How to better equip the workers of tomorrow

How to better equip the workers of tomorrow

Blue Prism's Steven Armstrong explains how the reality of today’s digital world is forcing change 

Caspar Herzberg |


This article was originally published in the Summer 2018 issue of The Record. 

The time-honoured ways of doing business are known as such for a reason. After all, there’s something to be said for proven techniques that result in positive outcomes. If only commercial and public organisations worked that way… but they don’t.

Traditional operating models and standard industry conventions for taking today’s enterprises to the next level aren’t sufficient to satisfy the speed of business. Organisations have shifted focus from the status quo to true digital transformation – and that means exploring every facet of business, taking a new look at the way things are, and making the decisions that will transform enterprises in the future.

For many businesses, cost is key – from finding efficiencies that save money to discovering more streamlined ways to drive profits. Indeed, 64% of respondents to a 2017 Constellation Research survey said that digital transformation is essential to driving profits.

And, a recent Frost & Sullivan survey looking at end-user perspectives on navigating digital transformation globally, found that improving a company’s digital presence will be a top driver for IT investment over the next two years. Other enterprise goals cited included reducing operational costs, improving the customer experience and aligning IT with business strategy.

Today, every business requires a fundamental, philosophical shift from process-first to ­culture-first – the kind of philosophical change that spurs broader dialogue and deeper collaboration with both partners and customers.

However, as with all change, it is not without risk. True digital transformation requires a concerted, organisation-wide effort. Success depends on determining exactly what changes enterprises want to make, identifying the risks associated with those changes, and using technology in a wise way to help meet overall goals.

Today’s enterprises have a multitude of tools at their disposal to encourage digital transformation, and chief among them is robotic process automation (RPA). Blue Prism coined the term more than 12 years ago, and RPA has become synonymous as the gold standard for enterprise digital transformation.

These completely autonomous digital workers can improve capabilities and help businesses on realise huge efficiencies, as well as free up existing employees for more satisfying, high-value tasks. Blue Prism’s unique focus on collaboration and innovation gives enterprises a flexible RPA platform that is intelligent, connected, and easy to control:
•  Intelligent: digital workers that understand context, derive meaning and anticipate change
•  Connected: bringing people, machines and processes together with such best of breed technologies as AI and machine learning 
•  Easy to control: flexible 24/7 capability with full visibility, control and absolute compliance.

At its most basic, RPA empowers organisations to automate processes. Blue Prism takes that concept to the next level with enterprise-scale dynamic automation and digital workers that possess six key digital skills for intelligent automation.

These skills include: visual perception; knowledge and insight; learning; problem solving; planning and sequencing; and collaboration. All are critical for enterprise-level digital transformation – and mark a sea change from a workforce-focused approach based on worker knowledge to a customer-centric digital strategy.

“This level of intelligent automation can reproduce the exact actions of a human operator – using the same interfaces, reproducing the same complex decisions, ‘seeing’ what the human operators performing that task manually were seeing, as well as adapting to variations in performance, environmental factors and changing data,” explains Colin Redbond, Blue Prism’s head of Technology, Strategy and Architecture.

When businesses focus less on process and more on high value work, the path to digital transformation suddenly become much easier, and intelligent automation is just one of the tools that today’s enterprises are using to get there.

Steven Armstrong is vice president and global lead for the Microsoft Alliance at Blue Prism

 

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