requirements of a business as they are more focused on automating the business system based on a pre-defined logic rather than understanding the specifications of the business and suggesting suitable automation tools. Therefore, there is a tremendous need of a system that can collect business related data and analyze the same for recommending automation tools for various business processes, all without human intervention.

Object of Invention

The object of the invention is to provide a system and method for providing business process automation recommendations including hardware and software related recommendations for different business areas based on machine learning, data collection and analytics.

Another object of the invention is to provide a system and a method that identifies present business state and notifies the fields that need to be automated.

The invention provides a system and method for imparting business process automation recommendations where the system comprises of a user device and a server in communication with said user device. The user device is configured with a user interface to collect atleast one input regarding atleast one business method. The server includes a user input receiving module configured to receive input from user device and a business mobility evaluation module configured to score each of said input using a weighted metrics. The system is configured to generate a real mobility index of the business method based on scoring of input and the real mobility index of the business method is compared with an ideal mobility index to generate delta.

Further, the business mobility evaluation module disposed within the server contains an input computation module to understand working of business method, a current status report generating module to generate delta report of business and a recommendation engine to generate atleast one business automation recommendation based on said delta. There is a communication module disposed within the server configured to communicate said business automation recommendation to said user device.

This invention is illustrated in the accompanying drawings, throughout which, like reference letters indicate corresponding parts in the various figures.

The embodiments herein will be better understood from the following description with reference to the drawings, in which:

Fig. 1 depicts/illustrates details of a network system that provides Business Process Automation Recommendations for different business areas based on multiple data inputs, in accordance with the present invention.

Fig. 2 shows a flowchart depicting/illustrating a method for providing Business Process Automation recommendations for different business areas based on the multiple inputs, in accordance with the present invention.

Fig. 3 depicts/illustrates details of a server, its components and related modules, in accordance with an embodiment of the invention.

The embodiments herein and the various features and advantageous details thereof are explained more fully with reference to the non-limiting embodiments that are illustrated in the accompanying drawings and / or detailed in the following description. Descriptions of well-known components and processing techniques are omitted so as to not unnecessarily obscure the embodiments herein. The examples used herein are intended merely to facilitate an understanding of ways in which the embodiments herein may be practiced and to further enable those of skill in the art to practice the embodiments herein. Accordingly, the examples should not be construed as limiting the scope of the embodiments herein.

The embodiments herein below provide a unique technology consulting framework that is capable of collecting various data inputs related to a specific business, where the data may include Organizational data, Business Process data and Stakeholder data. Collected data is sent to the technology consulting framework located at the server via communication network. The technology consulting framework computes a score based on a weighted matrix and builds a technology execution plan, which involves identifying of business areas that need automation and generates status report based on comparing obtained score against an ideal score and recommending automation tools via action reports and impact reports for a specific business. The framework further comprises of an analytics engine that is capable of continuous data collection to Analyze effect of recommended automation tools and recommend further automation or modification.

For the purposes of this description the term “Organizational data” shall mean to include products or services that the business relates to, human resource working in the company, size of the business, organizational hierarchy and structure, revenues, age of the company, business verticals, key management positions and other related information that broadly defines the organization and its business.

The term “Business Process Data” in the context of this description shall mean to include data on business functions such as

• In depth details of product or service offerings,

• Various business processes like accounts, finance, operations etc,

• Portal related data such as web site, web product, micro sites, online and cloud based interfaces,

• Public relations data including brand identity, positioning, philosophy, and media based recognition and propagation.

For the purposes of this description the term “Stakeholder data” shall mean to include data with respect to various internal and external stakeholders in the business including but not limited to employees, vendors, customers and community. The data may involve information pertaining to age, skill set, background, qualification, experience, financial and educational backgrounds, needs and requirements (wherever relevant) etc of these stakeholders.

Referring now to the drawings, where similar reference characters denote corresponding features consistently throughout the figures, there are shown preferred embodiments.

Fig. 1 depicts/illustrates details of a system 100 that provides Business Process Automation for different business areas based on the multiple inputs, in accordance with an embodiment of the invention. The working process of the system 100 starts by collecting various business related inputs, which is divided under organizational data 102, business process data 104 and stakeholder data 106. The information is collected through end user devices and this collected information is transferred to the server 110 with a database 112 through the network (not shown in the Fig).

