Tag: Automation
Businesses are always on the lookout for ways to optimize processes and gain greater visualization. When processes work efficiently, the output of the product is higher. This leads to workflows that run smoothly with minimum errors and higher capacity. A good reason for the growing popularity of process automation and visualization.
Automation and visualization are the future of the business strategy. Gone are the days of carefully filling in graph paper by hand. Today, process automation and visualization help enterprises up their game by allowing access to real-time models capable of accurately capturing the nuanced data sets.
In this blog, we will expand on how enterprises can up their game with process automation and visualization.
How Enterprises Can Up Their Game with Process Automation and Visualization
Data visualization enables human operators to manage vast sets of data, glean insights from different information sources, and perform operations more intuitively and strategically.
In the current data-immersed world, data visualization can significantly add value by conveying large datasets visually. What does this mean for your business? This means a better grasp of critical customer data.
According to the IDC, the collective sum of the world’s data is predicted to grow to 175 zettabytes by 2025. Processing such large amounts of data can become a problem.
By allowing automation and the right programs to sort out your business data, you can generate graphs. You will be able to use these graphs to up your game in business competition.
Data visualization offers businesses the hope of getting a grasp on data. Fortunately, the human brain can process and recognize trends, identify potential issues, and forecast future development from clear visual displays.
Read more: How Powerful Is Data Visualization With Tableau
Look Out for Upcoming Powerful Trends in Automation and Visualization
1. AI and ML
Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning render visualization more accurate and efficient. These technologies enable businesses to handle customer feedback without bias. Process automation allows you to sort the feedback in real-time and according to your specifications.
2. Unlock Big Data with Data Democratization
Large amounts of data are hard to understand. It requires data scientists and other experts to unlock its treasures. Not anymore. Advanced no-code data analysis platforms can automate your data process. This is called the democratization of data.
Democratization of data leaves it malleable and easy to display allowing your employees any level of tech support. When this is paired with the data visualization type, it can unlock big data results for teams at all levels of your organization.
3. Video Visualization Is Here to Stay
Young and old alike tend to retain the information they see over what they hear. This would mean that video infographics will be the future.
Video applications for business strategy and customer retention are key areas for future strategic data visualization implementation.
4. Real-time Visualization for Early detection
Knowing a problem at the exact moment it arises can assist businesses in customer retention and brand presence. Early detection can have a dramatic impact on the bottom line.
Process automation can help run a dashboard that allows users to submit their error reports to your customer support. Then the reviews can be tagged and analyzed using sentiment analysis.
5. Mobile Optimized Visualization
An increased number of people access the internet on their mobile devices. Your business needs mobile-optimized data visualization to stop customer churn.
It enables you to know if your potential customers are learning about your services through social media or an online review board. Though mobile-optimized visualization is an easy step, it is critical to keep your business on top of the game.
Read more: 7 Awesome Data Visualization Tools
Business Applications of Process Automation and Data Visualization
1. Financial Service and Insurance
The finance service industry is a prime candidate for process automation and data visualization. Two top requirements of this industry are customer response time and compliance with strict regulations.
When automated, quick decisions can be made based on pre-defined rules like loan applications, claims processes. businesses can use data visualization to make reliable predictions or risk calculations in the financial industry.
Insurance fraud can cost billions of dollars damage. Process automation and data visualization can improve fraud detection.
Read more: Deploying RPA for Finance, Healthcare, and IT Operations.
2. Distribution and Logistics
Process automation and data visualization can minimize costs by planning transport promptly, reducing costs of downtimes and maintenance.
3. Sales
Data visualization can greatly improve relationships with your customers. It helps you know the needs of your customers better, and address each of them directly in real-time.
4. Marketing
Data visualization and process automation can reduce marketing costs substantially. These technologies can help evaluate the demographics, location, transactions, and interests of your customers. Visualizing these details can help you understand their purchase patterns.
Thus, data visualization can be used to create and target new customer segments. Cross-selling is another advantage. At the same time, data visualization may reveal that customers are dissatisfied. Identifying this and responding quickly can counteract the situation to retain your customer base.
5. Healthcare
Process automation and data visualization enable cheaper healthcare. It can help predict disease occurrence and proactively propose countermeasures.
6. Science and research
Visualization enables the evaluation of the data of an experiment. Process automation and visualization can be advantageous especially when an experiment generates large amounts of data within seconds.
7. Production
Large amounts of data are generated during production. Using process automation and visualization can help plan preventive maintenance and prevent production delays or downtimes.
Prepare Your Business For The Future With Fingent
Fingent helps enterprises automate document-based processes. We can help you create safer sharing and collaboration. Our platform allows you to create teams, assign roles and privileges, and streamline communication.
Fingent’s partner integrations allow you to use it together with your existing software. Our top-level measures protect our users’ data. The encryption we provide ensures content integrity and prevents alteration.
Fingent top custom software development company can help your organization reach the goal of paperwork elimination. Doing so can lead to efficient resource distribution throughout the organization.
What’s more, it reduces carbon footprint. Our experts bring along specializations supported by scientific rigor and in-depth knowledge of advanced techniques to design, develop, and deploy solutions for process automation and visualization.
Give us a call today and let’s get talking.
A Complete Guide to Understanding Offshore Software Development
- What is offshore development?
- What is the difference between onshore, nearshore, and offshore?
- What makes offshoring software development so popular?
- How does offshore development work?
- What are the advantages of offshoring software development?
- What are the disadvantages of offshoring software development
- What are the latest trends in offshore software development?
- How to choose the right offshore software company?
- Best practices to follow while offshoring software development
- Final thoughts
What is offshore development?
Offshore development simply is synonymous with outsourcing. It means you’re sending your software development to be done remotely by people who are located in different geography. Though ‘offshoring’ is perceived as risky in ROI, many software companies are considering offshoring software development as it can actually help a lot. Often, the main reason for outsourcing is the lack of human resources required for software development or lack of needed qualification level.
From simple coding to custom development, mobile application development, software support and maintenance, and website design and development, you can outsource tasks to a third-party offshore software development company.
