Technology supported by people

For happier (and more productive) employees, businesses need to shift from a model of ‘people supported by technology’ to one of ‘technology supported by people’ to keep up in the intelligent automation (IA) race.

Professor Ilan Oshri from the University of Auckland Business School participated in a KPMG study that looked at global experiences with IA. IA includes artificial intelligence, machine learning and robotic process automation (RPA) – technology that can make decisions, interact and learn at a human-like level such as virtual bank assistants and CT scans reviewed by trained algorithms.

Researchers interviewed 80 business executives across North America, Western Europe and Asia Pacific about their experiences of adopting IA and their future outlooks.

Oshri says in a media release that there was a disconnection between expectations and behaviour. “Enterprises have high expectations about the transformative power of IA, but too few are making the kind of radical organisational transformations needed to harness that power.”

Firms need to be making IA investment decisions at the executive level and changing the way they run their business around new processes driven by IA technologies, the report says. Growing evidence suggests that taking this strategic ‘digital first’ approach can pay for itself five to 10 times over.

“The way we organise and do business is changing due to IA and other digital disruption,” says Oshri. “Piecemeal attempts to introduce IA as ‘add-ons’ or replacements for existing processes just won’t cut it. Firms need to consider two dimensions when seeking intelligent automation solutions: their business models and their data structure.”