The Future of Work Playbook
Navigate operational and IT workplace challenges with over 50 tried and tested insights from leading industry voices across orchestration, recruitment and automation.
Featuring
Chapters
Featuring
Navigate operational and IT workplace challenges with over 50 tried and tested insights from leading industry voices across orchestration, recruitment and automation.
Kit Cox
James Hall
David Castro-Gavino
Wayne Butterfield
Tim Olsen
Danilo McGarry
Gerald Pullen
Daniel Lawrence
Stephen Johnson
Katie Swannell-Gibbs
Peter Williamson
Felipe Araya
Rosella Dello Ioio
#CHAPTER 1
The state of play
- Productivity is at its worst level in 250 years [1]
- 71% of employees have taken on more complex work [2]
- 49% of employees are struggling with the volume of work [2]
- 43% of employees are bogged down in manual work [2]
- Global artificial intelligence is growing at 37.5% year on year [3]
- 94% of employers are struggling to recruit the technical workforce they need [4]
COVID-19 fundamentally changed the workplace, and the shift from in-person to hybrid and remote work has caused a litany of challenges. Despite intensified workloads, productivity in the US dropped to 4.1% last year, the lowest number since records began. Although we have access to more technology tools than ever before, the majority of businesses are not working as efficiently as they could. Almost half of employees struggle to keep up with work, resorting to manual methods of managing and processing work [2]. At the same time, cyber, RPA, and AI are growing exponentially, but there aren’t enough skilled people to keep up with the demand.
When implemented well, automation has the potential to maximize efficiency, boost customer experience, increase resource capacity and reduce costs.
Discover how businesses can...
- Attract and retain talent
- Deploy the right tools to beat the productivity crisis
- Make digital transformation a success
- Gain full visibility and control of operations
- Get the most out of automation and AI
*This report references statistics from a 2023 productivity survey conducted in partnership with Shared Services Link, which explores post-pandemic work habits and methods.
#CHAPTER 2
Addressing the talent shortage
Insights from
Wayne Butterfield
Tim Olsen
Rosella Dello Ioio
Source: Faethm Future Workforce Report, 2021
Insufficient numbers of skilled tech workers in the UK and US require businesses to prioritize upskilling the workforce to avoid societal disruption. Only 20% of the current workforce is set to benefit from automation [5], highlighting the risk of inequality if the current situation continues.We asked Tim Olsen, Director of Intelligent Automation at HAYS, for his advice on bridging the skills gap.
Automation has the potential to polarize salaries, however it’s possible to minimize its impact. The issue is not the total number of jobs (there will be more available than can be filled), but the shift in demand away from traditional lower-skilled roles towards new, higher-skilled ones.
This shift has created a technical skills gap, and the delay in upskilling lower-skilled workers and transitioning them to technology roles is too great to avoid a societal impact. Companies must take accountability for growing their talent pool through continuous learning and increasing inclusion and diversity.
Tim Olsen
Upskilling and retraining the rest of the workforce
Upskilling the workforce is no easy feat, and it will require seismic change from businesses to be successful. Wayne Butterfield, Global Head of Intelligent Automation at ISG, believes employers need to step in to help bridge the gap.
As much as there is clearly a shortage of workers in certain roles and in certain geographies, there is not a shortage of people who, if given the right training, support, pay and benefits, could fill such positions. However, this will only be possible if the employer is willing to facilitate change.
Wayne Butterfield
We’ve detailed a few of the ways businesses can look to balance the reality of automation with solutions that keep people in work.
- Focus on automating for efficiency, not removing head count
- Put automation in the hands of citizen developers
- Give automation-risk employees the opportunity to pivot roles or retrain
- Be upfront and transparent about the future
Explore the open talent market
Outside of upskilling employees, Wayne suggests the open talent market could help to solve the problem in the short term. “If you can simplify processes and make training more intuitive and accessible, then the open talent market is an area where you can close the gap, without having to worry about recruitment, at least in the traditional sense of a ‘40 hours a week’ employee.”
Did you know?
Three million UK students and early retirees are voluntarily unemployed [4], presenting an opportunity to bridge the skills gap. However, parties would have to be motivated to consider it, and governments / employers would need to facilitate training.
