Confessions of Automation Leaders

These quick-to-read case studies all stand out for their innovative approaches to getting associates to rally around the Citizen Development cause:

 Fujitec CO LTD. 

• Who They are: One of the world’s biggest players in the “E&E” game – they manufacture, install, and maintain elevators and escalators with more than 10,000 employees in Japan.

• The Challenge: Before even implementing an automated digital workforce, they were drawn to the Automation Anywhere Citizen Development Program. They could easily see the many benefits it offered their own users to develop and scale automations themselves. But they needed to promote the idea and get people on board.

• The Solution: Fujitec created an internal support system with online and video training accessible to anyone interested in automation development and deployment. The CoE members periodically published a “Developer’s Champion” booklet to recognize the number of digital co-workers developed and light a friendly, competitive fire beneath developers.

• The Impact: 100 automations have saved 7,500 hours annually, and 90% of the digital workforce has been created by Citizen Developers.

 Sumitomo Rubber Industries 

• Who They Are: The 5th largest tire company in the world, manufacturing automobile and motorcycle tires, sports equipment, and industrial rubber products.

• The Challenge: Employees were impeded with routine tasks and unable to shift their focus on more important business innovation. An automated digital workforce had been introduced, but after nine months, less than 50 automations were being leveraged to offload menial tasks and development was limited to the CoE.

• The Solution: Together with Automation Anywhere, the Sumitomo Rubber CoE instituted a top-down approach to invigorate a Citizen Development Program. Monthly training sessions were conducted on- and offline. They also created an annual internal event known as “RPA Meets,” which brought developers together to share case studies, gain hands-on development experience, attend lectures and win awards.

• The Impact: All of this effort amounted to 80 departments utilizing automation and 200 automations saving 41,000 hours annually. Employees reported increased accuracy of work and the ability to tackle new tasks, which is exactly what Sumitomo Rubber set out to accomplish.

 Semiconductor Supplier with Annual Revenue exceeding $73 Billion 

• Who They Are: A semiconductor supplier widely known as top-tier in their class.

• The Challenge: This organization wanted to bulk up their automation from back office to front of house. To do it, they needed to internalize their automation development capabilities and position their digital workforce as a key enabler for business innovation and growth.

• The Solution: Automation Anywhere developed a structured citizen developer program with a centralized CoE within the company. The program offered:

  • A Citizen Developer Portal

  • Online and live training opportunities

  • A one-on-one buddy program for the most advanced “Power User” developers.

• The Impact: This program accelerated the company’s digital innovation and was integrated as part of their Career Development Program with additional incentives for employees.

 Humana 

• Who They Are: A national leader in healthcare and overall well-being, boasting a $77 billion annual revenue and employing over 50,000 workers.

• The Challenge: Over the past 17 years, Humana was using home grown tools for automation, which time and time again proved difficult for their business users. As a company, their goal was to realize cost savings through improved customer experience and overall work quality. This goal would ultimately be achieved by scaling automation to reduce errors, which meant they needed to reimagine their resources to train Citizen Developers.

• The Solution: Humana first launched an internal communication strategy to encourage digital transformation and to achieve buy-in from leaders in each business unit. With interests piqued across multiple departments, Humana then came together with Automation Anywhere to onboard new Citizen Developers and leverage both instructor-led and web-based trainings from Automation Anywhere University. SMEs and CoE members focused on specifically developing bots for use cases within 8 weeks.

• The Impact: After the first 6 months, they saw proof of concept in the Clinical - Health Care Services division with 34 automations saving $8 for every $1 spent. From there, Citizen Developers scaled from 4 to 46 and expanded their digital workforce across 8 business units and 96 automations. In doing it, they realized their ultimate goal of better patient experience and reduced errors.

Harness these real-world examples of how to maximize talent across your enterprise as you scale.

 Softbank Corp. 

• Who They Are: Softbank is one of the largest telecom companies in Japan, with business interests spanning beyond telecom in Yahoo Japan, Zozo, and more.

• The Challenge: The company’s President set a lofty goal of reducing 4,000 FTE by the end of 2020. However, as a new client of Automation Anywhere, they lacked internal knowledge and resources to create a digital workforce and scale automation.

• The Solution: Softbank rolled out a holistic program with Automation Anywhere. First, they initiated product training and eventually internalized the training program within the CoE. Additional big breakthroughs included:

  • A “Teach Me Automation Anywhere” program to train Citizen Developers

  • Including external developers to further invigorate automation development

  • A CoE governance playbook customized just for Softbank

• The Impact: These efforts helped Softbank surpass their goal of a reduction of 4,000 FTE. 200 trainees became Citizen Developers and together with external hires they created nearly 1,000 automations.

 GM Financial 

• Who They Are: A global provider of auto finance solutions and an Automation Anywhere client since 2019.

• The Challenge: With a global CoE serving 8 countries and more than 9,000 employees, GM Financial needed the ability to automate manual, repetitive tasks and the agility to scale resources based on business needs across several departments.

