Dentsu builds on massive success to take automation to the next level

What comes next? When you’ve already saved hundreds of thousands of hours, cut countless repetitive tasks, and made work better for your global workforce, what’s next on the automation journey?

That was the question facing dentsu, one of the world’s largest marketing and advertising agency networks. With the support of UiPath, the company has already achieved some incredible results with automation. One project, completed in just 30 days, saved upwards of 100,000 hours. Another transformed a complex process in finance—reducing human effort from one day to just 10 minutes.

In all, automation is saving dentsu over 600,000 hours every year—a figure that’s expected to grow to over one million hours.

But, by more broadly adopting the full capabilities of the UiPath Business Automation Platform, dentsu knew it could take its automation strategy to the next level.

Automation goes into the cloud

For Flo Ye, dentsu’s Director of Automation Solutions, the next step was to democratize automation and make it accessible to everyone, right across the business—through UiPath Automation Cloud™.

“Previously, our approach to automation was very fragmented,” explained Ye. “Say there was an automation use case in Brazil, the team would get their UiPath licence and get started. The same thing would happen in United States, then the UK or Singapore. It was a piecemeal approach with limited communication.”

There are two main approaches to automation. There’s the bottom up, CitDev [citizen developer] model where people can solve the repetitive tasks that they have to do daily. Then there’s the top down, strategic model where you identify regional opportunities to help a large group of people at once. With UiPath Automation Cloud, we get to do both at the same time.

Flo Ye, Director of Automation Solutions, dentsu

With Automation Cloud—which gives dentsu browser-based access to the full UiPath Platform—collaboration became the name of the game. “It’s all covered,” continued Ye. “We get all the licenses we need, we get automatic updates on a regular basis, and no one is having siloed conversations about automation.”

Dentsu’s migration to Automation Cloud is a testament to just how embedded automation has become within the company. “It’s a part of doing business now,” she said. “UiPath Automation Cloud makes it easier than ever for our people to create, consume, or get a better understanding of automation.”

Generative AI makes automation accessible

With the rising popularity of large language models like ChatGPT, dentsu saw an opportunity to provide its people with a similar service. The result is dentsuGPT. This natural language processing tool allows dentsu’s employees to get quick and easy answers to their biggest questions based on the company’s internal resources—from HR and compliance insights to knowledge-based articles on automation and the UiPath Platform.

dentsuGPT is instrumental in driving the development and adoption of automation across the business. Even people unfamiliar with UiPath can use the self-help resources to find out how to get started with automation. And building on the experience of creating dentsuGPT, Ye’s team is developing a guidebook to allow those with a technical background to build their own GenAI bots. “It’s empowering our four regions to align with our strategic goals,” said Ye.

The support that UiPath provides is second to none, and that’s not just about development and technical guidance. They’ve been instrumental in helping us communicate the benefits of automation, and getting people engaged with it too. It’s a genuine partnership.

Flo Ye, Director of Automation Solutions, dentsu

Automation Hub inspires innovation

UiPath Automation Hub is also helping dentsu capture and manage automation opportunities across the entire organization. “We have a global automation team, but it’s important to us that anyone, anywhere can get the inspiration they need,” explained Ye. “Automation Hub plays a critical role in promoting great ideas for different business lines and empowering our regions to develop what makes sense for their priorities.”

In practical terms, this gives dentsu employees the ability to log into Automation Hub, see what ideas have already been proposed, and submit their own. They can even pick from a selection of ready-to-go automations and apply them to their own roles. “It’s just another way in which UiPath has helped to make automation accessible,” said Ye.

Some of the new use cases identified and developed with the UiPath Platform include:

• Safety Net Google Search Console. This automation checks the URL errors of web pages to make life easier for dentsu’s search engine optimization (SEO) teams. Ninety-five percent of manual verification and reporting has been removed. The process used to take 2,860 hours per month. Now, it takes less than three.

• Presto Defaults Process. Calculating the default variance for the reports received from dentsu’s campaign management software was a manual task. Reports had to be downloaded, the data processed, and the variance calculated. Those with high variance levels needed to be flagged. Automation has reduced the 108-hour process down to just four hours a month.

• E-commerce Data Automation. Data used to be manually extracted from multiple e-commerce shopping platforms into Microsoft Excel spreadsheets. The data was reformatted and standardized before being uploaded in a Google Sheet for visualization and other analytics purposes. Automation hasn’t just saved over 7,700 hours to date. It’s enabled teams to make faster decisions during retail promotions and special events.

Most of dentsu’s automations have focused on back-office activities. But this, said Ye, is likely to change. “The automation team is the incubator for both automation and emerging technology. We can share knowledge across the entire organization on how to build automation and AI to help everything run more efficiently.”

“I’m sure our media and creative teams will be more than happy to pass some of their work over to their digital assistants as they become more comfortable with automation.”

Capturing more value with automation + AI

With this smarter, more collaborative, and ultimately more inclusive approach to automation, dentsu is now exploring automation’s role as an enabler for artificial intelligence (AI).

“We’re already looking at how we can bring AI and automation more closely together and are excited to see how we can leverage some of the new AI tools coming out of UiPath,” said Ye. “AI applications offer a huge amount of potential, and we believe that UiPath can help us turn that potential into results. That’s going to be a pivotal next step for us.”

AI applications offer a huge amount of potential, and we believe that UiPath can help us turn that potential into results. That’s going to be a pivotal next step for us.

Flo Ye, Director of Automation Solutions, dentsu