Its ability to take care of the more mundane tasks threatens to take away jobs but promises room for professional growth and diversification
We have relied on process automation practically since the first machine has been invented, yet the rate at which we are finding new ways to instruct software and devices to do our job is making some people alarmed.
Like it or not, AI supported business automation is an inevitability, barring some dystopian scenario where we learn our lesson and ban electricity. Apart from the fact that it will be impossible to adequately analyse big data without some sort of AI, the other benefits of adopting this approach are too great to be ignored, despite some of the concerns that people are having.
We’ll try to succinctly list some of those concerns, benefits and ways this is already being successfully done. This will, hopefully, give you an idea how all of this is likely to affect you, and what is it that you can do to prepare yourself.
Why is it Suddenly a Problem?
Each of the major landmarks in our technological progress has been met with a lot of scepticism, paranoia, and even mass hysteria. We didn’t need Nobel to realise that everything with great power to help also usually has great potential to make our lives miserable. We have often, some more vocally than others, wondered if we have gone too far and finally created something that we are not mature, rational and responsible enough to keep contained and working in our favour, instead of against us.
One would think that now, standing at the cusp of the “Fourth Industrial Revolution” we might have gone through enough of them to know that we don’t need to panic. Steam machines, electricity and information technology all brought huge changes, as did other significant advancements before and after them, and most of the time, these changes were for the better. Granted, an adaptation period was usually required for the integration of these changes, with some of them being more difficult and grim than others.
However, after that period was over, everything would stabilise and we’d realise that we’re better off than we were before. So why are some people worried now? For the main part because they believe that the rate at which automation of new types of processes and operations is going to spread won’t allow the whole system to stabilize. Instead of making one major change and then working to adapt to it, we would be constantly introducing changes that the market wouldn’t have the time to absorb.
Other major concern echoes similar ones from the past, regarding the deepening of the gap between classes due to automation mostly being implemented in the performance of tasks not requiring skilled labour (excluding examples like big data analytics and similar). However, the number of jobs created by business automation methods that have been used so far is roughly the same or higher than the number of those made redundant.
Also read: Who is afraid of $5 branding? What is the future of the creative industry in the age of automation?
Benefits
Despite all the turmoil it brings, this kind of advancement brings people freedoms along with risks. Business automation methods, AI supported or not, regardless of the occupation they are simulating, are still not really capable of performing every operation in the required workflow. This means that, most of the time, automation processes are aimed at performing certain actions, not at replacing an employee.
This is why one of the most common ways to adopt a process of this kind into your operations is to have it complement an employee’s knowledge and capabilities. In other words, you don’t have to be looking at all of this as some kind of major paradigm shift, but instead, as simply building new tools to help with our work.
Liberated from the more laborious parts of their job, these people have an opportunity to expand their skills and apply them in new areas of their industry; or to hone them, and improve their performance in their current specialisation.
Specific benefits of adopting solutions of this type are innumerable. From its potential to save lives through its application in mining and healthcare industries, to preventing human error in banking, automation, especially combined with big data, allows you to streamline your processes, stay alert to any changes and predict problems long before they actually crop up.
Current Applications
From touch screen ordering in fast food restaurants, automating waste management services and the robotics used in manufacturing, to helping educate our children, there are practically no industries out there that aren’t already at least testing this concept.
However, digital marketing and other online-based business seem to have the most proclivity towards adoption of these solutions. Maybe because they are used to approaches of this kind and automating their performance tracking or lead gathering processes is not as costly as trying to automate, for instance, a heavy industry plant production workflow.
Another area in which automation is being increasingly used is customer relationship management. If you don’t have the time or manpower to provide adequate customer support, and yet you know how essential this is for the success of any business, automation pioneers such as Servisbot offer a range of bots you can use on your website to answer customer questions, provide 24/7 support when it comes to minor issues, allow customers to automatically apply for a refund, etc. While these solutions also require occasional human input to be completely effective, they can result in immense savings, and are useful to businesses of all profiles.
What’s to Come?
Despite its drawbacks and risks, business automation is not something that is likely to stop attracting our interest. Its ability to take care of the more mundane tasks is at the same time threatening to take away jobs and promising room for professional growth and diversification. The good thing is, you don’t have to be the one paving the way, you just have to be ready to follow when the time comes.
Huge conglomerates, educational and government institutions, organisations of all types and enthusiasts working off of open source repositories are all exploring the boundaries of the potential that automating process has across different industries. Your part of the job is to keep your ear to the ground, test out the solutions that seem promising but don’t demand too much of an investment, and find ways to make your job easier and more meaningful.
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