{"id":4173,"date":"2020-04-18T15:21:00","date_gmt":"2020-04-18T15:21:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost\/projects\/horsesforsources\/digital-workforce-to-shine_041820\/"},"modified":"2021-12-03T09:58:21","modified_gmt":"2021-12-03T09:58:21","slug":"digital-workforce-to-shine_041820","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.horsesforsources.com\/digital-workforce-to-shine_041820\/","title":{"rendered":"Don\u2019t you wish you\u2019d done more? The digital workforce that wasn\u2019t finally has its burning platform chance to shine"},"content":{"rendered":"

Well, we can’t deny it was noisy, loaded with more hype than a Vegas heavyweight boxing match, and backed by more investment dollars than the GDP of a small country. Yes, folks, that was quite the automation ride we all recently experienced. And what a dogs’ breakfast<\/em> that all turned out to be…<\/p>\n

Sadly, nearly nine out of ten enterprise adopters simply didn’t get past piecemeal projects, pilots, and lots of very drawn-out evaluations. In fact, most simply didn’t have a burning platform<\/em> to do very much at all with it.  The lethargy to do anything more than hype up RPA at conferences with bullshit such as “a bot for every desktop” drove us to proclaim (quite correctly) that the RPA value proposition was dead<\/em><\/a>.<\/p>\n

However, if there’s ever been a time we needed a digital workforce to augment humans, it’s now<\/em> as 54% of major enterprises we surveyed this month seek to increase their process automation investments.  Yes, people, there is a realization of the importance of process automation technologies to support these rapidly evolving digital workplaces, which is only superseded by the need to invest in cybersecurity:<\/p>\n

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 As we all adjust to the new abnormal, this is finally<\/em> the time for the digital workforce to shine<\/span><\/p>\n

The COVID-19 global pandemic is challenging our fundamental ability to keep businesses across all industries up and running while ensuring employee safety, preserving employees’ livelihoods, and meeting customer needs. Massive portions of the global workforce are being told to work from home, creating the most widespread operational crisis in modern business history. These rapidly emerging, globally distributed, remote, virtual workforces are creating a huge need for effective automation and a digital workforce. Yes, folks, the burning platform has arrived, and it’s literally ablaze.<\/p>\n

As the following data from a few months ago reminds us, we’ve seen far less scale of Triple-A Trifecta (automation, AI, and smart analytics) technologies than we’d like (and need). Despite having spent the better part of a decade investing in digital transformation and loads of slick emerging technologies, we missed the boat on addressing process debt and replacing moldy legacy systems. It is what it is at this point, as we have no time to lament what we should have done. Now it’s all hands on deck to leverage what we do have to help businesses function during the pandemic. The need of the moment is operational impact; thus, the implored imperative is to get creative and figure out how to quickly re-use and, more broadly, deploy your proven digital workforce assets.<\/p>\n

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Learning to share during the pandemic—toilet paper, hand sanitizer, and automation assets<\/span><\/p>\n

We’ve all seen unsavory images and headlines showcasing human nature at its self-centered worst—hoarding toilet paper, buying up 10 years’ worth of hand sanitizer (just in case!), and creating a dearth of surgical masks when healthcare professionals urgently need them. We need to remember how to share and be equitable despite the uncertainty. As we evaluate how enterprises built their automation programs over the past few years, we see loads of siloed activity—functional groups fending for themselves. On the one hand, there has been a notable surge of business operations leadership playing an active role in technology-led change. However, many of these siloed initiatives are those that have stalled or plateaued, stuck at low levels of task automation with little to no process change. The pandemic has presented an urgent need to break down enterprise silos and share proven digital workforce assets.<\/p>\n

Operations leaders currently don’t have time to develop new digital workforce solutions. Anything that’s in the planning, pilot, or implementation stage is on indefinite hold while operational triage takes place. Enterprises need to take swift inventory of what they have amassed in terms of Triple-A Trifecta assets, determine cross-functional potential, and deploy them. This task-focused rollout is not fulfilling the grand vision of orderly enterprise digital transformation; it is being practical and opportunistic when we need it the most.  And practical and opportunistic<\/em> is what is clearly on the minds of many enterprise leaders as they realize they should have paid a lot more attention to changing and automating processes to support real business needs.  But better late than never…<\/p>\n

Tactical, practical task automation inspiration from the trenches<\/span><\/p>\n

For those enterprises who have invested in Triple-A Trifecta technologies and have proven assets to work with and disseminate, here are what some of your compatriots are doing as part of their now and near-term strategies:<\/p>\n