Make education affordable
The average UK student leaves university with £30k worth of debt. The more you earn, the more of the loan you incrementally pay back. If we expect people to retrain, the education system needs to be reformed.Rosella Dello Ioio, Head of Content at Enate, says,
It’s taken the best part of ten years to pay off university debt. I’m open to retrain to evolve with the times, but I believe education should be more affordable and subsidized.
Nordic countries for example offer free university education. If we fail to act, large swathes of society will be locked out of the system.
Rosella Dello Ioio
Did you know?
Citizen development lets non-IT professionals become software developers by building low / no-code applications using drag and drop technology. It empowers employees to make operational changes while adding value to the business.
#CHAPTER 3
Attracting and
retaining talent
Insights from
Wayne Butterfield
Tim Olsen
David Castro-Gavino
IT Talent Quadrant - Critical and Core Skills
Source: Gartner
While there isn’t enough tech talent supply to meet the current demand, there are a number of tried and tested tactics employers can use to leverage recruitment.
IT Talent Quadrant - Critical and Core Skills
Go borderless
58% of enterprises hire remote talent from other countries [6], tripling the borderless hiring trend. Currently, 11% of the global workforce is borderless.
Hire neurodiverse individuals
By 2024, 8 out of 10 large-enterprise CIOs plan to hire 3-5% of their IT workforce from the neurodiverse talent pool [6]. Neurodiverse individuals possess a host of skills beneficial to AI and machine learning, yet only 16% of autistic adults are in full-time employment, despite 77% wanting to work.
Common Traits of Individuals With High-Functioning Autism
Source: Gartner
Adopt the 4-day work week
Tech jobs pay well, but candidates also prioritize work/life balance. 39% of Gen-Z and 32% of millennials seek work/life balance as a priority [7]. With 94% of companies who piloted the four-day work week heralding it as a success, it’s likely we’ll see this pivot becoming more and more mainstream in the years to come.
Offer interesting, purpose-driven work
A company with altruistic ideals attracts those who care about their work. Tim says, “Offering autonomy and diverse work is a big draw, while repetitive work is a turn-off. Candidates seek hybrid working, quality work with a focus on wellbeing and flexibility. Technology for good is also a consideration, especially in the Public Sector.”
Source: Deloitte
Hire more women
Tim Olsen
Only 17% of the tech industry is female, making it crucial to bridge the gender gap. To attract scarce talent in a candidate-led market, employers must look beyond traditional sources and be open to building technical skills on the job.”
Maximise your people
Wayne Butterfield
People are your most valuable asset.Make your processes as accessible as possible to maximize your ability to present work (even externally) in order to get it completed – the wider your net, the more expert capacity you can catch.”
Hire intentionally and explore non-traditional methods
The talent shortage comes at a time of immense economic instability. David Castro-Gavino, Global VP of Data at Hello Fresh, believes intentional hiring is the answer.
David Castro-Gavino
“Talent shortages are complex in nature, especially in today's challenging macroeconomic environment where companies have to optimize their workforce or focus on more intentional hiring practices. Balance investing in workforce development with exploring non-traditional hiring methods such as gig workers, freelancers, and contractors, while promoting diversity and inclusion. Finally, be flexible and responsive in today's remote work environment.”
#CHAPTER 4
The road to digital transformation
Insights from
Kit Cox
Gerald Pullen
Katie Swannell-Gibbs
IT Talent Quadrant - Critical and Core Skills
Shifting attitudes to work and commerce in light of the pandemic led to a 7-year global leap in transformation. Despite this, 70% of digital transformation projects fail. In our research with Shared Services Link, 43% of senior leaders confessed to being bogged down in manual work [2], and 63% relied on Excel to track the status of work.
Gerald Pullen, Kit Cox, and Katie Swannell-Gibbs explore the reasons for failure and essential success factors.
Why do digital transformation projects fail?
“Failure in digital transformation can come from a lack of clarity on the problem, overemphasis on ‘cutting-edge’ technology rather than alignment with strategy, overlooking essential project disciplines, insufficient executive sponsorship and funding, and a lack of the right team with the right skills. Essential project disciplines can often be rushed or overlooked. Successful transformation requires clear planning for delivery, collaboration with stakeholders and taking into account the end-to-end view of the customer experience.”
