Mediaboss Marketing

A new partnership between IBM and Automation Anywhere, announced via press release on Thursday, will offer integrations of the two companies' technologies to more effectively automate data-intensive business processes.

Automation Anywhere uses its Robotic Process Automation (RPA) platform to create specific software bots that handle repetitive work tasks. That platform will be integrated with automation software from IBM, such as the IBM Business Process Manager and Operational Decision Manager, to provide a more broad approach to automation, the release said.

Essentially, businesses that are managing certain business processes through IBM software will be able to create bots to streamline those processes with Automation Anywhere's RPA platform, the release said. The joint effort will be available to business systems running on-premises or in the cloud.

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By automating and improving business processes, the pair aims to "free employees to focus their time on more creative and customer-facing aspects of their jobs," the release said. This fits the trend of other companies looking to AI to complement employee work, not necessarily replace it.

Industries like banking, financial services, and insurance, which typically require manual tasks for many processes, stand to benefit from the partnership, the release said. This is especially true when the processes are data-intensive as well.

"The ability to smartly process and manage data is fast-becoming a competitive advantage," Denis Kennelly, general manager of IBM Hybrid Cloud solutions, said in the release. "The combination of the Automation Anywhere and IBM process management platforms provides a powerful new way for companies to streamline business processes so employees can spend less time filling out forms and more time working with customers."

For example, a bank employee could use a bot to make it easier to process new loans or open new accounts, the press release noted. The bot could find and capture the necessary data from other documents and bring it into the required forms.

Insurance provider The Hanover Insurance Group uses bots available through the partnership to more efficiently handle some of its back-office processes. In addition to speeding their completion of the tasks, Ian Maher, vice president of strategic sourcing at The Hanover Group, said in the release that it "could be a starting point for adding more advanced cognitive capabilities into our business processes."

Image: iStockphoto/monsitj

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IBM, Automation Anywhere partner on software bot solution to replace manual tasks - TechRepublic