.One skilled in the art may recognize that the network can be wired or wireless communication network. The wired communication can be carried out by any one of the network configuration such as LAN, WAN, etc and the wireless communication can be done through internet connection provided by an Internet Service Provider, 2G/3G/4G/5G internet connection provided by the mobile service provider etc. Such wired or wireless communication is not possible without the standard protocols as known in the art, where the standard protocols can be Bluetooth, TCP/IP, HTTP, FTP, UDP, IPV4, IPV6 etc.

One skilled in the art, may recognize that the user devices 108 can be a Personal Digital Assistant (PDA), laptop, hand-held device, mobile phone, smart phone, smart tablets, computer system.

Further, with respect to Fig.1, the user device 108 is provided with a user interface (not shown in the Fig) which is further provided with various fields to collect the organizational data 102, business process data 104 and stakeholder data 106.In one embodiment of the invention Organizational data 102 may cover fine details about the organization size (by which we mean number of workers in the organization); number of employees and employers; age of the organization; hierarchy; organization history (if any) and the like.

In one embodiment, Business Process data 104 may cover information regarding business mobility parameters of the company. These may include details about the product/service/offering; details on accounts, finance, operations and other process details; also, information related to branding, such as, brand positioning, identity, philosophy and recognition of the brand and inventory related information. Recognition of brands may further include activities and ideas of brand propagation over media such as digital and non digital platforms that increase the overall value and recall of the brand.

In one embodiment the stakeholder data 106 may include data or information pertaining to internal and external stakeholders including information on-

a. Employees: What’s their average age, qualification, skill set, background, roles and responsibilities, appraisals, contracts, SWOT, improvement plans, gap analysis etc.

b. Vendors: Background, sourcing capabilities, product/service quality, experience of the system, knowledge about the client, industry domain experience etc

c. Customers: Their need, requirements, financial and educational backgrounds, price elasticity and various other customer functions.

d. Community: The impact the offering (Product/Service) will have on the community, the future generations, carbon footprint, positive elements rebalance (includes giving back more than we consume of vital exhaustible resources like water, clean air, wood, leather and other elements), community sentiments etc.

In one embodiment, the data collected under the aforementioned categories may be gathered from a network of devices embedded with sensor electronics, software, and the like. This data is transferred to the user device 108 via network connectivity, in other words, the network of devices can also be called internet of things (ioT). Consider for an example, a surveillance camera embedded with suitable sensor and a communication module is designed to capture full day transactions of a jewellery shop and send the captured information to a smart device or a user device 108.Using the captured information multiple parameters can be calculated such as peak business time, average number of customers on weekdays and weekends and the like.

In an alternate embodiment, the organizational data 102, business process data 104 or stakeholder data 106 may also include other related information about any and all internal and external factors that affect the business organization in any way. Such information may be specific or unique to a business type and may not be generally related to other businesses.

The user device 108, which is provided with a user interface collects all the given data from the various sources and transfers it to the main server 110, where the analytics is carried out to generate recommendations on suitable automation tools. In one embodiment, the system may be configured to use system driven pro active communication including push notifications to collect data including but not limited to any data that may have been missed by the user.

The process of generating recommendations may be summarized under four basic steps according to Fig.2, which shows a flowchart depicting/illustrating a method 200 for providing business process automation recommendations for different business areas based on the multiple inputs, in accordance with an embodiment of the invention. At the server end, the multiple inputs from the user device are received 202 and the server scores/grades these inputs204.The server aligns the various inputs based on Organizational Data, Business Data, Stakeholder Data and other business specific categories. This alignment highlights the quality and efficacy of interaction between the four business mobility parameters i.e. Product, Process, Portal and Public Relations and the four key stakeholders i.e. Employees, Vendors, Customers and Community. These aligned inputs are scored individually 204. Further, the server utilizes a weighted metrics to obtain an overall/full score based on the individual score of all inputs 206. This weighted metrics may be configured to be adaptive and offer / change scores based on score given to other inputs. Once the full score is obtained this is referred to as the Real Mobility Index. This Real Mobility Index is compared against an Ideal Mobility Index 208, wherein the Ideal Mobility Index is a standard predefined mobility index value.

