Automation is a major workplace disruptor. An undeniable reality of the coming decade is the significant level of displacement resulting from Artificial Intelligence and automation. Occupational change is bound to affect around 75 million to 375 million people globally due to the fact that a large chunk of what they are currently doing will be swept over by automation.
However, instead of viewing the above statistic in a negative light, one should see it as a mark of rapid development and advancement. What is often left unacknowledged is that automation and robotic technologies will redeem the workforce of all the mundane work. They will permit them to shift their focus on valuable and more rewarding tasks. Currently, there is a considerable scope of delegating routine and redundant tasks and elevating creative endeavours.
Disruptive technologies should not be considered as rendering jobs redundant. Rather, we can say that automation is making it possible for us to view conventional roles from a completely different perspective, which is advantageous for both the employee and the employer. Brenda Harvey, IBM’s general manager, sums up this change perfectly when she says, “Every role is going to be changed by technology and augmented – not necessarily replaced, but made better.”
This shift in job roles brought about by automation is a leadership challenge that tests business leaders and executives on a critical front. They need to be able to leverage automation in the best interests of the organization. At the same time, they also need to make this shift in a manner that disperses all concerns about job redundancy from the minds of employees. Automation should be implemented in such a way across the organization so that it is able to serve its true value and is successful in triggering a digital transformation.
Aligning with the Vision of Automation
Every business line can reap the benefits of automation in unique ways. However, you need to ensure that all business lines are fully aligned with its vision for it to occur. Let’s take the case of IBM. The numerous HR customers here take advantage of data and insights via an automated hiring process that provides them suitable candidates whom they can then reach out to quickly. Notice that it’s not the staff that is being replaced, but their ability to work better and intelligently to manage more complicated scenarios is being enhanced.
Automation is also well at work in the manufacturing domain. Here, automation solutions are helping with practically everything, beginning from marketing outreach to onboarding vendors, management of orders, and anomaly detection.
Presently, most businesses allocate a considerable budget to the IT and automation role in enhancing productivity, efficiency, and securing has remained strange to none.
The Path to Getting Results
In spite of the rising awareness of business automation as vital to driving digital transformation, researchshows that organizations that have successfully reaped their benefits are a minority. For enterprises, the secret to the success of any transformation plan lies in its ability to project value quickly. It allows the CIO to transition from a small initial deployment to a bigger transformation goal.
Business automation is a great starting point for a transformation strategy because of its ability to yield productivity quickly. Success with automation can best be achieved by leveraging its productivity wins and using insights from them to further enhance engagement with the technology.
Some critical steps for implementing automation include:
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Gaining a clear understanding of the business process.
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Figuring out which ones are suitable for automation.
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Optimizing them.
AI-powered business automation solutions provide enterprises with a ton of insights that allow them to continue gaining greater value from it. It thus unleashes a cycle of consistent optimization.
Turning ‘quick wins’ into Long-Lasting Positive Outcomes
The success or failure of a transformation strategy can be seen in the results that a business is able to achieve through it. The small initial victories or ‘quick wins’ brought about by automation triggers a long-lasting positive impact on an enterprise. This positive impact can be seen in better productivity, greater customer experience, and efficiency. It is true of enterprises everywhere regardless of their industry and size.
Let’s take the case of Turkcell, which is a telecommunication and technology services provider in Turkey. They had to process and review innumerable documents. Using automation technology, namely, a centralized content manager, they were able to dramatically minimize the time it took to perform the function of data extraction from a whopping 2.5 years to just six months.
Not only this, businesses have saved millions of dollars in operating expenses and enhancedenhance their productivity by using automation tools like facilities management software. A number of solutions record and map facilities data and can even remind the facilities manager about issues in real-time to take instant action and keep everything running smoothly.
Taking Charge of the Future
All evidence points to an inevitable conclusion- Leaders who successfully create the platform for automation, and a cloud ecosystem will be the ones who will find themselves easily navigating an ever-changing environment. Predictive technology, an inherent component of AI-enabled automation, provides valuable suggestions even before the occurrence of the actual problem. It is wiping away many barriers even before they get the chance to form.
This transformation is unimaginable without a reliable technology partner. A partner that aids in building the requisite automation platform will enable enterprises to continue benefiting from automation innovations. Ezofis, an automation management company, strives to provide solutions to businesses that allow them to recognize their true productivity and potential.