Offshoring development will spare you from the challenge of hiring and training new staff and at the same time ensure you get the best quality software delivered to you in a short time. Offshore application development is used by many of the world’s largest and most famous corporations, so there is no question about its effectiveness.
Read more: Why Software Development Outsourcing is a Smart Move Now
In 2019, the global IT outsourcing market was valued at USD 333.7 bn which is only expected to grow further in the coming years. The inevitability of digital transformation is motivating organizations worldwide to offshore their software development needs. Offshore development companies thus become an extremely important part of the global economy.
What is the difference between onshore, nearshore, and offshore?
Onshore: Onshore outsourcing is when you decide to hire software developers within your country. Most companies find this option convenient and approachable.
Nearshore: Nearshore outsourcing is when you decide to outsource to developers from countries with a similar time zone. Typically, customers count on geographic proximity and cultural similarities.
Offshore: Here, the company of the service provider is located in a different country from yours. It can even be in a different continent with a notable time zone difference.
What makes offshoring software development so popular?
The main reason for its popularity is financial profitability. With offshoring, it is possible to minimize staff expenses within the customer’s organization as well as cut expenses such as rent of premises, equipment, social security, and deployment of development. In many of the developed countries, hiring and paying skilled in-house developers have a significant impact on the budget.
Some of the popular offshore countries in the world include India, China, Russia, Ukraine, Poland, Taiwan, Vietnam, S.Korea, etc.
On average, you can expect your offshore software development vendor to approximately charge the following rates per person per hour of work;
- Asia and Africa: $18-$40
- Eastern Europe: $25-$50
- Central America and South America: $30-$50
- North America: $95-$170
Depending on the requirements, engagement, and pricing models, the above charges may vary. To find out the actual outsourcing rates, you need to directly communicate with the vendor.
Read more: Selecting the Right Engagement Model for Business Software Development
How does offshore development work?
When you consider teaming up with a software development company located in a different country, you can:
- Delegate the project to an individual developer or an offshore development company
- Delegate only certain parts of the software or the whole project to the remote team
- Hire a dedicated offshore development team
If you hire a dedicated team or an individual, you will have complete control and ownership over the development progress which ensures that your remote workers are in touch with one another. This may not be a great idea unless you are a product management enthusiast.
If you turn to the services of a development agency, you won’t have to worry about finding the right resource to manage the working processes. Most of the issues such as what if a team member falls sick or quits will be taken care of by the company instead.
What are the advantages of offshoring software development?
1. Shared responsibilities and competent skills
Offshore development companies are more likely to share and manage the risks during projects, as they depend on the end-result as well. Also, deadlines facilitate a faster process.
2. No training or administration needed
Outsourcing companies need to stay competitive, hence they will have the requisite expertise. So, you need not worry about training the resources. Additionally, operational and administration costs will be negligible as you will not have to take care of office space, equipment, recruiting, etc. All these will be handled by the offshore software development company.
3. Faster time-to-market
Offshoring development ensures that your product reaches the market faster and on time. When qualified people work round the clock to develop your product, you can rest assured that you’ll be getting quality software at the end. Additionally, an external person or team can help improve your business processes and let you leverage creativity and innovation at each stage of the software cycle.
4. Lower cost
There’s no denying that maintaining an in-house IT team having expertise in the latest technologies is both challenging as well as expensive. By outsourcing your software development, you do not have to invest in IT infrastructure or worry about recruiting and training employees.
What are the disadvantages of offshoring software development?
1. Differences in language and culture
Differences in language and work ethics, cultural issues, what’s offensive and what’s not, etc., could lead to unpleasant situations if not known beforehand. For instance, working hard could mean something different in Spain and the UK. So, you will need to be thorough about the culture of that particular country before offshoring.
2. Core communication issues
Different time zones, working hours, bandwidth, etc may slow down communication. This could even hinder monitoring and resolving everything timely. A clear interpretation of roles and mechanisms, strong leadership, and an active management of culture by adapting to either the customer’s or the vendor’s corporate culture is an effective way to manage cultural differences.
3. Security
Data security is one of the biggest challenges faced by enterprises today. When offshoring your data, it’s important to validate the vendor’s trustworthiness and respectability w.r.t. ensuring data security. As a best practice, it’s recommended to sign a Non-Disclosure Agreement (NDA) or the confidentiality agreement between both parties (customer and offshore partner) which strengthens the confidentiality of data and relationship terms.
4. Quality of work
While offshoring may be cheaper, it does not assure the accurate skills or commitment to do the job. There’s always a chance of hiring a team with no proper skills. It’s important to conduct the vendor’s background check before outsourcing your requirements.
What are the latest trends in offshore software development?
Software development involves complex processes and is never an easy task. Developers and agencies have to embrace new technologies and trends to stay relevant and competitive.
Here are some of the latest trends in offshore software development:
1. Automation
Automation plays an important role in reducing human dependency, risks associated with manual labor, and costs. Apart from innovation and faster responses to changing business environments, technologies such as RPA contribute heavily to reducing administrative overheads.
Read more: How to accelerate your business growth with Robotic Process Automation
2. Cloud computing
Cloud computing offers scalability and flexibility and plays a vital role in offshore software development. More and more companies are realizing the benefits and possibilities of cloud computing and leveraging it. Soon, cloud-based applications and cloud infrastructure will be the way of life in offshore software development enabling companies to address the growing needs of businesses across the globe.
3. Artificial Intelligence(AI)
AI is taking the world by storm and software development is no exception. AI is specifically used to improve the quality of code and testing as well. Developers can combine AI technologies such as natural language processing, machine learning and business rules to build better software in a short span of time.
Read more: 6 Ways Artificial Intelligence Is Driving Decision Making
How to choose the right offshore software company?
There are plenty of offshore software companies across the world and finding the right one can be a daunting task. While word-of-mouth is still one of the best ways to ask for a reference and talk about the offshore team and ask important questions, there are still many other things to consider.
Firstly, groundwork is important. Finding the right offshore development company needs evaluation and time. One important tip is to contact several agencies and compare what they have to offer.
