Any strategy discussion on Intelligent Automation needs to proactively address the elephant in the room: will automation impact the number of people we need?
Automation will eliminate very few occupations entirely in the next decade or so, and it may affect percentage of almost all jobs to a greater or lesser degree, depending on the type of work they entail. Predictable routine manufacturing jobs for instance can be automated to a large extent like packaging, food processing etc. These examples are real scenarios where Bots can actually replace humans, almost entirely.
Bots: New age co-worker / agents / automation actors
For most businesses and sectors, intelligent automation should be seen as a Co-worker or agents to reinvent what’s possible digitally.
At the surface, it may seem that machines are replacing humans, but a closer look would reveal otherwise. Machines provide us with the ability to fundamentally change traditional ways of operating business and individuals. Machines offer strength and capabilities such as scale, speed and ability to cut through complexities. These are different / crucially complimentary to human skills. So, humans and machines together can do things differently. The goal should not be restricted to performing routine tasks faster and more efficiently, but on creation of new products and services on a scale that was not possible previously.
A few of the ways that Intelligent Automation can enable enterprises to evolve and innovate are
- Increasing their agility
- Reducing complexities of systems and operations
- Accelerating time to market
- Ability to innovate on new digital products and services
“Mind-shift from Robots vs. Humans to Robots Empowering / Collaborating with Humans“
Now, we come to the real objective of this blog: How do we address the big elephant?
Understand the real number of people who will be impacted….
Having a clear understanding to the real number of people getting impacted by automation, would be the first step in addressing the big question of machines replacing humans. What automation processes are getting implemented, which business processes are getting impacted, which job roles are getting re-structured and which ones are getting obsolete: these are some of the questions that need to be addressed before we get to the stage where we’ll have some figures around the number of people who are impacted.
What needs to be done from an organisation’s perspective?
Primarily 2 to 3 things, as outlined below:
1. Focus on the increased value of the role, less manual activity, more cognitive activity
Organization must look to increase value of the role. Routine jobs (for example, accountant, clerk or desk officer), owing to the high level of routine in their performance, will mainly be done independently by software. In the future, simple work mostly carried out by mere physical strength will be increasingly performed by machines. Organization should look to eliminate routine aspects of job roles and lean it up.
With the emergence of automation and AI, employees should be able to form a unit to work in collaboration with machines and Algorithms. While the machines take care of the routine aspects of roles, humans can focus more to work in strategic and innovative areas.
2. Evaluate and hire new roles, around the development and management of the automation tools (Bots, VA), form new organisation structure.
Not every specific occupation will be replaced by the work of machines in general, but it is certain that some individual occupational activities will be performed by machines. Small and medium-sized companies, in particular, are likely to shy away from technical devices because of the high acquisition costs and the lack of highly qualified specialists who can handle the new systems.
It is however true that, digitalization and automation will create new jobs in the so called “third sector” over the next few years. There would be continuous movement of employees into this third service sector. This service sector would entail jobs / roles around development and management of automation tools. Organizations moving towards automation processes would also have to evaluate such roles to support their automation / AI initiatives. Such roles & processes would lead to organizational structures focused almost entirely on Automation and AI.
One example of a newly created job is that of the data scientist. The task is to structure huge data volumes collected by big data analyses. This includes the research of both the data and their structure or origin, to supplement incomplete data sets and to create links between abstract data sets.
3. Different management approach – future employee
Automation and AI call for a totally different management approach – for instance call center management to bots centre management. Oganisations would have to arrange for the following approach shifts:
In house re-organisation: Internal IT department will gain considerable more importance. This will require internal reorganisation, because a differentiation must be made between data analysts and traditional IT specialists. An interface must be established that ensures that information is passed on without delay to the offices responsible internally.
Changes at individual work places: single working place will be the target of numerous changes. Cloud computing allows access to internal data from everywhere, while digitalisation enhances the use of automatic data processing and makes it easier to make quick decisions. The cross-linking of single employees by new technologies allows easier communication and enables a better exchange of information. Therefore, the relevant facts necessary to make decisions and the results of big data analyses are collected by the right contact person. This leads to more autonomy of the individual employee.
Virtual Working Groups: People will work independently with shared purpose across space, time, and organization boundaries, using technology to communicate and collaborate. Virtual teams allow organisations to bring together people with the best expertise, regardless of where they live.
So in conclusion, Intelligent Automation should not be used to kill jobs or to create a de-humanized future, it should rather be used to drive a more productive relationship between humans and machines. Such relationships should ideally spearhead organizational agility and focus on bringing about new innovative digital products and services.
References:
https://www.accenture.com/us-en/insight-intelligent-automation-technology
https://www.ibanet.org/Document/Default.aspx?DocumentUid=c06aa1a3-d355-4866-beda-9a3a8779ba6e
Photograph (Feature Image): courtesy pexels.com
https://www.pexels.com/photo/man-with-steel-artificial-arm-sitting-in-front-of-white-table-39349/
