The effects of automation and augmentation in customer center environment – A case study in an insurance company
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School of Business |
Master's thesis
Authors
Date
2022
Department
Major/Subject
Mcode
Degree programme
Information and Service Management (ISM)
Language
en
Pages
61+24
Series
Abstract
In today’s competitive world, companies are required to optimize their processes in order to become and stay successful. Information technology and furthermore different automation technologies are widely available, and organizations need to find solutions that best support their other processes. Also, balancing between usage of automation and human workforce is critical as employee productivity tends to decrease and turnover increase if the working environment is not perceived as fair. Collaboration of automation and human workforce is referred to as augmentation. This master’s thesis focuses on effects that automation and augmentation have in a customer center environment. The study is conducted as a single case study with the case company being a large Finnish insurance company operating in non-life insurance market. In the literature review, business value creation through IT is first discussed in general before drilling down to characteristics of robotic process automation that is the technology the case company uses in its processes. In the empirical side, the study utilizes a mixed method approach and thus combines quantitative core component including key performance indicators of the case company’s customer center and qualitative supplementary component collected through semi-structured interviews. Characteristically for a sequential mixed method study, the core component was analyzed before formulating the interview protocol to ensure the accuracy of interview questions. Findings suggest that the characteristics of general automation technologies hold true also for RPA, specifically. It seems like usage of RPA decreases process variability and error susceptibility while increasing process efficiency and changing the required skillset of human employees. With at least some of its employees, these impacts have enabled the case company to achieve rehumanization of work: a state where combining efficiency and employee wellbeing is possible through meaningful and motivational job description. On the other hand, results suggest that case company faces challenges in that the employees are not utilizing available technologies in a same way. According to earlier research, this is a common problem in automation-intensive industries and should be dealt with open communication and first-class management.Description
Thesis advisor
Penttinen, EskoKeywords
robotic process automation, automation, augmentation, process efficiency