Automators express the same challenge to me over and over—the hardest thing about running an automation program is proving the value of automations when the metrics at your disposal are simple and generic. Reporting to a management group that views cost savings as the only legitimate way to capture automation value is a common roadblock to expanding your use cases. As a former member of the CoE at PNC Bank, I know first-hand the difficulties of advocating for opportunities that would enable employees and improve morale but not necessarily directly generate revenue. More often than not, if it didn’t promise direct benefits like cost savings, cost avoidance, revenue generation, or cash flow, it would not be approved. As Automators, we must chip away at the mindset of “If we’re not saving money, what’s the point?” Because many times, there absolutely is a point!
Now, as a member of the Automation Anywhere team focusing on evangelism and content strategy, I get excited to help people facing this conundrum with their value proposition story. I understand how hard it is to quantify better customer experience and translate that to an “x” amount of dollars. But guess what? You can tell that story with the AIM framework. Let’s explore how to increase impact and ideas from more people in your organization by leveraging the AIM framework to convey your metrics story appropriately.
Growing Your Automation Vision
Having opportunities to advocate for in the first place begins with garnering a pipeline of ideas from people in your organization. This is an initiative you should be prioritizing once your program has matured from the Start to the Accelerate phase. Creating channels to inspire the “art of the possible” that allow you to expand your reach is essential. Here are some tips to accomplish that:
- Make sure people know your funnel exists and are empowered to help fill it.
- Host demonstrations, POCs, and lunch and learns to encourage creativity and ideation.
- Create paths for all employees to get involved with automation.
- Embrace the 4 Cs: Consumers, Contributors, Creators, and Champions.
- Cultivate a community of practice.
What is the AIM framework?
AIM stands for Automation Impact Measurement. It’s the method by which you can quantify the multidimensional benefits of your automations and program by considering all financial, operational, and organizational potential of an opportunity. The framework orients metrics on a sliding scale from direct to indirect benefits, with a section that acts as a template to call out key categories like revenue generation and cash flow and even allows you to denote often overlooked categories like environmental and social impact. You don’t necessarily need to populate every box, which is the beauty of this template—you can leverage it to speak the categories and KPIs that will resonate with your stakeholders the most. You may have C-suite leaders whose gaze will narrow on the direct benefits like cost savings and revenue generation, but also have HR leaders who will value outcomes in employee experience.
A real example of the AIM framework in action
At PNC Bank, we wanted to pursue an automation opportunity that would improve employee experience. Knowing that key stakeholders would want to see cost savings, avoidance, or revenue potential to green-light the project, we leveraged the AIM framework to present a tangible number to them through the lens of reducing attrition.
Let me break it down: We knew it took a new employee in a customer-facing role three months to reach full productivity. By calculating three months of pay at only 50% efficiency, we demonstrated that preventing an employee from leaving avoided 3 months of non-productive work and assigned an actual number to it. That cost avoidance mechanism was approved as a fundable project based on employee experience for the first time ever! Before that, everything they approved was purely based on cost savings, revenue, or cost avoidance—never employee satisfaction or attrition.
We went on to receive a similar approval with an anti-fraud automation opportunity. We knew that preventing fraud and negative experiences with fraud also prevented customers from leaving. By calculating a customer's average lifetime value and demonstrating how we could reduce that attrition by 3%, we possessed a powerful cost avoidance metric for customer loss.
Don’t leave anything on the table
With the A360 platform and powerful tools like Automation Co-Pilot, Process Composer, WLM queues for efficiencies, and more at our disposal, it’s a shame to leave automatable opportunities on the table. If an organization remains hyper-focused on tasks at the bottom, it misses the chance to transform from middle management up, which could have a significant impact. If your key stakeholders want to know whether the juice is worth the squeeze, the metrics are definitely there to prove it. You just need to leverage them in the right way and present them in the highly digestible and effective AIM framework.