Along with checking the portfolios of software outsourcing companies, take your time to go through their social media handles, blogs, resources, endorsements, and codes if possible. You can even consider making a test run of a potential partner company related to technical requirements as it will help you make an informed decision.
Here are a few tips to choose the ideal offshore custom software development company:
- Visit the websites of several offshore development companies
- Check their portfolio and analyze their past and ongoing projects
- Understand the experience the company has in the industry you are interested in
- Learn the company rating on websites such as Goodfirms or Clutch
- Read reviews and testimonials from clients
- Learn about the professionalism of the programmers
- Learn how the company can support the applications if you develop any issues with the development
- Find out if the project development is iterative/ agile (that is, doing the work parallelly with continuous analysis of the results and adjustments in previous stages of work) or not
Read more: Points to Consider Before Choosing the Best Software Development Company
Best practices to follow while offshoring software development
- Get introduced to all the developers who are supposed to work on your project
- Make sure to have a full-time on-shore as well as an offshore team leads as they can establish necessary coding standards, help solve technical issues, and mentor the offshore team
- Use videoconferencing to arrange regular meetings to handle any issues and resolve the same in a timely and efficient manner
- Use appropriate tracking tools (project management tools) to plan tasks efficiently and prioritize work accordingly
Final thoughts
The demand for offshoring software development keeps surging as organizations want to optimize their business processes and align their strategic planning with their operational strategies. Outsourcing your IT necessities can be a boon in times of financial and natural adversities because offshore development companies like Fingent implement business continuity planning and disaster recovery plans to fulfill obligations and deliver services without interruption.
Our specialists and developers have several years of experience to complete complex tasks. We have expertise in offshore application development, cloud application development, system integration, and more. Hire our services and discover the benefits of partnering with us! Talk to our expert to learn more.
6 Hot Technologies that Handhold Businesses Amid COVID-19 Impact
The COVID-19 pandemic has had wide-ranging ramifications for several businesses. Forrester predicts that the retail sector will endure a 2.1 trillion-dollar loss in 2020 due to COVID-19. It also said that it will take four years for retailers to experience the growth seen before the pandemic. As COVID-19 continues breathing threats down the neck of businessmen, hot technologies are emerging as a relief to counteract them and lead businesses towards their goals. We will discuss a few of these specific technologies such as cloud, eCommerce, eLearning, automation, virtual collaboration, and contactless services that can help you minimize the effects of COVID-19 on your business.
Read More: Fingent’s Response to COVID-19 Business Implications
1. Cloud Adoption During COVID-19
With physical interaction no longer being an acceptable form of communication, organizations and institutions have had to swiftly shift to digital solutions to retain productivity. The domino effect of COVID-19 was seen in various sectors, accelerating the adoption of facilities for seamless remote work. Cloud computing has emerged as an essential technology for critical application and scalability of infrastructure in this regard.
Companies from various sectors are now starting to realize the benefits and value of cloud computing as far-reaching beyond the scenario created by the pandemic. As a result, businesses will have to scale up their digital transformation efforts and invest in cloud resources without delay. If anyone had reservations about investing in cloud computing before this, COVID-19 has proved that its necessity is indisputable.
Read More: 5 Trends That Will Transform Cloud Computing in 2020
2. E-Commerce
CCInsights reported that as of 21 April 2020, US and Canadian e-commerce orders have seen a 129% increase.
With restrictions on the number of people that can be gathered in one place, gone are the glory days of shopping malls and brick and mortar stores. COVID-19 has changed shopping behaviors overnight, necessitating brands to adapt and be flexible to meet changing needs.
For example, the Buy Online Pick up In Store (BOPIS) capability has become vital to maintaining sales volume with the restrictions in mind. A good example of this is the mobile phone industry. When foot traffic is curbed, then Mobile Point of Sale programs can be set up to take orders and payment at the same time for business continuity. Membership or Loyalty cards can be now digitalized through mobile applications.
Read More: How a Smart Product Ordering System Helps Retailers and Wholesalers
3. Virtual Collaboration
Many developed nations are now stipulating that employees of non-essential businesses work remotely for an indefinite time, making video conferencing vital. Schools, colleges, and universities are also leveraging video conferencing platforms through live or recorded lectures.
This has brought many virtual collaboration solutions to the forefront that facilitate video conferencing, instant messaging, task and calendar management, work collaboration, file sharing, attendance tracking, and so on. A few examples include Zoom, DingTalk, WeChat Work, Zoho Remotely, and so on.
At Fingent top software development company, we use InfinCE, a powerful cloud-based enterprise collaboration software that offers support for remote work.
Read Our Case Study: How Fingent enabled a smarter digital workplace solution for Sony Mobile
4. E-Learning
During this time of crisis, the entire education ecosystem is coming together to ensure that students do not suffer. Educational applications, platforms, and resources offer functionalities across multiple categories such as:
- Resources to provide psycho-social support
- Digital learning management systems
- Digital systems designed for use on basic mobile phones
- Massive open online course platforms
- Self-directed learning content
- Mobile reading applications
- Tools for teachers to create digital learning content
Read More: E-Learning Taking A New Front: How Can LMS Technology Help
5. Automation
Automation has been helping businesses mitigate disruption by enabling them to stay connected across teams and systems while maintaining customer support in times of uncertainties such as this pandemic.
Robotic Process Automation improves the efficiency and reliability of work outcomes and automates the time-consuming, repetitive tasks that weigh down intelligent workers. The benefits are:
- Digital workers do not need to have the weekend off. They can work 24 hours a day, 24/7 to respond to spikes in business activity.
- They do not have travel restrictions nor are they at the risk of COVID-19 infection or affected by physical office closure.
During the pandemic, companies that have already invested in automation technologies are doing exponentially better than those who did not. It is obvious, that automation can pave the way for a better future.
Read More: How Automation Ensures Businesses Stay Afloat During COVID-19 Crisis
6. Contactless Services
The coronavirus pandemic has driven a preference for self-service purchasing, boosting contactless services. Consider a few examples available now and upcoming in the future:
- Dining experience: Technology can take care of everything: reserving a table at the restaurant, pre-ordering your food, digital valet services, contactless seating, contactless payment, and online feedback.