Gerald Pullen
The ingredients of a successful digital transformation
During our research of this playbook, we attended a fascinating talk by Natalie Johnson, Partner and Global Change Management Lead at EY, about the success of the company's digital transformation. EY is a global business providing assurance, strategy, transactions, and tax services to clients.
Johnson cited the following active verbs that made the company’s transformation successful:
Build
Purposeful technology that can be used to solve real-case problems quickly.
Collaborate
Purposeful technology that can be used to solve real-case problems Radical interdependence. Connect and co-create in the best ways you can.quickly.
Care
Psychological safety. Plan for the ups and downs, and ensure you nurture a work environment where people can speak up.
Empower
Offer disciplined freedom, encourage experimentation, and communicate clear, business-led responsibilities.
Inspire
Have a purposeful vision every step of the way.
Lead
Get the right, adaptable leadership in place and enable them to lead in a way that can steer you through your transformation journey.
#CHAPTER 5
Digital transformation dos and don’ts
Insights from
Kit Cox
Gerald Pullen
Katie Swannell-Gibbs
Gerald Pullen
Kit Cox
Be clear on the problem you’re solving and the expected benefits for customers and employees.
Try to transform customer experience until your operations are in order. You won’t be able to cope with customer expectation and will deliver poor service with a spangly front-end.
Align digital transformation project goals with the overall company strategy.
Make every process the same. Standardization is the enemy of transformation and you need to be mindful of different regions, different service expectations and flexing to the customer.
Get buy-in from senior leadership - transformation is as much about cultural shift as deploying new digital solutions.
Rely solely on IT to drive transformation. Tech and ops leaders need to work together to make operations work. You can’t operate a business without tech, and vice versa.
Put the right people in place to lead the project who can collaborate brilliantly, use the most appropriate delivery methodology and embrace a learning, adaptation and improvement ethos.
Default to huge consultancies, keep the project in-house, if you can. Successful transformation happens from the bottom up, supported by direction from the top down.
Focus on the fundamentals. Essential project disciplines should be the focus, with ‘cutting-edge’ solutions fitting the brief, not the other way around.
Forget about your people. After all, processes and tech don’t transform organisations, people do.
Digital Transformation Timelines
Although there’s no cookie cutter answer to how long transformation takes, Gerald estimates digital transformation timelines based on business size,
Aim for around 6-12 months for small organizations, 12-18 months for medium, and 18-24 months for large organizations.
Gerald Pullen
Gerald stresses that many factors affect speed including:
- Business scale
- Readiness
- Budget
- Change management.
He concludes,
Digital transformation is an evolving project that requires an overarching strategic plan and cultural change rather than a quick fix.
Gerald Pullen
The future of transformation
Looking into the future, we asked Katie Swannell-Gibbs, Global Head of Consulting at Emergence and Founding Member of the Intelligent Automation Exchange, for her predictions on transformation going forward.
Collectives will become the norm
Digital transformation is an evolving project that requires an overarching strategic plan and cultural change rather than a quick fix.
Katie Swannell-Gibbs
#CHAPTER 6
The role of investment and digital transformation
Insights from
Peter Williamson
Stephen Johnson
Digital transformation and securing investment funding may seem separate entities, but they are intertwined as transformation impacts the ability to deliver products and services, which is a key consideration for investors when deciding whether to invest.
To learn about the importance of transformation in investment and how businesses can secure funding, we spoke to Peter Williamson and Stephen Johnson.
Transformation questions that matter to an investor
Investors evaluate a business’s competence and skills in transformation as it impacts their success, but many transformation projects still fail.
To assess a business, investors ask questions such as:
- What has been deployed and how has it contributed to business performance?
- Have key success factors been identified?
- Is there a demonstrable track record of delivering change?
- What KPIs are they using to track success?
- Who is driving the change?
- Do they understand technologies and bottlenecks?
What individual qualities matter the most?
People buy from people. So as well as having a robust business and plan, investors will be looking for people with the following qualities and attributes…
- A vision investors can really believe in
- Confidence, ability and knowledge to execute the plan
- Capacity to deal with plan variations
- Ability to adapt
- Values, drive and commitment
Peter Williamson
Transformation steps businesses should take to secure funding
Stephen Johnson, Venture Capitalist at Mercia, has detailed the following steps businesses should take to secure investment funding.
