Remote work is here to stay, and there has never been a more critical time for businesses to automate every possible thing they can. 2020 has redefined the way companies operate or perhaps brought forth the areas they could improvise. One of the most prominent innovations that many CIOs are implementing today is automation.
Automation was once seen as a channel of growth to be implemented far into the future. However, the COVID-19 pandemic has proved that automation is top of mind for businesses to stay relevant and operable irrespective of the industry. Unlike automation technologies in the past, today’s automation is easy to use and implement regardless of the team’s level of experience. It has also become more accessible and imperative for businesses to compete and survive in the “new normal.”
Dr. Jagdish Bhandarkar, CTO of Avo Automation, believes that there are endless opportunities for companies to automate and that doing so will reap significant benefits. Human-first automation liberates people from manual, tedious tasks and helps them focus on the more strategic, fun parts of their job – resulting in higher productivity and a rewarding experience. Jagdish predicts that automation will quickly become an integral component of day-to-day tasks for all modern businesses, and here are the three ways how.
Low-code/No-code Will Become the Future of Application Development
Automation isn’t any more an initiative that only a select few IT leaders understand. With the emergence of low-code/no-code platforms, anyone within a business can work with automation without requiring in-depth technical skills. Automations being easy-to-learn and simple-to-use, enable teams to use them deftly, even while working remotely.
That, perhaps, is the beauty of low-code/code automation – empowering employees to use it without relying entirely on the IT department. With bare minimum training, you can help your employees with little-to-no automation experience be 2x more productive. Not to mention are the significant time and productivity benefits that automation experts reap. Ever thought of the amount of efforts saved on coding and utilizing them on innovation instead?
Businesses Will Begin Adopting Hyperautomation Strategies
Hyperautomation, a term coined by Gartner, is the rapid adoption of automation of any task, large or small, that we’re seeing more and more of today. The number of companies with employees working from home in 2021 and beyond will increase the adoption of hyperautomation. These businesses are beginning to realize that anything that can be automated should be. Operations become significantly efficient by automating even the most minor tasks. The first step of automation is process discovery, which includes identifying, documenting, and optimizing the process before automating. Process discovery platforms will see an increased adoption too.
Hyperautomation will enable teams to dedicate more time and energy to strategic tasks and the bigger picture instead of repetitive, menial tasks. It will also disrupt the customer service experience domain in B2C. Industries such as pharmaceutical, insurance, finance, healthcare will embrace hyperautomation more adeptly.
Artificial Intelligence Will Become More Intelligent
As AI platforms ingest more and more data, they will begin contextualizing information more intelligently. COVID-19 has impacted anything that has a human touchpoint and, therefore, increased the need for efficiency improvements.
While completely hands-off automation is far off from being mainstream, assisted automation is rapidly becoming more common. Unlike the common misconception that automation takes over jobs, assisted automation enhances employee productivity and job satisfaction levels. Assisted automation will continue to get increasingly adopted until it becomes a second name for all types of businesses across industries.
2021 is the perfect time for CIOs and business leaders to pull the trigger and dive into the journey of automation. As many employees continue to work from home, companies will begin to lean on automation to improve the proximity of collaboration and drive better results.
About the author
Dr. Jagdish Bhandarkar, Senior Vice President and Chief Technology Officer (CTO), leads Avo’s long-term research programs exploring emerging technologies, assessing their application to the company’s business, and recommending new strategies and solutions. He is also responsible for its industry standards, university collaborations, and technical community programs. Jagdish earned a Master’s Degree in Engineering and a Ph.D. from MIT. He is also an alumnus of the Indian Institute of Management Calcutta, India, and has graduated from Mangalore University, India. His professional experience is enriched by his tenures across various Fortune 500 companies.