- Contactless payment: It lets shoppers integrate their payment information to their loyalty account through an app and then use a QR code for payment through self-checkouts.
- Contactless delivery: This ensures end-to-end hygiene because a customer places an order, makes the payment online, and gets the food delivered without ever coming in contact with the delivery agent.
Read More: Contactless Services: The New Normal in Retail
Grab a Slice of Hot Technology
While the end of the pandemic remains elusive, capturing even a slice of these hot technologies could make a huge difference to businesses. They can even help smaller businesses gain a stronger foothold during this pandemic and into the future. Get in touch with us and help us guide you through this pandemic by implementing the right technology solutions for your business.
Can Robotic Process Automation Rescue Businesses From An Economic Recession
COVID-19 is panning out to be a historic tragedy both for the human race as well as our economy. While most businesses are stalled due to the economic recession induced by COVID-19, there is a ray of hope. Robotic Process Automation (RPA) is rising up as the savior for many businesses by offering recession-proof operations. RPA might be that one alleviating factor that can keep your business and the economy afloat.
When implemented successfully, RPA can help many sectors experience an undeniable upsurge. How RPA can help businesses get through these unprecedented times? This post takes a look. We will also examine a few automation cases.
Related Reading: Jaw-dropping Facts about Robotic Process Automation
Businesses Can Stay Afloat in These Unprecedented Times
RPA goes beyond allowing businesses to stay afloat. It also helps them respond instantly to drastic changes in demand during such critical situations as COVID-19. It has proven to be an invaluable technology for businesses by ensuring that employees remain productive even if they have to work remotely and from home.
Here are some benefits of RPA.
Increased flexibility
RPA allows your business to run smoothly despite ever-changing demands while automating manual processes and increasing efficiency. Furthermore, it is helping organizations combat the spread of COVID-19 and is providing customers with timely support as businesses move on to new operating models. For instance, deploying chatbots or automated answering machines in contact centers or help desks can help handle bulk volumes of customer service calls and emails, especially when organizations are forced to function remotely or operate with a limited number of employees.
Less dependency on the individual employee
Though we can’t deny the need for human intervention in most processes, certain tasks need to be accomplished with precision and speed. Here is where RPA becomes useful as a fast and flexible way to replicate employee-driven processes. RPA enables businesses to automate certain critical processes with greater precision and efficiency. And soon, RPA will free businesses from being dependent on the limitations caused by employees’ absence.
Related Reading: How to accelerate your business growth with Robotic Process Automation
Keep up with production
RPA enables organizations to keep up productivity by providing assistance to an overwhelmed customer using attended automation or front office bots. This frees up employees to attend to other critical aspects of the business. RPA can cater to an increase or decrease in the supply chain demand while allowing you to rely on automated back-office activities.
Industries leveraging RPA
Here are a few examples of industries who have successfully leveraged automation: (examples cited by UiPath)
Healthcare
Health of the workforce: Updating all relevant data of sick employees in real-time while keeping track of healthy employees could be painstaking. With RPA, bots can be set up to keep track of hospital employees. This minimizes manual errors and ensures employee safety.
Increasing demand in virus testing: With the increasing demand for virus testing, the wait time for registration also increases. Cleveland Clinic in the United States reduced their patient verification and registration time considerably by deploying an attended robot that collects and prints patient data, thereby reducing hospital backlogs.
Accelerating clinical testing: Filling test reports itself would take about 3 hours per day in the life of a staff nurse. But since Mater Hospital in Dublin automated its process through robots, medical personnel are able to use their precious time taking care of their patients rather than chasing admin tasks.
Banking and financial services
Surge in trading volume: Global markets have seen a trading surge by about 300% daily. This is tremendously increasing the operational burden. Leveraging automation has ensured business continuity while maintaining high levels of customer satisfaction despite the huge spike of activity in areas such as trade allocations and reconciliations.
Acknowledging customer complaints: Acknowledging customer complaints in line with UK regulations has been especially challenging for financial services because of their reduced staff. Automation has allowed the banking and financial services to acknowledge complaints in time in compliance with UK regulatory government requirements.
Retail
Helps HR specialists to remain focused on analysis: COVID-19 has overwhelmed the HR department with a large volume of sick leave requests. Automation of two phases of this process has reduced backlogs in processing leave requests while allowing HR specialists to stay focused on their people.
Supply chains
Optimization of the supply chain: COVID-19 has forced factories to shut down leaving their production line idle. RPA allows companies to optimize their supply chains. This has resulted in accurate delivery estimates, optimized vehicle routes, efficient shipment consolidation as well as accountable sourcing.
Manufacturing
Reduced manufacturing expenses: Prolonged closures of manufacturing plants have forced manufacturers to cut down their operational costs. RPA automates repetitive and manual tasks thus reducing operational costs.
Related Reading: How Robotic Process Automation Is Revolutionizing Industries?
Weather These Turbulent Times with Robotic Process Automation
Robotic Process Automation will enable businesses to efficiently allocate funds to areas that need greater focus. It can automate qualification ad validation processes, update public health data in real-time, and much more. Educational institutes can also leverage automation to schedule and activate their classes using LMS and eLearning platforms.
Obviously, COVID-19 has brought about changes in the working style of both the consumers and clients. RPA will cater to their needs and help ensure that businesses can stay afloat during these difficult economic times.
Download our White Paper: Learn how RPA can bring a difference to your business and how to embrace the disruptive technology to maintain a competitive edge.
How Can You Get Started?
Start small! Start by automating small tasks that will give you the needed confidence and experience in automation solutions. Research and evaluate how far automation is applicable to your IT environment. Talk to custom software development experts at Fingent and find out how you can build on the benefits of RPA.
How AI is bringing change to the software testing practice
Artificial Intelligence is penetrating into multiple functions performed by the software industry. In software testing, the technology holds the potential to be a game-changer. Imagine the capability of your software to test and diagnose itself and make self-corrections! This will lead to huge savings on your resources. With this in mind, let’s try and understand exactly how AI will impact the traditional way of software testing.
