Today as the world struggles through a pandemic, which has increased the need for more remote-interactions, business leaders are looking for ways to mobilize resources that contribute to their customers’ convenience. Since we are living in a technological world, in which increased productivity and customer satisfaction while reducing operational cost has been made possible, new digital players are focusing more than ever on offering their customers the chance to evolve their digital capabilities.
In this context, the realization that digitalization will play part in stabilizing the business world is inevitable. The changes that they are going through have been happening for a while now, but the latest developments made them ultimately inescapable. However, while several entities have thrived in the pandemic, most of them needed more time transitioning into the new environment. The industry as a whole will not have incremental progress with these changes alone, therefore, business entities will have to be much smarter than this.
Even after implementing new technologies, the challenge of transforming your business will remain, and so will the need to adjust and extend your available resources. One open question is whether the new will replace the old. Some adjustments will always be needed as with every new invention, although hopefully not nearly as severe as many people fear.
In the new normal, employees will not be eliminated. They will continue to play a crucial part in the work environment, conversing into new roles with different capabilities. This means retraining may need to be regular, as preparation for a symbiotic relationship with these necessary additions for survival.
The impressive work done in research, development, and manufacturing of new software, such as Robotic Process Automation (RPA), should inspire more companies to invest in such solutions that help improve the overall quality of the work environment. Such addition can bridge cooperation between different departments and ensure that everyone is aligned in developing and implementing solutions for any business process. RPA itself encompasses business and information to create a stronger and stable solution that aligns successfully with business objectives.
Nonetheless, our analysis reveals that despite the many benefits that are acknowledged by business leaders, the stigma of digitalization is very present overall, and it has a major influence on how employees perceive changes. This fear over the impact of machinery was present mostly during the Industrial Revolution in the 18th and 19th centuries. Nevertheless, this Revolution should be used as an illustration of how automation benefited every segment of society, including the working class. As experts of the economy state, when technology destroys jobs, people find other jobs.
Also explained by economist Kenneth Rogoff,
“Since the dawn of the industrial age, a recurrent fear has been that technological change will spawn mass unemployment. Neoclassical economists predicted that this would not happen, because people would find other jobs, albeit possibly after a long period of painful adjustment. By and large, that prediction has proven to be correct.”
The spotlight on this topic should highlight the perception that, “Technology—like language, ritual, values, commerce, and the arts—is an intrinsic part of a cultural system and it both shapes and reflects the system’s values”. (Science for All Americans). Technology can no longer be considered a threat, rather the piece of the puzzle that ensures our course is in tandem with the changing times. That is one takeaway from important events in history, which have promising resemblances to the challenges that are being faced in the present.
To further advance the position that RPA can have a positive impact on removing the stigma of digitalization, we can start by recognizing some of its outstanding features.
Businesses are constantly searching for tools that can make them more resilient and increase their competitive edge, but with issues in time-management, allocation of resources, high costs, as well as accuracy and efficiency, their current resources have proved insufficient. Key differentiators for those who gain ground during crises are new business models which rely on new digital products and services, in response to market needs.
According to a study from McKinsey Digital, transformation of businesses through technology has had a major impact in certain areas as claimed by:
“Business leaders who are saying that they’ve accomplished in 10 days what used to take them 10 months,” also that “92 percent of company leaders believed that their business model would not remain viable at the rates of digitization at that time”.
Therefore, to help resolve these issues and accelerate their work’s quality, companies turn to digitalization, more precisely to RPA, to eliminate human errors and increase financial gains.
Robotic Process Automation helps enterprises avoid long-lasting, highly costive tasks, and significantly reduces the requirement for employees to perform rules-based, high-volume activities. It does not only improve the overall process, but it enables focusing on value-adding tasks, which in the long term can also be seen as an incentive that restores employee’s confidence. This transition distinguishes winning companies from their competitors, and it removes a stigma that has accompanied digitization for a really long time, it shows that RPA does not replace employees, instead, it helps them reach their true potential through the removal of robotic aspects of one’s job.
Ideally, new inventions should help, not take jobs away; they will be the addition that improves efficiency and removes the mundane aspect of a job. The more enterprises fail to acknowledge time as one of their most valuable assets, the greater will their hesitation on digitization be. These powerful tools in terms of increasing speed and accuracy can create opportunities for human works to excel at their job while saving many hours from immaterial tasks.
“Businesses typically fail to recognize that their most valuable asset—one that has a profound effect on their money, resources, materials, and ultimately their bottom line—is the time they have and the way they choose to manage it.”
Raj Narayanaswamy, CEO of Replicon
When organizations feel the pressure to adapt to new technologies, real people can often feel overshadowed by upgrades, however, RPA has proved to be more than a technical solution, with its impact on the enhancement of employee’s true potential.
Indeed, specific jobs might be diminished through automation, but new occupations will also continue to be created. And while markets keep progressing in terms of opportunity and costumer expectations, one thing is made clear, there is no going back to the old pace of innovation, we can only move forward.