This is the fourth article in our Back to Basics of Automation. In this article, the fourth step in building a business case for automation, we discuss common obstacles, risks and challenges businesses encounter with automation projects together with proactive mitigation measures to ensure automation success.  

• Common Obstacles, Risks & Challenges in Automation Projects
  • 1. Lack of Clear Objectives and Scope Creep
  • 2. Insufficient Buy-in from Stakeholders
  • 3. Gaps in Process Documentation and Poor Data Quality
  • 4. Technical Complexities
  • 5. Unrealistic Budgets and Timelines
  • 6. Challenges with Change Management
  • 7. Security and Compliance Risks
  • 8. Over-Reliance on Technology
  • 9. Difficulties in Scaling
• In Summary…

Despite the immense potential value automation delivers, automation projects also come with significant obstacles and risks. These challenges could delay or derail automation plans, if you do not build in measures to proactively manage and overcome them.  

This is why your business case for automation must include a section that addresses potential risks and challenges and how to manage and mitigate them. Make sure to address strategies to overcome challenges typically likely to be encountered during automation projects. Such proactive planning, supported with sufficient time and budgets to deal with these issues proactively will help you ensure the success of automation initiatives.

Here are eight common obstacles and challenges you may encounter, and how to effectively and proactively plan in order to successfully deal with them:

Define the outcomes you expect from automation

A common reason for failure of automation projects is the lack of clearly defined goals. If you don’t know where you are going, it doesn’t matter which route you take, to paraphrase what the Cheshire Cat said to Alice. 

Here are the common reasons why businesses look to automate.

Be clear and specific about what your business expects from any given automation project.   Different businesses expect different things, although many have the most common goals, as given in the above diagram. 

What is scope creep? 

Scope creep, which creeps in on you unawares, is a constant risk for any projects. When you are not laser focused on what you expect from an automation project, you can become a victim of scope creep. 

Scope creep is when new features and processes are added to the original plan mid-project. Unanticipated tasks and requests for new features will lead to loss of focus, undue delays and budget overruns. Scope creep results in over complicating projects, leading to failure.

Mitigation Measures

• Clearly articulate what you expect to achieve with automation. Are you seeking time savings, cost reduction, better productivity, more competitive processes or quality improvements? Read Back to Basics (Part 1) : Why Do Companies Automate Their Operations? In it, we have presented how to determine the value that automation can deliver to your business.
• Without well-articulated project goals, the business case for automation may not get the approval to go ahead. And if it gains approval, the implementers may lose focus and the project may end up in failure.
• Prioritise tasks and processes to automate. Aim to begin with easy and simple projects and processes that deliver more than proportionate benefits through automation. Read: Back to Basics Part 2 : How to Build an Effective Business Case for Automation.  In it we have set out a framework you can use for exploring automation opportunities and prioritising automation projects that would deliver success. 
• A phased approach to automation helps to avoid overextending employees’ time and business resources.
• Include clearly defined milestones and timelines for completion. 
• Beware of scope creep and take a proactive approach to avoid it.
• Monitor progress regularly and report updates to top management. You can also share progress with employees in inhouse bulletins, forums and newsletters. Frequent reporting to top management and others brings accountability into the mix. 

Stakeholders is a loaded word. It covers all the groups and individuals that have an interest in your company activities, or who can be affected by its operations and performance. 

Your stakeholders can be internal or external to the business. They include customers, employees, investors, suppliers, boards of directors, community organisations, and government entities.

Top internal stakeholders who will be interested in your automations are the top decision makers and the employees. If decision makers—including the Board of Directors, CEO and the C-Suite, including the CFO and heads of departments reporting to them—are not convinced about an automation project, you may not get the financial and the moral support and encouragement to go through with a project. 

What about other functions and departments that are affected by the automation initiatives? What about your team members and those in other divisions and departments who will need to pitch in to ensure things work out? Without the support of the heads of functions, their teams and your team, you cannot implement your automation project. 

Resistance from employees is absolutely to be expected

Most people do not like change. They may resist change due to fears of job loss or due to not wanting the increased workloads during automation. Putting in place good measures to manage the change during automation is key to ensure you can see a project through to completion.  