Before we proceed, let’s get one thing clear – Do we really need AI in software testing?
Do We Really Need AI in Software Testing?
Software testing came into existence as a result of the evolution of development methodologies. It fed the need for robust, error-free software products. Testing was a laborious task for sure. However, automating software testing required traceability and versioning, both of which were critical and needed careful consideration. Something was needed to resolve this.
As businesses move towards digital transformation and the software market continues to grow, businesses expect a real-time risk assessment across all stages of the software delivery cycle. AI in software testing is the right response to these challenges. AI can develop error-free applications while enabling greater automation in software testing. This helps meet the expanded, critical demands for testing. It improves the quality of engineering and reduces testing time allowing the tester to focus on more important things. The verdict is clear then – We Really Need AI for Software Testing!
Five Impressive Ways AI Impacts Software Testing
1. Improves object application categorization
AI is widely used in object application categorization. When tools and testers are created, unique pre-train controls can be created. Once the hierarchy of the controls is categorized, testers can create a technical map to obtain labels for the different controls.
In the near future, AI will become capable of observing users perform exploratory testing on the testing site. And once user behavior is assessed, it can assign, monitor, and categorize the risk preference.
2. Automation of test case writing
Gone are the days of web crawlers. As automation is picking momentum, AI tools have become capable of learning business usage scenarios of test applications.
Related Reading: Unconventional Ways Artificial Intelligence Drives Business Value
They can automatically collect insightful data such as HTML pages, screenshots and page loading time and eventually train ML models for expected patterns of the app. And as soon as they are executed, any variations are marked as potential issues. This makes it easier for the tester to find and validate differences and fix issues.
3. Enhanced accuracy
To date, source analysis requires human resources to accomplish the task. Unfortunately, because of the enormity of the data, even the best experts could overlook, or miss out on observing certain critical defects. Human error and the tendency to lose focus further impairs the experts involved in software testing. It can be disastrous if bugs caused by these errors are caught by consumers before project stakeholders. Product positioning and brand reputation can be jeopardized.
Thankfully, AI can teach systems to learn source analysis and, in the future, apply this acquired knowledge. This ensures that testers have greatly enhanced accuracy. It eliminates the probability of human error and also shortens the time to run a test and increases the possibility of finding defects or bugs.
4. Automation without the user interface
AI-based techniques can be applied for non-functional tests such as performance, security and unit integration. It can also be applied on various application logs which assists in developing auto-scaling capabilities such as bug prediction.
AI algorithms can enhance UI testing, predict the next test, determine the outcomes for subjective and complex tests and much more. In other words, AI could increase the overall test coverage while it increases the depth and scope of the test itself.
5. Reduces cost and decreases time to market
The need for manually repeating a test is time-consuming and extremely expensive. But with AI, such tests can be automated to repeat several times over. Each time the software test is repeated automatically, the source code gets modified to correct any bugs. This eliminates the additional cost of repeating the test and increases the speed of the test from days to hours, which in turn saves more money.
Related Reading: Quality Assurance in Software Testing – Past, Present & Future
Allow AI to Revolutionize your Business
AI has proven to have a significant impact on software testing with its benefits ranging from optimization to extraordinary savings. It enables testers to move beyond the traditional route and dive toward precision-based testing processes. This can prove invaluable to your business. To find out how you can make this happen for your business, contact us.
What Is Robotic Process Automation?
Robotic Process Automation is the process of applying automation to perform tedious business tasks of the workforce, such as data manipulation, response triggering, transaction processing, and other redundant tasks. According to a recent study by Snaplogic, 90% of the workforce are burdened with redundant tasks. This not only reduces their productivity but also consumes significant amounts of time with which they could perform higher-value tasks.
The Role Of RPA: Features That Enhance Business Process
Once your enterprise has decided to implement RPA, it is time for you to choose the right robotic process automation solution.
Traditional RPA software bots are known to handle only a specific task at a given time. When it comes to addressing high volumes, there is a necessity to clone these bots and run them simultaneously. RPA providers usually charge users for each concurrent process. This can become a costly affair for enterprises, especially during volume spikes. Thus, undue extra costs are a key factor to consider while choosing an RPA solution for your business.
RPA works as a virtual assistant and can handle complex processes starting from performing complicated calculations, data capturing to maintaining records.
In addition to prioritized work queues, user-friendly features, data analytics, and non-disruptive nature, the following are crucial features that enhance business processes:
- Non-disruptive nature: An enterprise can easily implement RPA into their workflows without having to disrupt or change the existing structure or risks.
- Data analytics: Gathering critical data from multiple sources, analyzing and storing the data, and creating reports have brought digital transformation to businesses with RPA. This enables accurate forecasts of sales data along with other Key Performance Indicators (KPIs).
- Prioritization of Internal Work Queues: Every RPA software consists of internal work queues. These work queues are used to extract data derived from various transactions for analysis. The extracted data is then stored on a cloud server and made available for access by the bots.
- User-friendliness: Employees can operate on the robots without any extra RPA knowledge. They only need to learn how the systems work.
- Scalability: With RPA, it is possible to upscale and downscale various robotic operations.
Related Reading: Learn more about how Robotic Process Automation is revolutionizing industries.
Types Of Robotic Process Automation Tools
RPA enhances robotic performance in different ways. The three major categories include Working Robots that are commonly used for Data Collection and Project Planning. Monitoring Robots detect faults and breakdowns, whereas Screen Scraping Robots provide data migration tasks for enterprises.
Robotic Process Automation tools come in varying sizes and shapes. Analyzing your business objectives is the most critical factor before deciding to choose a specific RPA tool for your business. A few of the major RPA tools are as follows:
- Attended Or Robotic Desktop Automation Tools
This type of automation always starts with the user via the user’s desktop. The user first launches the RPA code to perform required operations rather than waiting for the workforce to perform.
- Unattended Automation Tools
This type of automation completes business processes in the background and is used mainly to perform back-end tasks.
- Hybrid Automation Tools
This type of automation combines both attended and unattended automation tools to perform start to end operations.