Stephen Johnson
Digitized business operations
It’s standard practice now for all core business operations to be digitized, with specific software adopted that is appropriate for the size and complexity of the business in question. Software is usually purchased from a third-party vendor, although in some cases it may be developed in-house, or custom built using low/no code applications.
Great user experience
All software needs to have a great user experience. Everyone is so used to using well-designed apps/websites in their personal lives, so anything less is likely to cognitively feel like hard work.
Clarity on systems of record
Ideally there will be clarity amongst the relevant people in an organization as to which are the systems of record for each part of the business, and how they all work in conjunction with each other.
Change management
Most employees are aware of the benefits appropriate and well-designed software can bring, but in more traditional industries some business change management is often needed to get people on board and create the first ‘aha’ moment to drive adoption.
Leading by example
It’s common for software to be adopted by a subset of an organization, but this sometimes means that executives and senior leaders don’t drive adoption right across the business. When senior sponsorship defaults to not using the software and system they are trying to roll out (Eg. a Chief Revenue Officer who uses their own spreadsheet to monitor pipeline rather than CRM reporting or RevOps product), it should be no surprise if adoption struggles.
For the best possible outcome, ensure Senior Leaders are setting a good example.
Automation
Efficient companies have an underlying culture of automating anything that reoccurs. Whilst automation can cause nervousness amongst employees, it’s typically the time-consuming tedious repeatable work that is easiest to automate.
#CHAPTER 7
Orchestration:
The greatest work hack you've never heard of
Insights from
James Hall
Felipe Araya
- 43% of employees are struggling with the volume of work [2]
- 53% want to spend less time on manual tasks [2]
- 9% regularly miss SLA requirements [2]
One of the most common complaints we hear from Chief Operating Officers is a lack of visibility in their operations. We hear this so often that Enate’s CEO, James Hall created a term for it: operational soup.
Operational Soup
(n.) When work is being carried out, but you have little idea how much, by whom or exactly how it is processed.
If you can’t see what’s going on in your business, it’s incredibly hard to improve it and make impactful change. This is where Orchestration comes in.
What is orchestration, anyway?
Orchestration enables end-to-end process design and management, giving businesses the power to manage the flow of all work in an operation between humans and digital teams. This streamlines processes, allows you to assign tasks to the right resource, and ensures timely completion of work.
James Hall
The problems orchestration addresses
Visibility & autonomy
Orchestration provides an overview of workflows and metrics, giving ops and technology leaders the power to transform their business.
Accountability
Orchestration lets you assign the right work to the right employee (or digital worker) and keeps all work and communications inside the platform to prevent errors.
The talent shortage
Orchestration enables businesses to identify and fix bottlenecks, and speed up processes to free up more resource capacity.
The manual meltdown
Orchestration software integrates with automation providers to streamline and automate manual, repetitive tasks, addressing the 53% of employees [2] who want to spend less time on manual tasks.
Benefits of orchestration
1. Return on Investment
One of the most common complaints we hear from Chief Operating Officers is a lack of visibility in their operations. We hear this so often that Enate’s CEO, James Hall created a term for it: operational soup.
2. Efficiency
Orchestration software enables you to assign the right work to humans and digital workers and improve efficiency by (an average of) 20%.
3. Actionable insights
Orchestration helps to identify productivity differences across teams and notifies you of bottlenecks early on.
4. Customer success
Orchestration ensures work is completed on time, reducing missed SLAs and increasing client satisfaction by (an average of) 33%.
5. Employee satisfaction
Automating repetitive tasks with RPA can increase efficiency and employee satisfaction by allowing your team to focus on more challenging work.
Orchestration frequently asked questions
James Hall
What is the biggest barrier when it comes to orchestration?
Organizational change is the biggest barrier, as it impacts the way people work and requires buy-in for success. Conversely, deploying orchestration leads to the biggest prize. It helps managers and team leaders to get full visibility, leads to work assigned to the right resource, drives 20% productivity (on average) and helps improve customer satisfaction.
Orchestration isn’t a common term yet - what should people know?
It’s a new category so there is confusion around it. Some mistake it for a workflow tool like Monday or an AI tool like Pega, but it’s more holistic than that. It’s a solution that lets you streamline work, manage a hybrid workforce, and automate repetitive tasks to improve customer and employee satisfaction.
More education is needed as new players enter the market and businesses explore the benefits of orchestration.
