We live in an increasingly complex world, where trends such as globalization, the gig economy, and the rise of freelancers have compelled enterprises to think differently about their internal processes. According to a recent survey, it’s estimated that more than 50% of the workforce in the U.S. will be freelancers in another decade. Companies are now spread out across geographic regions so that they can cater to local markets, and they employ an army of freelancers and contractors to serve their customers. In such a scenario, the greatest risk that enterprises today face is the fact that they are not fully connected, and that data on operations and processes isn't transparent.
Up until now, automation has been somewhat of an afterthought, as organizations’ decision to automate is typically reactionary rather than proactive, deliberate and strategic. But in order to keep pace with an evolving economy, increasingly demanding customers, and a workforce that is often distributed over several geographic areas, I believe that companies must reinvent themselves through automation, baking it into the fundamental design of the organization.
The Emergence Of SaaS Democratizes The Tools Of Enterprise
There was a time, not too long ago, when unless you were a corporation, you couldn't afford the tools that helped large enterprises to collect data, crunch it, and analyze it for insights that could improve processes. But with the emergence of SaaS (Software as a Service), the stacks that SAP and Oracle used to sell for millions of dollars are now broken into smaller fragments so that small and medium enterprises can access and subscribe to them on an a-la-carte model. This has helped SMEs choose which parts of their business operations they wanted to automate/digitize and where they would prefer to spend their valuable time and focus on, to stand out.
SaaS is the gateway that enables smaller companies to adopt digital technologies faster. Many have already digitized part of their core systems as silos -- be it inventory management, billing, receivables, or managing the operations. But to compete on a global level or even to grow into a larger operation, I believe these systems -- siloed, and thus fragile -- need to be integrated. The emergence of Slack and Facebook for Work points towards this trend.
Thinking About Platform Architecture For Your Organization
For businesses of all sizes, there are enormous benefits that come with integrating all the automated systems in a workplace. Automation as a platform architecture gives an enterprise the power to stand back and see the big picture -- something that’s impossible when data and usage are siloed into independent applications. For example, something as simple as knowing the travel booking pattern of employees so that you can optimize both outcomes and cost is difficult to achieve without understanding overall context.
So how should you go about transitioning your organization from one that uses digital tools, to one that is designed around data?
- Go through the processes of the organization and re-evaluate them. Our experience working with more than 10,000 customers across the world has taught us that there are several processes that organizations follow that aren’t relevant in 2018. Revisit and rethink them. For example, we have seen organizations that still seek out three competitive bids before software procurement -- a wasteful process, since most software is now an operational spend rather than a capital one.
- Realize the benefit of connected data sets. For example, when HR processes a new employee and issues an ID card, that might trigger everything from parking spot assignment, to onboarding kits, to network access and device registration. These sort of automation tasks not only help the organization focus on its core mission but also remove frustration from the equation.
- Think about data security early on. Have experts weigh in on the data that you are handling (especially that of your customers) and how you use it. Have a model to comply with regulatory requirements, such as the General Data Protection Regulation.
- Create dashboards that allow you to zoom in and zoom out between department level and company level and maintain metrics that are key to each department. For example, a director of operations would need to keep on eye on new clients signed up by the sales team, and any new work or service issues that may impact operational efficiency.
- Look for insights that can help you continuously improve processes and measure everything that can be measured. This will enable you to look at everything on a task level. Say, for instance, that the procurement of certain materials is causing delays in the entire lot of orders. If you see such trends, you can optimize for them.
- Use automation to get insight into market trends that may impact business decisions. Companies of the future will have systems that cross-check the dependencies of the organization against external fluctuations, such as elections or natural disasters, and give the team a heads up to take action.
Understand that automation isn't competing for human jobs, it is enabling us to work better on the things only we are good at. Computers won’t be able to expand the scope of a problem, or have intuition beyond the numbers and data sets that they have, but they are very good at crunching numbers and visualizing them for us. That it makes it easier for us to spot patterns. The enterprise of today will need that help to compete in the global market -- it is a natural evolution.