Related Reading: You might like to read more about ways to empower RPA for enhanced business growth.
How To Choose The Right RPA For Your Business
A clear set of objectives form the primary goal before opting a specific RPA tool for your business. The following are the key factors you need to consider before selecting an RPA tool for your business:
1. Easy-to-use Interface
Simple user experience is a major criterion for choosing the right RPA tool for your business processes. A simple user interface will ensure all employees work efficiently.
2. Proper Deployment
An RPA tool that can be quickly deployed with the existing technology stack is what is required.
3. Cost
Replacing tedious tasks performed by the human workforce is largely replaced by the bots. This process of automation saves costs. Employees can focus on their core tasks and spend time and effort on their skills rather than performing redundant and tedious tasks with the help of RPA tools. Purchasing an RPA software tool involves associated costs, such as cost of individual licenses, cost of the software, and other overheads.
4. Scalability
Implementing an effective RPA tool enhances the business processes and leads to the growth of the enterprise. This growth is accompanied by hiring more resources. Thus an RPA tool can enhance the scalability of a business in the long run.
5. Security
Data analytics, compliance, and financial transactions require a highly secure environment. A great RPA software tool ensures a secure solution for all business processes and updates as well.
6. Architecture
The architecture of the RPA depends on where you plan on employing your RPA tool. The deployment and maintenance of an RPA tool depend on factors such as layered design, component reusability, robust delivery, popular language support system, easy accessibility, and so on.
7. Features
Choosing an RPA suite that consists of solid inbuilt features is critical. Flexibility, scope, availability of wizards and GUIs, other extendable commands and supports are some of the features to consider.
8. Exception Handling Support
A robust RPA solution can detect errors during automation and automatically resolve without human assistance. In other cases where human intervention is required, an effective RPA tool must be able to send error messages.
9. Extended Support
Different vendors offer different support. A dedicated support team is necessary to ensure strong maintenance and support.
To make the best decision on choosing the right RPA solution for your business and access the full potential of RPA tools, get in touch with our experts today!
Chatbot or Chatbaby: Why Chatbot Technology Needs Time To Mature?
Automation is at its height in this digital era and artificial intelligence is the core technology behind successful industries today. A chatbot is a computer program that interacts with human users via the Internet. These auto-operating conversational bots, artificially replicate the patterns of human interaction. This is made possible via Machine Learning algorithms.
Amazon’s Alexa and Apple’s Siri are well-known examples of chatbots. They respond to queries based on the data they are provided with. Since a chatbot is programmed to perform tasks independently, it can respond to queries based on predefined scripts and machine learning applications as well.
Enterprises that have enhanced IT infrastructure, implement chatbots in varying departments. For instance, ERP, on-premises to cloud, etc., improve customer experiences and increase business value.
Chatbots As Conversational Tools In The Workplace
The potential benefits that chatbots provide to companies are immense. On one hand, when chatbots provide personalized and efficient search results, on the other hand, companies find cost savings a prominent feature on implementing chatbots.
Enterprises enhance their workflows and operations increasingly with the help of chatbots as co-workers. This helps companies in serving a larger market segment. Chatbots automate redundant tasks that sap the productivity and efficiency of the workforce and enable them to focus on their core functions. Chatbot technology enhances customer experience by providing them with personalized content.
Chatbots: Influence In Industries Today
-
Enhances Customer Service
According to a recent survey, 83% of customers need online assistance to complete their shopping. Customers will need online real-time assistance from a real store. The assistance required by customers include areas like during registration, logging in, adding products into the cart, payment, checkout, etc. This is where chatbots serve as a salesperson by interactively communicating with customers via text, voice and so on and provide them with rich content.
Additionally, chatbots provide automated answers to redundant queries of customers. It also forwards the queries to real sales personnel when the need arises. This saves the time of human customer service resources, avoiding the need for customers to wait for responses. This scales up operations of enterprises to new markets globally as well.
Customer service that chatbots offer is proactive. This means that chatbots facilitate a 24/7 service for interacting with its customers real-time. Initiating communication with the customer periodically, is another benefit of the prevailing chatbot technology, thus enhancing your brand perception considerably.
-
Monitors Data To Provide Critical Insights
An enterprise benefits from gaining traction of customers on its website’s landing page. But it is equally important to ensure that the landing page also generates enough organic traffic. Chatbots reaches out to the customers who visit the landing page and gathers critical data as to why the customer left the page without a purchase and so on.
Online customer behavior and buying patterns are tracked effectively via monitoring the data thus derived.
-
Generate Leads Effectively
Chatbots ensure a better lead generation by helping in determining leads via KPIs such as timeline, budget, etc. Chatbots thus ensure higher conversion rates.
-
Saves Costs
Implementation of a fully functioning chatbot is much faster than hiring individual employees for each task. With great speed, chatbots also ensure error-free operations. It is also easy to implement and maintain. This reduces costs and other overheads significantly.
Related Reading: Read on to reveal the top Chatbot Security measures you need to consider.
Chatbots In Its Chatbaby Phase: Conversational Limitations In Current Chatbots
Chatbots have evolved into a phase where it can integrate Natural Language Processing or NLP technology to support the workforce in performing extensive searches. That being said, chatbots currently face a limitation. AI-based chatbots, for instance, are restricted to duplicate results. For example, a flaw in a chatbot can result in the chatbot responding to a high engagement level content such as an office party album instead of retrieving business-related documents.
Related Reading: Can ChatBots redefine your real estate business? Read on to know more!
Why Do Chatbots Need To Mature?
Though chatbots support customer services, they lack a human element in them. A full-fledged implementation of a matured chatbot requires addressing numerous technological gaps. Only then the services of these chatbots can be extended from a chatbaby level, offering just employee assistance to a serious enterprise level.
Even when chatbots interact in an automated manner, they sometimes cannot answer even simple queries. For instance, chatbots lack becoming conversational in a detail-oriented manner. Thus, it is necessary to learn the complex machine learning technology and its bottlenecks initially before you proceed to implement it in your business.
Around-the-clock support is what customers look forward to while they search via queries online. This 24/7 ability to converse with the customers real-time is what is yet to be achieved.