Predictions for the future of orchestration
Process orchestration is growing YoY at 15-20% and the market was estimated at $2.4 billion in 2021 [8]. We asked James what his predictions are for the future of orchestration.
Prediction 1
The value of orchestration will become clearer
RPA alone is not enough for end-to-end visibility of operations or building a transformation plan. Orchestration brings it all together, and its value proposition will become more evident.
Prediction 2
More players will enter the market
As education and the proposition of orchestration improves, so will the number of orchestration providers.
Prediction 3
Automation Centers of Excellence and RPA will advocate for orchestration.
They’ll tackle complex, highly variable work areas where legacy BPM tools fall short because they require a high level of standardization and/or very long implementation times. This traditional approach is cost prohibitive and leaves large areas of the operation untouched.
Prediction 4
Legacy systems and intelligent tooling become intrinsically linked
Legacy systems and intelligent tooling will continue to sync up to enable digital transformation at scale, facilitated by orchestration. Our most successful customers are building a middle layer of orchestration to link customer requirements to their service delivery engines across thousands of customers, multiple service lines and dozens of countries. They are able to deliver consistently, and progressively digitize the supply chain as they go.
Ethical considerations - will orchestration replace people?
Regarding ethics, orchestration aims to optimize and organize processes, enabling people to do more value-added work on a clean and concise interface. It’s not about removing headcount, but rather achieving a happier, more engaged, and productive workforce.
Orchestration also helps to bring humans in the loop where they are most needed and in this world of fast developing AI capabilities, we need humans more than ever to check on the ethics and morality of the capabilities coming online.
#CHAPTER 8
orchestration game plan: 5 steps to success
Insights from
James Hall
Felipe Araya
James has outlined key steps for businesses to take when adopting orchestration:
Transformation mindset
Define strategic goals to gain a holistic view of work. Recognise this is a bigger picture project, not just automating a few tasks or processes. The questions you need to ask include…
- Where do I lack control over the work we are doing?
- How much do we process?
- Are we delivering on time?
- Who is doing this work, how much of it and when?
- What insights and information do we need to make improvements?
- Can we optimize the workforce and if so, what skills and capabilities do we need to introduce?
- What savings can we achieve by minimizing rework, handoffs, gathering management information regarding productivity?
- What are the opportunities for automation or process change when we see the whole picture?
- Are we working with the right suppliers and are they delivering correctly on their part?
Stakeholder buy-in
Align ops and IT teams on goals and get buy-in from senior stakeholders early on. Introducing Orchestration is a change management exercise, as it impacts the way you organize and assign work. There is no way round this and no promise that you can deliver 20% productivity without changing a few things. However, the journey can be defined and the benefits to all stakeholders made clear. Most importantly, orchestration is built around the worker, to improve their ability to do their work and deliver to the needs of their customer/clients.
Choose a provider
Choose an orchestration provider that truly understands your needs and can deliver quick results.
Pilot orchestration
Start in departments with strong use-cases to deliver value quickly. Often, good examples can be found in back/middle office process areas that have high variation and complexity such as finance or HR operations. Recent intelligence sourced through process mining suggests 80%+ of the work performed in a shared services organization is not performed in the ERP systems, but rather in Excel or Outlook. This is where Orchestration thrives.
Build organizational capability
Roll out orchestration with a change management strategy, putting it in the hands of service delivery employees on the front line.
Orchestration from an Operational Leader’s perspective
We asked Felipe Araya, Global Head of Operations at TMF Group, for his opinions on managing operations pre and post orchestration.
Felipe Araya
Before orchestration, what were your biggest challenges?
We struggled to collect and consolidate data on service delivery transactions across 90+ global offices. We knew what services each local office was delivering but were missing key information such as:
- Who the service was delivered to, and when
- How frequently the service was delivered
- What the complexity of each deliverable per region/country was, and how much time was spent on delivering each transaction
- What the common challenges across the service offering were, and what could be done to improve them
How has adopting orchestration helped you manage operations better?
Having orchestration implemented across our departments can be likened to having X-ray vision into your operations. Such vision helps leaders like myself to identify ‘broken or displaced bones’ within their operations and create action plans to start the healing process.
What advice would you give to businesses who want to adopt orchestration?
