More Australian businesses are exploring Robotic Process Automation (RPA) and machine learning to improve efficiency and save costs, a new survey has found.

The survey by Micro Focus found 50 per cent of respondents are exploring RPA followed by machine learning (44%) and virtual agents/chat bots (42%).

Attendees at Micro Focus’ recent annual Australian customer roadshow, Realize, were surveyed to gauge their opinion on key digital transformation challenges.

This included barriers to IT delivery, changing key performance indicators (KPIs), and emerging technology.

According to 61 per cent of respondents, the top barrier to IT delivery is legacy systems and processes.

This is followed by lack of budget (50 per cent) and cultural barriers (36 per cent).

Effectively managing change

“It’s apparent that customers need a way to bridge existing barriers to fully leverage emerging technology,” says Matthew Bertram, business consultant, Micro Focus.

“If organisations can’t realise value from digital transformation, there is little point to undertaking transformation initiatives,” he says.

“Organisations need to realise how to effectively manage change and realise value from digital transformation.

“There are very real opportunities being created by emerging technologies in creating business value, improving efficiency, and cost savings.”

Bank of New Zealand representative Sue Lindaard shared her experiences in using robotic process automation (RPA) to improve IT delivery.

She said clear communication and alignment across all stakeholders is key when managing cultural change.

Robotic Process Automation gives you the tools to create your own software robots to automate any business process.

New digital KPI sets

According to global market intelligence firm IDC, 95 per cent of entities will have incorporated new digital KPI sets by 2023.

They will focus on product/service innovation rates, data capitalisation, and employee experience to navigate the digital economy.

“With automation improving results for IT, organisations may need to re-evaluate their existing KPIs,” Mr Bertram said. “And, with new transformation projects, they may also need new KPIs that address the digital landscape and align with digital transformation projects.”

The survey found that 45 per cent of respondents have already added new KPIs and, while 41 per cent have the same KPIs, these have been modified.

Customer experience

According to respondents, customer experience (CX) is more talked about in organisations than machine learning.

It received a rating of 3.3 compared with data privacy/GDPR (2.7), machine learning (1.8) and data monetisation (1.2) where 4 is high and 0 is low.

“While organisations may be focused on one of these trends over the other, there is crossover between them and they shouldn’t necessarily be treated in isolation,” Mr Bertram said.

“Initiatives such as machine learning and data privacy both have a role to play in CX, for example.”