You’ve invested in Intelligent Automation (IA), and at first, the results were clear: faster processes, improved efficiency, and lower costs. But then, progress slowed. Maybe you even found that while parts of your workflow were fully automated, there were still parts of the process that required tedious human intervention, taking up more of your staff’s time than you initially expected.
Despite advanced tools and promising early wins, your automation journey may have hit an invisible wall, experiencing what Gartner coined the “automation plateau.”
You’re not alone. Research from McKinsey shows that while automation tools could theoretically handle up to 60–70% of today’s tasks, most organizations’ automation projects fall short of that potential, leaving them stuck in a rut with the “last mile” staring them straight in the face.
What is the “Last Mile”?
You can think of the “last mile” concept as you running a race. Things are going great until you get to that last mile and realize you’ve paced yourself poorly. You’re exhausted, and now you need to find something within you to push through to reach the finish line.
In the case of intelligent automation, you can push through the “last mile” by tapping into a combination of expertise and advanced technology:
1. Crossing the Last Mile with Expertise
Here, you’ll be coupling technology with human expertise to bridge the strategic, structural, and process gaps that you may have missed.
And this human element packs a major punch: Deloitte’s 2024 Tech Trends report found that organizations working with experienced intelligent automation partners see double the ROI compared to those going it alone.
To find your ideal partnership, look for a partner that brings these 3 core traits to the table:
1. Process consulting expertise. This means your partner will be redesigning your workflows for automation-readiness, rather than simply replicating inefficient steps.
2. Proven industry expertise. This ensures solutions align with regulations and operational norms.
3. Deep platform expertise. With this, they can help you unlock the full potential of your tools, fine-tuning integrations and orchestrating end-to-end processes. Platform know-how to tackle the toughest parts of your workflow.
2. Crossing the Last Mile with Advanced Technology
In the technology sense, the “last mile” represents the final, most complex stages of a process that traditionally required human intervention. As we touched on at the start of this blog, conventional intelligent automation tools often automate routine segments but leave steps involving unstructured data and human judgement calls unaddressed, preventing you from achieving end-to-end automation and your project from achieving its full potential, or crossing the last mile.
AI agents can close this automation gap by using cognitive reasoning and autonomy to complete the highly complex, exception-heavy cases that used to require human input. This continuous push is often further supported by process mining, driving your system toward “last inch” automation, where very minimal human intervention is needed.
You might be wondering, “Can’t workflow accomplish something similar?” And it’s true to some degree, as organizations with systems like OnBase currently are doing some orchestration to manage processes end-to-end using OnBase workflow. The difference is with agentic orchestration, you’re putting agents into a managed process while also having a system overseeing both the process and the agents involved, expanding the possibilities of what you can accomplish versus with workflow alone.
Putting the Pieces Together
As we’ve explored, experienced intelligent automation partners offer value that can amplify your automation program’s success far beyond what your implementation team could achieve alone. Their expertise and industry knowledge will lead you to more optimized processes and open doors to technologies you may not have considered or had access to, including AI agents, helping you cross the last mile.
Want to learn more about agentic orchestration, AI, or what Naviant brings to the table as an intelligent automation partner? Drop a comment or question in the chat, we’d love to hear from you.