If you’re thinking about implementing orchestration software - stop thinking and do it. The process may be difficult at first but eventually you’ll ask yourself ‘how did we manage without it?’Also, don’t underestimate the power of analyzing data in your orchestration platform. Implementing the software is 50% of the work; analyzing and acting upon what the data is revealing is where the real improvement comes from.
#CHAPTER 9
Artificial intelligence and its role in the workplace
Insights from
Kit Cox
Danilo McGarry
Artificial intelligence is growing at 37.5% year on year, and the speed of change is unprecedented. Many businesses are sitting on a huge opportunity to use AI to streamline processes, tackle complex tasks and ultimately become more efficient. From ChatGPT to Stanford Alpaca, there’s a whole host of tools that businesses can use to bring AI into their operations. We asked Enate’s founder, Kit Cox, to offer a few tactics for businesses who are curious about adopting AI, but don’t know where to start.
In the spirit of embracing AI, we asked ChatGPT to edit this section.
Kit Cox
AI Action Plan
# Step 1 – Remember that AI is all about data
To train and use AI models, you need to share data with them. Start by getting a grip on your data management rules. Clearly define what data can and can’t be shared with public and private AI models. Make sure your entire team is aware of and following these rules.
#Step 2 – Brainstorm and identify use cases for AI
Collaborate with your staff and an external expert to explore the art of what’s possible to do using AI. Remember that what is possible is literally changing weekly right now, this is the fastest pace of technology driven change in my lifetime. Classify your use cases into four categories:
- Skill support
- Transaction support
- Customer support
- Decision support
All these use cases support humans in their tasks.
#Step 3 – Learn about the pressing issues
Investigate AI safety, hallucination, and data privacy before deploying AI, especially generative AI like GPT-4.
#Step 4 – Adopt the following playbook for each category:
Skill Support:
- Identify everyone in the organization whose job involves creating (writing, designing and building).
- Create task forces for each skill and let them find the best AI co-pilot for their task.
- Test and procure low-risk tools to support individuals in your organization.
Transaction Support:
- Orchestrate your workflows, it’s the only way to manage and control the deployment and mitigate the risk of ‘doing the wrong thing faster’.
- Use your orchestrator to create business cases for AI deployment for specific tasks.
- Choose the right AI tool for each job, such as NLP, IDP, or NLG.
Give your AI tools access to core business systems data to improve outcomes. - Ensure people are always in control, particularly when using NLG technologies such as GPT-4.
Transaction Support:
- Ensure your organization has the skills to use conversational AI safely.
- Choose a customer dialogue platform that meets your use cases.
- Use sophisticated human-in-loop technology to flip conversations between AI and people.
- Give the conversational AI access to data that will help it converse with customers more effectively, but start with non-sensitive product knowledge.
In conclusion, AI can greatly enhance your business, but it’s essential to understand how to safely and effectively use it. By following these guidelines, you can effectively integrate AI into your operations and improve your outcomes.
What are the biggest misconceptions of AI and the challenges?
We asked AI Thought Leader, Danilo McGarry, for his thoughts on the challenges of AI.
“The current wave of automation is more advanced than ever before, allowing for greater automation of processes and data management. AI can tackle complex tasks like OCR and pattern recognition, leading to semi-autonomous operations and eventually full autonomy. However, businesses underestimate how big AI is, and how to use it properly.
You need clean data and processes in order to empower AI properly. In many cases, companies try to use AI without these key ingredients and can never scale it to everything the company does - no wonder why!”
Danilo McGarry
#CHAPTER 10
Using data wisely: best practice from Hello Fresh
Insights from
David Castro-Gavino
We asked David Castro-Gavino, Global VP of data at HelloFresh for best practice tactics on how businesses should approach using and storing data.
Implement a Data Catalog
Today’s businesses have access to an extensive amount of data, but simply having access doesn’t suffice. In most businesses, data is not well known which results in duplication, or, worse, siloed information. In order to implement value, data must be collected and organized efficiently and easily discoverable.
Make it accessible
It’s critical to create a robust self-service data platform that allows easy access to data throughout the organization, in conjunction with forming clear objectives, focused on solving business problems.
Keep data clean
As you're creating your data catalog and platform, remember that not all data is created equal. Score data for quality and make sure you're not making critical decisions on low quality data. If you have inadequate data, make deliberate plans to improve and clean it.