For external stakeholders, including shareholders and others, you will need to develop a communications strategy explaining why it makes business sense. Some automation projects will have an impact on your customers and suppliers and they too need to be informed how they are likely to be affected and the benefits for them.

Writing up a well thought-out business case for automation, covering needs of various stakeholders and communication plans for stakeholder engagement for each group, especially customers and employees, will help smoothen the path for automation projects. 

Mitigation Measures

• Stakeholder engagement is not just a management tool. It is an essential element for ensuring the success of any business initiative, including automation. Make sure to engage all internal stakeholders early. 
• Build in the details including the value automation brings into your business, financial and other metrics, and how you plan to mitigate risks and overcome challenges to automation, into your business case. These are critical for securing the backing and financial support (budgets) for automation.
• Communicate the value of each automation process clearly, in both quantitative and qualitative terms. Different stakeholders will require different formats. 
• An example of how to present your idea: Automation not only improves reporting cycle times, but also helps free up employees for higher value tasks. Automation can help employees work on additional, career building skills and contributing to and learning about areas in their department that they previously had no time to work on, due to excessive pressure of manual duties. This will help improve engagement, motivation and retention. Automated processes will help recruit highly skilled new recruits and improve the quality of work for current employees, etc. 
• More points on effective change management are listed under the Challenges with Change Management heading below. 

Well-defined processes and accurate, clean data are prerequisites for automation. 

In some businesses, existing processes aren’t properly documented, have inconsistencies, or are overly complex. Data may be inaccurate or incomplete, with a hodge-podge of data sources, which may or may not be reliable. There could be data mismatches between different internal sources. 

If this resonates with how things are in your business, you need to rectify matters before you begin automation or digital transformation projects. Otherwise, your automation projects will be delayed until automation teams map workflows or clean up the data. This creates time and financial budget overruns and undermines the effectiveness of your automation efforts.  

Mitigation Measures

• Before embarking on automation, make an investment in process mapping and ensuring data quality. High quality data is complete, consistent and structured.
• If some processes have poorly documented workflows or are riddled with poor data quality, you are better off picking another area to automate as your initial project. 
• If you wish to still go ahead, build in realistic timelines and adequate budgets to complete the preliminary work before real automation work can begin. Make the situation very clear with all stakeholders, including your leadership and employees. Realistic expectations are necessary to ensure your automation successes are not undermined later.  
• Since most businesses see the need for digital transformation, it is a good idea to get all your processes mapped and data sources cleared in preparation for future automations and for digital transformation initiatives. 

Many automation projects will require integrating multiple systems and adapting existing legacy infrastructure. Your business may also need to invest money and effort for advanced technologies and to adopt tools like artificial intelligence (AI) and robotic process automation (RPA). Some projects face technical challenges including platform incompatibilities, insufficient IT infrastructure and the lack of inhouse expertise. 

Sorting out these issues can cause significant delays. Recruiting staff with the necessary expertise or training current employees can take time, or prove to be beyond the allocated budget. Outsourcing those roles is a solution, but that can come with different challenges, including those on data security.  

Mitigation Measures

• Conduct a technical feasibility study before setting out on an automation project. Make sure to involve experienced IT professionals who are familiar with process automation projects. 
• Consider leveraging scalable and modular technologies. They can help minimise complexity of project implementation and shorten project timelines..  
• This stage, where you are looking at automating business processes, is also a good time to explore how you can benefit from cloud based technologies and platforms. 

Grossly underestimating the time and costs involved is a common challenge to automation projects. Automation projects involving complex workflows or using advanced technology capabilities like AI and machine learning (ML) typically require longer timelines to implement, including testing. This is because there could be unexpected challenges, need for debugging, and retraining algorithms, all of which can delay deployment. 

Failure to understand these limitations and not making sufficient allowances for additional time and resulting costs can lead to unrealistic timelines and inadequate budgeting. 