In 2019, chatbots are still in their chatbaby phase and need to mature. 75% of global consumers prefer human interaction rather than a chatbot or any other automated service at the time being.
The data required to establish a fully conversational chatbot is immensely huge. This explains the need for a much higher understanding of machine learning and challenges around natural language processing technique implementation.
Can There Be An Alternative To Chatbots?
Chatbots can handle simple tasks to help the human workforce. But when it comes to complicated tasks, assistants that can proactively work to streamline interactions with customers, are required. For this, employees must be able to access from a centralized location.
Employee Intranets, for instance, are hubs that allow organizations to access data in real-time and whenever required. This not only allows them to store data in an easily accessible manner, but also help in connecting with resources and tools at a fast pace. This now becomes a perfect collaboration system.
As more and more employees become tech-savvy and with the growing requirement of companies to expand their mobile technologies and strategies, connecting remotely is a necessity. With the growing remote working, it is important to implement social media features into various communication channels as well. This enables a human element to be present and can act as an alternative to chatbots.
2019 can be seen as a year to understand machine learning technology and to develop the digital workplace. With evolving technology, it is also important that an organization ensures a perfect environment where resources and tools support these digital assistants and help in making critical data simple and accessible. Call our strategists right away to learn more about how chatbots can improve your business effectively and productively.
Can Smart Home Technologies Reshape The Real Estate Industry?
“Mid pleasures and palaces though we may roam, be it ever so humble, there’s no place like home,’ sang American actor and poet Howard Payne back in 1822. He never could have imagined back then what a home, more specifically, a smart home could be 200 years later. From smartphones to smart homes, smart is the buzzword. Automation, ease, and freedom – that is what a smart home provides and that is what people are looking for today. In this article, we will consider how smart home technology is creating an impact on real estate now and will continue to do so into the future
What is Smart Home Technology?
Automation is a major factor in smart home technology. When your coffee pot goes off at a pre-set time or a sprinkler system goes on and off when you’re out of town, you are using automation. But “smart home automation” goes a step further in that it includes remote monitoring and programming. They become “smart” when you can control and communicate with several devices from great distances. With the rise of tablets and smartphones, you can now connect everything from phones, TVs, lights and much more. These are invented with the intent to make the home comfortable and safe. The question is, are common people interested in smart homes?
The Merger of Real Estate and Lifestyle
In this day and age, owning a home defines your way of life. When people invest in real estate, they look for comfort and security. Somehow real estate and lifestyle have always been intertwined with each other. And just as technology has had a positive and powerful impact in improving lifestyles, it has also had an impact on the housing sector. Now real estate is not only about owning a patch of land, but it is also no more about where you are located. Rather, it is more about what you can do within the given area on a more digital level. Would this have an impact on real estate?
According to the forecast by the International Data Corporation’s (IDC) Worldwide Quarterly Smart Home Device Tracker, the global market for smart home devices is expected to grow by 26.9% year over year in 2019 to 832.7 million shipments. As consumers adopt multiple devices within their homes, we can expect this sustained growth to continue with a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 16.9% over the 2019-2023 forecast period. And they expect double-digit growth in the market of smart homes.
Talking about Canada, for instance, IDC estimates that half of the Canadian population will be 55 and older in just one generation from now. And most of these potential buyers would prefer an age-in-place or an independent or assisted living environments, which would invariably lead them and their families to invest in smart homes.
Smart home services provide a whole range of benefits. Some are related to monetary benefits while others are related to comfort, all factors that would greatly impact real estate. This has bought some great benefits to real estate firms in closing deals and generating more revenue.
How Realtors Are Winning Tenants With Innovative Mobile Apps
It is Easier to Resell a Smart Home
A vital consideration for an investor is the resale value of the property. The greatest impact home automation systems and devices have on real estate are that they increase the resale value. They usually raise the home value in terms of curb appeal. As smart home technology becomes more prevalent, home-buyers will see the benefits of investing in a smart home.
Adding home automation features and amenities can only do good. Along with location, market, condition, neighborhood, and age of the home, technology is also factored in when determining the market value of that property. Surely a home with smart home devices will have a greater value than a home that doesn’t.
Quicker Selling Time
The formula for selling your house fast is figuring out how to appeal to home-buyers. Multiple factors such as the location of your house, the condition it is in, the price and the features of the property can determine how quickly it will sell.
Marketing your home effectively, featuring smart home technology is another critical step in selling your home fast. A home buyer would be more inclined to buy a ready to move-in home than having to install smart home features after purchasing the property. Real estate listings with smart home technology upgrades sell faster than homes of a similar price per square foot.
Attract a Variety of Potential Buyers
Smart homes were believed to fit the lifestyles of the rich and famous or technologically gifted few. But now smart home products and systems are adopted by consumers across generations and communities.
According to statistics, the largest home buyers are millennials. Many of them are attracted to homes that have smart home technology features. Installing smart home products in a house can provide a millennial home buyer with a “wow” moment when they enter the home and thus improve the chances of attracting them.
The same research also says that single women are also investing in real estate. Installing a smart home security feature in a house can be attractive to a single parent who might be especially interested in security for their home and themselves.
Related Reading: Check out how Fingent can enable property managers, streamline their operations with PropTech.
Getting Smarter
Smart homes are now the norm. Home automation elevates the wow-factor of a real estate listing. The addition of smart home technology is very attractive to a potential buyer. And we can be sure that as technology continues to evolve, home buyers will continue to be attracted more towards smart homes because of the conveniences it offers.
Along with equipping homes with smart home technology, real estate firms can benefit from other technologies specifically designed to streamline the way they work and bring in business. Contact us for more information on that.
Automatic control, which has been the foundation of automation, has been here for centuries. As far back as the 17th century, systems with automatic control devised for the regulation of steam engines, temperature control, and other applications. Automation has come a long way since then. Its application in the Health care sector that has been especially noteworthy since it has made huge strides in saving costs, labor, and lives! This blog will have an in-depth into how automation is revolutionizing the health care sector.