Don't forget your supply chain
All sophisticated businesses rely on complex integrated supply chains. If you outsource services, those service providers need to be able to access your data.
Standardize metric definitions
Everyone needs to be able to speak the same language when it comes to data, regardless of the domain or function they’re in.
Prioritize the most important metrics
Pick out a handful of key metrics to focus on. Otherwise you may lose sight of what you want to achieve and end up boiling the ocean.
#CHAPTER 11
Putting the 'who' and 'why' in automation
Insights from
Kit Cox
Daniel Lawrence
- 51% of employees want to spend less time on manual tasks [2]
- 63% rely on spreadsheets and manual methods to keep track of work [2]
- 33% of I&O leaders cite productivity as a key automation goal [8]
The pandemic, cost of living crisis, industrial unrest and war in Ukraine have all had a volatile effect on the workforce. In tandem, consumers have adopted a digital-first attitude, demanding higher standards of customer service, and businesses are turning to automation to become more efficient. The concept of the ‘pencil pusher’ is quickly becoming extinct as businesses look to streamline processes and automate tedious, repetitive tasks. However, just 21% of infrastructure and ops leaders [9] reported high levels of success with automation, highlighting pitfalls. Daniel Lawrence, CEO of Bots for That, shares insights on automating for success.
Transformation mindset
Daniel Lawrence
Automation is about deciding to create a smart, digital workforce to collaborate with and complement your human resources to work differently but better than ever before, using the systems you already have for greater flexibility and choice in how you work. Automation gives us the ability to redefine work, so that our companies can be more robust, scalable, productive, and profitable, but also sustainable. Here are my tips for success:
Start with the ‘why’
First, understand why you need to automate. Don’t just do it because you think you should implement new and shiny technology. Start with the business case aligned with strategic goals. If automation helps execs deliver their goals, you've a better chance of getting support.
Engage with decision makers early
Get buy-in from decision makers and create a forum for regular, open, transparent communication to update on progress and developments. Listen to feedback and concerns and address roadblocks as they come up.
Put the right people in place
Don’t leave your IT department to take care of automation strategy alone – it works best as a business-led initiative, supported by IT.
Problem > solution mindset
Businesses have a tendency to overthink a problem and spend too much time redesigning a process before it’s automated. These things should be done in parallel to ensure success.
Start small and scale
The perfect solution is one you can execute in time and on budget. Start with small use cases and build up over time, testing and iterating as you go.
What are the downsides or limitations of bots?
Automation has achieved impressive results, but bots may not always be the best fit for tasks humans do, leading to errors. To mitigate potential problems, it's important to keep humans in the loop.
- Greater hybridized work - people, bots and AI working together in seamless collaboration.
- Work and roles reimagined - repetitive tasks disappear and new responsibilities emerge. People must upskill, diversify and adapt.
- The human touch - becomes more important and valuable once our time is freed up, and we can use social skills to much greater effect.
Kit Cox
Putting the ‘who’ in automation by Enate’s Founder, Kit Cox
Historically, automation of activity was purely in the hands of the people who had the specific engineering expertise to do it. In white collar environments, it meant software engineers. Business functions grew around these skills and thus the IT function rose up around the software and network engineers within a business. Expertise was centralized in the IT department so that software developers could help other business functions that didn't have that expertise.
This heavy dependence on the IT department has led to frustrated business users experiencing bottlenecks and long waiting times to get the help they desperately need. Users often resort to downloading their own tools, which IT departments frown upon. This is widely known as Shadow IT. Shadow IT tools include productivity hacks like Trello and Slack, as well as department-specific spreadsheets and macros. While IT professionals may find this frustrating, Shadow IT is evidence of IT function failure and the need for collaboration between IT and business teams to drive customer success.
The rise of citizen development
In recent years, citizen development has enabled employees with no technical skills to build automations using low/no code technology. Low/no code development gives employees the ability to build mobile or web apps and automations without the need to write code, using a visual ‘drag and drop’ approach. This enables the continuous improvement of customer processes without the need for IT intervention, driving a dramatic increase in the pace of change.
Today, 60% of all custom apps are being built outside of the technology and IT function. Of these, 30% are built by employees with limited or no technical development skills.
The benefits of citizen development to businesses
Arming citizen developers with the right no-code tooling can deliver significant cost and customer experience benefits to organizations – which is why they must be considered if businesses wish to remain relevant.