Mitigation Measures

• Make realistic project plans with a buffer time built in to deal with unforeseen issues.
• Have a contingent budget element built into the project budget.  
• Opt for automation solutions providers that have experience with companies or industries similar to yours. Don’t just go with testimonials on their websites. Talk to companies and individuals that they name as references when sending their proposals. Poor vetting of suppliers can give you a world of pain in implementation. 
• Have specific project owners and deputies for each separate automation project. They must be accountable for pushing the project through, and for time and cost budgets. 
• Clearly build in agreed budgets and timelines with adequate buffers into your agreements and contracts. 
• Regularly review timelines and milestone-bound budgets to ensure alignment with actual progress.
• Be proactive. Take prompt action by inquiring into missed timelines and budget overruns and take corrective action. 
• Including frequent periodic reporting to top management as part of the project plans, is a good way to assure accountability. 

In general, employees look upon automation projects as ways to cut jobs and costs. This is because it has happened in so many companies in the past. This is unfortunate, but a reality in all automations. Inadequate preparation for change management can create immense challenges to automation projects. 

Automations call on employees to learn news skills and to adopt new tools. They need to get used to new workflows or  processes and new ways of working. Resistance to change is a normal human reaction. Unclear communications about the goals of automation and how it affects employees can make things worse and can delay adoption of new technologies and systems. 

Insufficient training can result in underutilisation of the newly automated systems, undermining the ROI on automation, making them failed projects. 

Mitigation Measures

• Make adequate provisions for all aspects of change management, in your business case for automation, with sufficient time and budgets. 
• Before beginning automation projects, put together a communications plan to address all change management aspects of automation. It must clearly explain automation goals and the change management plan. Address the impact of upcoming changes on employees, redeployment of those affected and training for skill upgrading needed for using newly automated systems, workflows and processes. 
• Develop a comprehensive change management plan that includes clear communication of benefits, training and ongoing support for all employees impacted by automation.
• Everyone from the CEO to the division heads and team heads need to be on the same page, in how they discuss the imminent and ongoing changes. Address the benefits to company, divisions, teams and individuals often, and whenever the need arises. 
• Spend time to listen to employee and team concerns. Maintain an open door policy to make it easy to discuss issues and concerns. Have a suggestion box for those who may be unwilling to speak openly in groups or one-to-one with team leaders and others. 
• Pay close attention to issues and concerns raised by employees, team leaders and unions. Address issues that are raised, openly and honestly. 
• Honesty and clear knowledge of changes will help reduce resistance to change and help build trust. Experience with many change management projects shows that suspicion and lack of clear communications can delay and even derail projects. 
• When inefficient processes and workflows are streamlined, get inputs for the best solutions from employees who work on them. They are the experts on what can help make things faster, easier, less frustrating and more efficient. Incorporating their suggestions and solutions into the streamlined new system will build a sense of ownership, and help reduce resistance. 
• Encourage staff inputs, especially from those who will have to deal with changed systems. Get teams of enthusiastic employees to work on revamped processes and workflows. Help them upgrade their technical skills to help manage the new, streamlined systems. This helps increase the sense of ownership and is a clear step towards career development. 

Security and compliance risks are an inherent challenge present in all automations. Automated systems handle sensitive data and are part of critical workflows. Poorly implemented automations introduce vulnerabilities into systems that can lead to data breaches and compliance violations. These risks are especially high in industries with stringent regulations, including healthcare, legal services and finance.

Mitigation Measures

• Prioritise security as a key requirement in automation projects. Place emphasis on this in all stages, from requests for proposals, evaluation of suppliers and software solutions, to the design phase and implementation. 
• Be  clear that all new software, services, platforms and integrations must comply with industry standard security specifications and compliance with relevant regulations and be tested for the same. 
• Put in place controls to regularly audit the automated systems for vulnerabilities. 
• Company Policy on data security and compliance must spell out measures and best practices in data protection and security. If you do not have a Policy on Data Security and Compliance (or as a section in contingency plans), it is time to write one. 
• More mitigation measures are mentioned under the next point on Over-Reliance on Technology.  

Automation tools, while useful and necessary, may not always be foolproof. Thinking they are infallible is a big mistake. Their performance depends on accurate initial configurations and the integrity of ongoing maintenance. Depending on the systems that are automated, placing an excessive reliance on automation technology without providing sufficient human oversight can expose your business to various types of risk. 