• The Solution: GM launched a Citizen Developer program that initially trained 50 developers and built 9 automations. This pilot success triggered a pipeline process that resulted in a Bot-a-Thon and more than 200 automation ideas valued at an excess of $50,000.

• The Impact: In total, GM nurtured over 50 Citizen Developers and 21 automated processes that processed 3,000,000 transactions and saved over 57,000 manual labor hours.

 The World’s Top Tier Semiconductor Supplier 

• Who They Are: A leader in the design and fabrication of semiconductors and semiconductor devices.

• The Challenge: This organization was evaluating the possibility of global expansion. In order to have the operational confidence to do it, the company needed to strengthen its digital workforce capabilities from development through governance. This meant training up a horde of internal Citizen Developers.

• The Solution: The company partnered with Automation Anywhere to construct a robust Citizen Developer Training Program. They were able to launch a comprehensive Citizen Developer portal that offered an equipped management structure supporting more than 50 trainers. In addition, they developed:

  • Online and offline training opportunities

  • Online, self-study assets in both English and Chinese

  • Classes in 3 tier levels

• The impact: Their new force of Citizen Developers were responsible for more than 70% of new automations created in 2021, saving the company costs in manufacturing, technology, packaging and transport. Most importantly, this affirmed their operational stability for global expansion.

 Dell Technologies 

• Who They Are: An industry-leading technology company helping to transform people’s lives with extraordinary capabilities.

• The Challenge: Dell Technologies was facing extremely high volumes of manual work. Although Dell had a global CoE with more than 65 employees overseeing 90 countries, its human resources to develop automations were limited.

• The Solution: Dell set up a federated CoE and automation maturity model to gradually build their capabilities and apply automations to 50 business units. They also trained more than 200 Citizen Developers and compiled playbooks to support the developers across multiple business areas.

• The Impact: To date, these efforts have saved Dell more than 2 million hours and $50 million.

 Food Packing + Chemical and Pharmaceutical Development Company 

• Who They Are: A company on the forefront of innovation, with business in packing, food, and chemical and pharmaceutical development, and an impressive annual revenue just shy of $2.5 billion,

• The Challenge: The organization wanted to seize the benefits of automation and maximize the potential of a digital workforce through internal Citizen Developers and automation self-operation.

• The Solution: Automation Anywhere developed a structured Citizen Developer Training Program that initially enabled 260 employees to participate. It offered in-person learning, as well as study groups. An enterprise-level conference featuring a bot competition was organized with the complete C-suite in attendance.

• The Impact: The company now has 11 trainers and 3 departments directly operating a digital workforce, and one department achieved a thousand-hour savings.

 Coca-Cola Bottlers Japan, Inc. 

• Who They Are: The 3rd largest Coca-Cola bottler corporation by revenue is Coca-Cola Bottlers Japan, serving more than 740,000 vending machines in the country.

• The Challenge: The CoE was working on A360 migration and infrastructure, but had limited resources available. Additionally, employees had little time or motivation to automate.

• The Solution: The President and CIO released a strong top-down message with a goal to train 2,000 Citizen Developers and to create 200 digital co-workers. CoE members acquired the skills necessary to become trainers and evolved an internal e-learning program for Citizen Developers.

• The Impact: More than 150 automation opportunities were captured in one year and the company was on track to automate close to 20,000 annual hours by the end of the same year. Additionally, they plan to level up 50 developers to trainers so they can continue to push the automation momentum forward.

 Nissha Co., LTD 

• Who They Are: Nissha is a global company with 66 group companies and over 5,000 employees creating products and services with core technologies such as printing, coating, molding, and metal processing.

• The Challenge: A digital workforce was introduced to increase ROI, however, not enough automations were introduced in the first 6 months to move the needle. The CIO acknowledged that automation deployment by the CoE alone was severely limited, and Citizen Developers would be necessary to increase automation creation.

• The Solution: Automation Anywhere tailored training content in the for members of Nissha’s CoE to meet the specific needs of the company. Since then, the CoE started hosting customized training sessions every quarter and has trained more than 250 Citizen Developers in 3 years.

• The Impact: The equivalent of more than 5% of the total Nissha workforce is now trained. These developers have deployed 700 automations, saving 45,000 valuable hours.

 Nidec Corp. 

• Who They Are: “Everything that spins and moves” is the business of Nidec Corporation, the world’s foremost comprehensive motor manufacturer associated with nearly 300 companies worldwide.

• The Challenge: The CEO set a goal to increase salaries 30% by bolstering Nidec’s operational efficiency 50% through automation. This was an attempt to save 80,000 hours per year over the course of 3 years.

• The Solution: A digital workforce was deployed for 6 months in only a few departments charged with evaluating its efficacy. Automation Anywhere delivered thorough product information to the CoE, conducted hands-on training, and created a Bot-a-Thon, to increase the number of Citizen Developers.

• The Impact: Now, the CoE leads internal training for Citizen Developer development. Nidec is halfway to their efficiency goal with more than 400 automations currently saving 40,000 hours annually. Several of their subsidiaries have adopted or are considering adopting Automation Anywhere’s Citizen Developer model as well.