In one embodiment, the ideal mobility index is computed based on scores of other companies in the same domain or companies that are able to successfully implement Business Process Automation.

The difference between the Real Mobility Index and Ideal Mobility Index is referred to as delta. The server, based on these computations and the delta, provides Business Process Automation recommendations to the user 210. These recommendations may be in the form of written reports or graphs for better visual representation and understanding.

In one embodiment, the method 200 is further includes the step of gathering of data once the generated recommendations are adopted/implemented by the user in the said business method 212. Further, the server may be configured to continuously reanalyze the collected data upon implementation of some or all of the recommendations to monitor the effects of such implementation and may be configured to provide additional recommendations to reduce the delta further 214.

Further Fig. 3 depicts/illustrates details of a server, its components and related modules 300, in accordance with the present invention. The server 110 is embedded with technology consulting framework 310 which works on the basis of business mobility evaluation module 312. The user input receiving module 308 present in the server 110 revives the multiple inputs from the user device 108 via network. The input may be in the form of question and answers that is intelligently aligned by the business mobility evaluation module 312 or it may be in the form of automatically collected data from IoT based devices wherein the business mobility evaluation module 312 extracts relevant information from the data. Also, there the business mobility evaluation module 312 is embedded with a weighted metrics that offers different scores to different questions and/or inputs, the weight metrics is also adaptive and changes grade/score values based on the answers received for the previous questions. Further, the weighted metrics may also be based on macroeconomic condition and law of a particular land.

In an exemplary embodiment, consider stakeholder data which includes data of employees, vendors, customers and community. The user is asked to answer specific number of questions with regarding each stakeholder with respect to multiple fields of business process data. Let’s consider business process data under the fields of product/service offering, business processes (like accounts, finance, operations, etc), portal data. The business mobility evaluation module 312 works on a logic where each of the stakeholder’s data is intersected with each of the business process data field and specific set of questions are asked on each intersection, for example, specific questions are asked about intersection of employees and product/service offering. According to the logic, there are sixteen intersection points and specific set of questions are asked at each intersection. Once the input is taken from the questions, each of the input is scored by the weighted metrics. Next step includes generation of a real mobility index of the business process data based on the score of the business method. The real mobility index of the business process data is compared with an ideal mobility index to generate delta and business mobility evaluation module 312 recommends atleast one business automation recommendation based on said delta.

In one embodiment of the present invention, the business evaluation module 312 may be hosted in the user device 108.

Within the business evaluation module 312, the received input information is sent to a input computation module 314, which further has an identification module 316 and an analytics engine 318. In computation module 314, before scoring each input, the identification module 316 aligns all the input in a specific order to understand the working of whole business system. Based on the business understanding, the analytics engine 318 categorizes the fields which need to be automated. The categorization of fields that need to be automated is carried out based on analysis of data collected based on current quality of engagement of stakeholders with Business Mobility Parameters that indicates the present state of the business.

In one embodiment, the analytics engine is configured to continuously receive updated data based on the results of the initial automation recommendation to evaluate increase in performance and recommend changes or alternatives to reduce the delta further. This continuous data collection and analysis loop may be used to make the Business Mobility Evaluation Module 312 to continuously evolve and provide more streamlined recommendations.

Further, with respect to Fig.3, the current status report generating module 320 generates a Status Report indicating the current quality of engagement of stakeholders with Business Mobility Parameters that indicates the present state of the business. The status report covers parameters like the Stakeholder Engagement that describes how each stakeholder engages across the business processes, the Business Mobility Parameter Engagement that describes how a single Business Process Parameter impacts multiple stakeholders. The status report includes an overall score given to the present status of the business method. Using said status report a real mobility index is generated where, the Real Mobility Index talks about the actual score that a company of a given size and other parameters gets. Said real mobility index is then compared with an Ideal Mobility Index, which is explained as an ideal score that a company of a given size and other parameters should have. The comparison gives out a Delta report that shows the difference between the ideal and real index. Also, an Exceptions and Biases report are generated along with the delta report which shows the exceptions and biases that may alter the quality/ absoluteness of the output and its impact to business.