For example, they may lead to errors being propagated across the entire system. They may also lead to critical failures in business and system operations in the case of system breaks down. Inadequate human oversight can lead to data breaches and system attacks that do immense damage to your data, with data breaches and business disruptions, causing immense damage to your brand reputation and business continuity. 

Most businesses recognise these risks. As a result, there is a big talent shortage of cybersecurity professionals across the globe. Finding qualified people may also be an issue for small and medium enterprises. This is all the more reason to vet automation solutions and service providers with extreme care.

Mitigation Measures

• Ensure human oversight over all automated systems and processes. This does not mean that the automated control measures become obsolete. They are extremely useful for monitoring the slightest issues as they develop in real-time. However, they need to be supplemented by human oversight on a regular basis. The frequency depends on the criticality of the system involved.  
• Build in a continuous feedback loop that monitors and optimises the automated processes. 
• Put together contingency plans for all automated systems. Contingencies are potentially negative events that may occur in the future. Examples are economic recessions, natural disasters, fraudulent activity and large scale technology failures. 
• Plan for contingencies by analysing needs and implementing protective measures. Each automation business case must address these issues clearly spelt out measures. 
• Contingency plans for automated systems need to address:

  
  

  • System failure and downtime management
  • Data loss and recovery
  • Security breaches
  • Software and hardware malfunctions
  • Scalability and demand surges
• Create a robust contingency plan for each automated system. It should cover potential failures, address hardware and software malfunctions, ensure data security and recovery, while accounting for scalability requirements. 
• Spell out specific actions that will help get the systems back on with minimum system downtime to ensure business continuity. 
• Specific individuals (by designation), preferably more than one person, should be assigned responsibility for taking prompt recovery actions, when necessary. 
• There must be measures to protect critical resources during disruptions

It is quite common for organisations to successfully automate one division or process but end up struggling to scale up automation across the enterprise. This is a common challenge when there are fragmented or siloed systems that lack interoperability. It may also occur due to allocating insufficient resources for implementing large-scale deployments.

Mitigation Measures

• Do not automate your systems for the status quo. In infrastructure planning, bridges typically have a design lifespan of 50 to 100 years. Plans take into consideration demographics, future traffic volumes, technological changes and environmental conditions. Similarly, look at potential business growth and settle on an appropriate level of scaling you need. Doing so will help save money over the long term because your systems are able to keep up with higher volumes of transactions, locations and employee numbers. 
• Many companies that have invested in legacy software will find that they cannot be scaled up beyond a certain point. Assess legacy software and infrastructure for such limitations. 
• If you are planning to scale up to last up to, say five to ten years, but indications are that your current critical software will need to be upgraded in a couple of years (due to scaling limitations), consider whether it should be phased out now, and whether it makes sense to invest in new automation solutions right now. Will saving some money now make things more expensive down the line? Such decisions need to be taken with extreme care and rational calculations. 
• Select scalable technologies and platforms. They can help you to take a phased approach to automation so you can scale up gradually with the benefit of learning  from many smaller implementations.
• Consider selecting modular, cloud based automation solutions. They often come with monthly or discounted annual subscriptions. Such solutions can help you spread some of your automation project cash flows over a period of time, compared to the high outfront investments required for purchasing legacy systems and automation solutions.  

Useful Resources You Should Check Out

Read the previous articles in the Back to Basics of Automation series:

• Back to Basics Part 1: Why Do Companies Automate Their Operations?
• Back to Basics Part 2: Exploring and Prioritising Automation Opportunities
• Back to Basics Part 3: How to Apply Metrics to Automation Projects

Automation projects are often delayed or derailed due to unclear objectives, technical challenges, people’s resistance to change, and poor planning. These often lead to time and budget overruns. 

To overcome these challenges, invest in proper planning, taking stakeholder engagement and change management seriously. It is necessary to ensure the technical feasibility of proposed automation solutions, set realistic expectations, and build in flexibility to deal with unforeseen challenges. Take a proactive stance for addressing obstacles to reap the full potential benefits of effective automations.