Automation, as you said, has been around for quite some time. It's not new.
But my experience over just the last three years is that discussions among executives,
certainly in my engagements, as well as many of my colleagues about automation has really ramped up
over the last three years perhaps sparked with the onset of COVID. But growing ever faster over time.
And so, when I have these discussions, I take the usual economics professor perspective, okay,
let's think about the cost benefit trade off here. I'd really love to get your thoughts on the simple
taxonomy I bring to those discussions if you don't mind and get some of your feedback and nuances.
So, when I when I think about the pros there, as you mentioned, the sort of obvious cost
savings slash belt tightening to use your words, and not just the obvious reduction in FTE,
but really across the board. But I always viewed automation, certainly,
when talking to operations, people as being much more than just a cost saving mechanism. Right,
I think about lifting growth, increased revenues, that's coming from increases in productivity,
I think about the increases in flexibility, the increasing value of the real options, many
companies hold the increases in scalability. Not to mention the improved stakeholder experience.
And I don't just mean for the customer, but really all stakeholders, suppliers as well as employees,
that generates that improved productivity that feeds to top line growth. Now, I'd be remiss if I
didn't mention some of the potential costs or cons of automation that I see. And this is really where
I'd love to get your thoughts being an expert on the subject. You know, the first thing that comes
to mind is risk, both in terms of implementation and execution. And there was a wonderful analogy
shared with me by an executive about the risk of automation, they drew an analogy to acquisitions.
So, in an acquisition, we see the rosy synergies and all the upside potential from cost
savings and revenue growth. But the reality on the back end is often a little bit different
in terms of the integration costs that are never fully understood before the deal is
concluded. And so there's one the risk side, but two is it really a panacea,
or is there a specific time and place or company for which automation is particularly appropriate?
Yeah, so I think what's important is the world is now moving to or has moved to cognitive
automation. Earlier, the word was robotic process automation. And the latest buzz word
is generative AI. So let's not go to generative AI just yet. Do you have your data in place,
if you have data in your in place, automation will give you not just not just the cost savings,
but it will help you deliver experiences based on personas that you define different stakeholders,
be employees, customers, or community at large. So automation has tremendous
potential, but there are certain underlying elements that you have to have in place.
And the majority of companies have not gotten it together, they have invested in tools.
And what has happened is, we have to make it simpler, we have to demystify the term automation,
bring it all together, help them leverage the existing assets. So almost a kind of
orchestration that one has to do to make it easier for companies to leverage the power of automation.
Now talking about governance, in this world of AI, governance is extremely important. I remember the
phrase which used to exist, to err is human but to completely screw it up, you need a computer. So in
that sense, automation can actually multiply if you're making a mistake at you know, much faster
than human beings will do. So in that sense for you to look at the algorithm and ensure there
is proper governance is extremely important. And keeping inventory of all the automation elements
that you have inserted in your system is also important, because it's almost like inventory
management of what you have done. Because if you don't know, suddenly, that knowledge would be
lost, and you wouldn't know what's happening in your systems. So tremendous potential,
good return on investment, requires careful governance and requires some foundational work.
But do we have a choice? is an important question. Can you afford not to embrace automation?
Can you stay away from this race? Can you face the new economic reality that is unfolding?
Without leveraging automation? Can you continue to exist where you're not delivering and shaping
experiences of different stakeholders? Those are the questions which business leaders must ask.
And I mean, to me, the answer is obvious. If you want to be in the game, you have
to be in the race to deliver experiences. And automation is a fantastic if I may, the platform
for you to enable that it will also help you to do belt tightening as we were discussing. But that
shouldn't be the main objective. The objective should be, you know, get sharper, generate more
revenue, generate greater experiences, able to attract and retain talent, because they feel
everybody is treated in a very unique fashion. And that's possible through automation as well.