How Organizations Need To Adapt for the Next Generation

Technology is on an ever-rising slope of growth, innovation and change. Customers demand more digital services and employees want fewer repetitive tasks and more interesting work. For business owners to achieve this agility in their organization, many are turning to the latest automation tech, making it possible to achieve more with fewer resources, give their employees and customers what they want, and increase profitability. That’s going to keep them competitive and ready to take on whatever comes next.

Technologies like intelligent automation (IA), which combines artificial intelligence (AI), robotic process automation (RPA) and business process management (BPM), are elevating peoples’ approach to work. And with generative AI on the rise and the development of hybrid cloud capabilities, we’ll see further future impact of technology on the workforce.

How Is Technology Transforming Work?

Machine and human collaboration are key to transforming work. IA can align people and processes. With digital workers taking over those time-consuming and often error-prone, routine tasks, you can boost employee engagement by shifting their focus to more strategic work. Rather than taking jobs from people, think of IA as a digital coworker.

People’s roles will change to utilize their most human qualities of empathy, communication, interaction and strategy. Digital workers handle the work employees shouldn’t have to do, and customers get more personalized, digital self-service options. This tech can empower people, from front-office automation to back-office automation and beyond.

IA is essential to navigating the future of work. Expanding IA’s capabilities to be more accessible, strategic and scalable will help you manage your workforce and optimize your resource usage. Effective office automation is about putting the right people – human or digital workers – in the right jobs. We’re going to see more focus put on automation that’s flexible and customizable, meaning one little change won’t set the whole train off its tracks.

Let’s use the example of working remotely. Even a decade ago, we considered this an alien approach to working. But post-pandemic, remote and hybrid working are now seen as the norm.

This evolution didn’t come without its challenges. Organizations had to scramble to find the right technologies to fit the needs of those employees working from home. Video conferences, project management dashboards and online messaging became necessary, whereas before, they were seen as supplementary – if the company used them at all. Even after that global online shift subsided, we see over social media that the younger generations are less willing to engage in the “drudgery of in-office corporate work” as it stands today. Organizations need to step up or fall behind.

How Technology Affects Productivity

If you’re not already using modern technology, you’ve likely fallen behind your competitors. Luckily, it’s never too late for a workplace digital transformation. It just takes the right tools, strategy and a willingness to adapt. Let’s look at the good, the bad and the things we can probably do a little better with tech at work.

Are there disadvantages to tech in the workplace?

As with anything, tech can have its downsides if not used correctly. Too much of something inflexible leaves no wiggle room for improvements, pivots or changes – and this can have a negative impact on productivity.

• Upgrades: You’ve likely experienced it: A system gets an upgrade, something breaks and suddenly you have to put your work on hold until it’s resolved. Or there’s a new upgrade pending and you need to schedule time to fit the update in – leaving you unable to work until it’s done.
• Dependency: One glitch and system-wide blackout? That’s a nightmarish scenario – and wholly possible if you’re too dependent on one piece of tech. If your system crashes and business halts, you lose productivity at the very least. At worst, you’ll have to find an entirely new system to replace the one that went down, and that eats up even more time and costs.
• Relationships: As much as tech aims to fix communication siloes, it can also do the opposite. Too much reliance on texts or emails might mean your people become more averse to face-to-face communication, leading to further communication breakdowns that can slow or even halt business productivity.

What are the advantages of technology in the workplace?

We won’t leave it all doom and gloom. Your solution to these holdbacks is having flexible tech that can be tailored to your business needs and allows you to scale up or down according to where you’re at on the technology train. Here are some of the benefits of technology in the workplace:

• Communication: With the right communication tools, you can enhance employees’ experience and improve knowledge-sharing. IA allows organizations to centralize data, meaning those who need access to information can get it quickly, with the added assurance that it’s accurate and up-to-date. It also allows employees to set up collaboration tools like integrating messaging apps with various other cloud-based applications so communication stays front and center. On the customer service side, IA streamlines communication between customers and employees by routing or escalating customer queries, answering common questions via an AI-powered chatbot and tracking customer experience (CX) performance.
• Workflows: Automation enables faster processing so it doesn’t take as long to get the results you need. It reduces human errors and removes bottlenecks, increasing efficiency across end-to-end business processes. Employees can get more done faster and customers don’t have to wait to get the outstanding services they deserve.
• Security: Data is becoming increasingly complex and there’s more of it. Security should always be a top priority for organizations, and that priority shouldn’t slip when introducing new tech. In fact, you should seek out automation solutions that will help you ensure security and data privacy.
• Productivity: Since digital workers take over boring tasks like data entry, your people can focus on more valuable work such as making decisions or helping solve unique cases. This increases productivity and efficiency. And now, with better accessibility in cloud-native or hybrid-cloud automation solutions, organizations can do even more without needing additional infrastructure and the associated costs.
• Compliance: IA helps you achieve and maintain compliance by ensuring you always meet those ever-changing regulatory requirements. It helps you review, analyze and securely store huge amounts of data across your organization and third-party systems. It also ensures a standardized, consistent approach to all work.

How can I get more flexibility with my automation?

Flexibility is an organization’s greatest flex (excuse the pun) to stand out from their competitors. Change is the only constant in the world, as we know. Handling it effectively will determine whether an organization is fit to not just carry on in difficult circumstances but adapt and grow.

Cloud automation is great for being agile enough to respond to changing priorities, scalability and having access to automatic software updates. On-prem automation is great for high-security requirements, control, reliable performance and predictable costs. But what if we could bring the two together for simpler upgrades, greater flexibility and rapid scaling – all without worrying about infrastructure overheads, security and compliance, and performance? Well, we have. Surprise! It’s SS&C | Blue Prism® Next Generation, a cloud-native platform that provides access to IA’s capabilities, delivered in a way that’s tailored to your business. With Next Gen, we provide a variety of capabilities that can be deployed in a multitude of ways, all from a single platform.

Next Gen gives you:

• Hybrid deployment: A self-hosted digital workforce that operates securely behind your firewall.
• Process repository: Save objects and processes in a single space – easy for reuse. Track changes for version control and utilize a structured release management process to organize the journey from development to deployment.
• Control center: A single place to monitor and manage your digital workers in real time.
• Upgrades: Ever-green software so you always have access to the latest capabilities without lengthy upgrades.

How does generative AI fit in?

Gen AI takes IA to the next level by:

• Removing technical barriers so you can develop automations faster – without any coding.
• Making it easier to access and analyze vast datasets for decision-making.
• Generating new content and designs quickly.

Remember, don’t just invest in tech for the sake of it. Invest in the right tech to make your workplace better and your business value higher.

Prepare for the Future

Tech in the workplace is going to evolve. That’s inevitable. But finding the right way to roll with it? That takes a willingness to embrace change through solutions fit to adapt.

Our takeaway tips for you

• Embrace and invest in the right tech.
• Create a culture of innovation.
• Always maintain governance control.

Looking for more flexibility in your IA solution? Make it so with Next Gen.