Reducing the costs of technology development creates opportunities to make smaller changes, previously ignored because there was no obvious return on investment. There is so much potential here, and the waste caused by not resolving this untapped pool of improvements is a major contributor to employee frustration.
Additionally, employees are demanding tools that empower them to digitally transform their own work; quickly, effectively, and continuously. The ability to get involved in citizen development is a game-changer for employee engagement and attracting new talent – allowing untapped potential to be unlocked in both people and operations.
As with all technology developments, governance is needed in citizen development to ensure best practice functionality and security, and to mitigate any risks.
The future is no-code
No-code is the future of automation, allowing businesses to make smaller changes, drive employee engagement and unlock innovation. It will soon become ‘business as usual.’
Closing remarks
We’re concluding this playbook with some closing remarks from our contributors pertaining to the future of work.
On the Future of AI
In the next five to ten years, there will be significant changes in the way companies operate and work. The digitization of processes into workflow process orchestration systems will streamline operations and clean up data flow through middleware setups, enabling legacy and non-legacy systems to connect seamlessly. These changes will have a significant impact on company culture, recruitment, and society as a whole. In this context, TechOps fusion workers who possess a deep understanding of operations and efficiency technology will be in high demand."
Danilo McGarry
On Managed Services
“Offshoring is going to become business critical. Organisations aren’t going to want to continue to manage the technical debt created by Automation COEs and so we’re going to see a big uptake of managed services – probably pre-2030.”
Katie Swannell-Gibbs
On Digital Transformation
“To truly advance in digital transformation, organizations need to focus on bridging the gap between data producers and data consumers, breaking down data silos, empowering domain experts and democratizing access to data.”
David Castro-Gavino
“Businesses that survive the future of work will have a digital-first mindset for managing core business operations, and will have deep clarity over how people, processes, systems and data fit together to create the overall organization machine.”
Stephen Johnson
On Citizen Development
“Citizen Development will soon become ‘business as usual’ across companies of all shapes, sizes and sectors. When used in the right way, and with the correct support and tooling in place, citizen development has the power to unlock innovation, drive employee engagement and be a core part of the digital transformation agenda.”
Kit Cox
On orchestration
“RPA alone is not enough for end-to-end visibility of operations or building a transformation plan. Orchestration brings it all together, and its value proposition will become more evident in the coming months and years.”
James Hall
About Enate
This playbook is brought to you by Enate.
Enate’s orchestration solution enables businesses to run operations smoothly and produce consistent work, on time. View, manage and track all work, identify automation opportunities, assign tasks to the right resource and become more efficient.
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Acknowledgements
Danilo McGarryDanilo
Danilo is a globally recognised expert consistently ranked in the top 10 worldwide for his work in Automation, AI, Tech and Digital Transformation.
HelloFresh is an award-winning healthy meal kit delivery service delivering over 1 million monthly meals globally.
A leading global technology research and advisory firm committed to helping clients achieve operational excellence.
The 12,800 people Hays employs around the world partner with clients and candidates to power the world of work.
Emergence is a new breed of tech consultancy. We exist to make the world a better place to live and work through the thoughtful adoption of advanced technologies.
A unique collaboration between seven best-in-class tech companies, to build the ultimate end-to-end intelligent automation solution.
Bots For That frees people from everyday manual boring work, one task at a time, to work smarter not harder.
A business built on 20 years of experience and expertise with a dynamic new approach - combining award-winning transformation consulting and training.
Mercia provides equity and debt investment to UK based businesses with growth ambitions.
TMF Group offers accounting, corporate secretarial, HR administrative and capital services to businesses large and small across 50+ countries.
References
- The UK’s flatlining productivity, 2021, Korn Ferry
- More complex work: Shared Services coping strategies, 2023, Shared Services Link
- Artificial intelligence market size, 2023, Grand View Research
- What workers want report, 2022, Hays recruitment
- Labor 2030: The collision of demographics, labor and inequality, 2018, Bain and Company
- CIOs solve the talent and skills shortage by hiring borderless workers, 2022, Gartner
- Striving for balance, advocating for change, 2022, Deloitte
- Process Orchestration State of the Market, 2023, Everest
- State of I&O Automation, 2022, Gartner