Furthermore, Business Mobility Evaluation Module 312 has a recommendation engine 322 which compares the Real Mobility Index of the status report with a database of companies having Ideal Mobility Index or in other words, the delta report is compared with the ideal companies and a set of suitable Business Process Automation recommendations including recommendations on tools, hardware, software etc. required by the business is generated. The recommendation can be split in two reports, an Action Report and an Impact Report. The action report suggests appropriate actions to be taken in the field of business software, hardware, SaaS, networks, business collaterals and the engine 322 will also indicate the positive impact of the framework on the business and how the business will become faster and leaner and more efficient and hence profitable/ scalable because of the business mobility evaluation software 312. The generated recommendation reports are now sent back to the user device using a communication module (not shown in the figure) disposed in the server 110.

The foregoing description of the specific embodiments will so fully reveal the general nature of the embodiments herein that others can, by applying current knowledge, readily modify and/or adapt for various applications such specific embodiments without departing from the generic concept, and, therefore, such adaptations and modifications should and are intended to be comprehended within the meaning and range of equivalents of the disclosed embodiments. It is to be understood that the phraseology or terminology employed herein is for the purpose of description and not of limitation. Therefore, while the embodiments herein have been described in terms of preferred embodiments, those skilled in the art will recognize that the embodiments herein can be practiced with modification within the spirit and scope of the embodiments as described herein.

Claims

1. A system for providing business process automation recommendations, said system comprising:
a user device configured with a user interface wherein said user device configured to collect atleast one input regarding atleast one business method;
a server in communication with said user device wherein said server includes:
a user input receiving module configured to receive said input from said user device;
a business mobility evaluation module configured to score each of said input using a weighted metrics;
an input computation module disposed within said business mobility evaluation module wherein said input computation module configured to understand working of said business method;
a current status report generating module disposed within said business mobility evaluation module wherein said current status report generating module configured to generate delta report of said business; and
a recommendation engine disposed within said business mobility evaluation module wherein said recommendation engine0020configured to generate atleast one business automation recommendation based on said delta; and
a communication module disposed within said server configured to communicate said business automation recommendation to said user device.

The system of claim 1 wherein said input is collected via question and answers.

The system of claim 1 wherein said input is collected via IoT devices that is in communication with said user device.

The system of claim 1 wherein said input is regarding organization data, business data, stakeholder data, etc.

The system of claim 1 wherein said business mobility evaluation module is disposed within a technology consulting platform.

The system of claim 1 wherein said business mobility evaluation module includes machine learning algorithm.

The system of claim 1 wherein said delta report is the difference between a real mobility index with an ideal mobility index.

The system of claim 7 wherein said real mobility index is generated based on a status report indicating actual score of said business method.

The system of claim 7 wherein said ideal mobility index is ideal score of said business method.

The system of claim 8 wherein said status report includes stakeholder engagement and business mobility parameter engagement.

The system of claim 1 wherein said business automation recommendation includes action report and impact report..

The method for providing business process automation recommendations, said method comprising:
collecting atleast one input regarding atleast one business method from a user device;
receiving said input regarding said business method by a server which is in communication with said user device;
scoring each of said input using a weighted metrics in said server;
generating a real mobility index of said business method based on said scoring of said input;
comparing said real mobility index with an ideal mobility index to generate delta;
generating atleast one business automation recommendation based on said delta; and
communicating said business automation recommendation to said user device.

The method of claim 12 wherein said input is collected via question and answers.

The method of claim 12 wherein said input is collected via IoT devices that is in communication with said user device.

The method of claim 12 wherein said input is regarding organization data, business data, stakeholder data, etc.

The method of claim 12 wherein said a real mobility index is generated based on a status report indicating actual score of said business method.

The method of claim 12 wherein said ideal mobility index is ideal score of said business method.

The method of claim 12 wherein said status report includes stakeholder engagement and business mobility parameter engagement.

The method of claim 12 wherein said business automation recommendation includes action report and impact report.