The Healthcare Industry – An Overview
Before we get into the role automation has played in the healthcare sector, it makes sense to have an overview of how the Healthcare Industry has been doing. Innovation and R&D in the past few decades have contributed to more effective medicines, improved diagnostic aids, and technological solutions to non-invasive procedures. These are naming just a few of the accomplishments in the healthcare industry.
Along with the accomplishments, there have been a few challenges as well. The availability of quality and affordable healthcare for its people is an important indicator of how well a nation fares on the Human Development Index (HDI). The problem is that even developed countries are struggling to meet this need effectively. There are many reasons for this and here are a few of them.
1) Rising Expenditures
There are huge investments being made in the healthcare sector in terms of funding drug discovery and providing facilities. This often translates into enormous hospital bills, which reaches down to patients.
A Research Gate study showed that supply expense per patient admission in the US was estimated to be $4,470! The disproportionate constraint of health insurance reimbursements makes the problem worse. The growing demand for procedures requiring medical devices is a further strain on the pockets of health care providers. For example, the National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS) predicts that the number of knee replacements will expand by 673% by the year 2030. Identifying R&D opportunities for drug discovery also involves large expenses and involves several data assimilation and regulatory challenges. Large volumes of data and insights are involved, and this expends time and cost.
Balancing costs and health outcomes require an intelligent assessment by formulary committees, which takes into consideration numerous data variables.
2) Appointment Scheduling
A survey of nearly 500 healthcare professionals on the Top Challenges for Medical Practices showed that lost revenue from broken appointments was the top challenge with 49.5% respondents voting for this. Other challenges included:
- Low response to recall efforts
- Not enough staff time to call patients
- Keeping updated patient contact information
- Lack of an efficient way to reach patients via text message
- Not connecting with enough patients with a reminder phone call
3) Security
Patients entrust private information to health care providers, including social security numbers and financial details. The theft of such data could be catastrophic, to say the least. Reports show that the highest data breach resolution costs in the United States are for healthcare data breaches, which typically cost an average of $408 per record. The time taken to identify and contain a breach includes significant losses. Above all, the loss of trust and reputation with customers could deal a fatal blow to health care providers.
What is Data Automation
Automation is when manual tasks are reduced by the use of information technology. Repetitive tasks that require least human intervention benefit the most from automation. Data automation is the process when programming takes care of the assimilation, storage, and analysis of data.
Data automation usually involves:
- Extraction: Multiple open data sources are mined for relevant information.
- Transformation: The data is converted into a format that can be used by machines.
- Loading: The data is then fed into the system to serve as the raw material for automation.
Big Data Automation (BDA), is a broad concept that makes use of innovation and IT resources to create value. A few aspects of Big Data automation were brought out in a whitepaper by WhereScape. The WP has Barry Devlin describing Big Data automation as follows:
In addition to reducing manual labor in the collection and analysis of data, automation can help reduce administrative workloads and improve patient care on many levels. Robotic Process Automation (RPA) is the next level in automation. This uses machine learning and AI to effectively handle tasks that are done manually. RPA has made huge strides in Healthcare. A Deloitte article entitled “RPA in Health Care Can Improve Outcomes for All “puts it well: ‘RPA can help health care and life sciences organizations collect and translate patient and transactional data into meaningful, actionable formats; streamline compliance-related processes; and relieve employees of some tasks they now perform.’ Here are some ways in which automation is revolutionizing the healthcare industry: As we discussed earlier, a major cause of rising healthcare costs is the growing demand for medical devices and the innovation costs involved in drug discovery. Automation can greatly aid in this. Recently, FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb revealed a budget action plan, which focused on modernizing drug and device production and using innovation to minimize costs and advance public health priorities. Some of the highlights were to enlist “as many as 10 million electronic medical records to speed the regulator’s ability to address emerging safety concerns for drugs, biologics and medical devices.” This would help in fast-tracking the assessment of safety and effectiveness of the drugs and devices. The collection and analysis of data would also support drug discovery and new product functions. Consider the savings in cost and time if tasks like scheduling appointments and reminders would be automated. Apps that automate these tasks have freed up valuable staff and resources allowing them to concentrate on patient care. Some features that these apps make possible: A manual error is often the cause for most security breaches. By automating data processing and sharing, healthcare companies can ensure that handling of data by humans is minimized. With the help of AI and automation, healthcare providers can enable alerts, monitoring, and prioritization of abnormal behavior. Predictive analysis, diagnosis, and recommendations can also be automated ensuring that the system continuously learns to detect and eliminate security vulnerabilities. While we considered just three challenges and the ways in which automation is helping to resolve these challenges, there are many more. Fingent works with various clients in the healthcare sector to design customized applications to help automate their critical processes. Drop us a message to learn how we can help. How Automation Is Revolutionizing Health Care Sector
1) Solving Rising Costs
2) Appointment Scheduling Solutions
3) Security Solutions
The quest for improved productivity and efficiency in a highly competitive world has landed many enterprises at the altar of automation. A global survey by the Grant Thornton International Business Report reveals about 56% of firms are either automating processes or plan to do so over the next 12 months.
However, businesses caught up in the hype of emerging technologies seldom realize that for all the benefits of automation, it is a double-edged sword, which has the potential to inflict serious damage to the vitality of the enterprise.
Automation Improves Accuracy and Speed with Reduced Costs
Automation brings to the table a load of benefits, and among the most obvious and direct benefits are improved accuracy and speed, with reduced costs.
Manual processing of tasks is prone to errors, regardless of how dedicated the person entering the data, and how rigorous the cross-checks. Moreover, manual updating of records, data entry, or process is both time-consuming and resource intensive. What takes days of painstaking effort may be executed in a matter of seconds, by leveraging automated technologies.
Likewise, automated operations, with synchronized operations, and turning switches on and off at the right time, improves efficiency, eliminating wastage.Automated robots work 24×7 at factories, without taking a break, and automated agricultural operations increase crop yield, improving productivity and Returns on capital investment manifold.
Automation also brings in consistency to processes, and increase predictability. With automated system and processes, the outcome both in terms of time and results may be predicted with a high level of accuracy.
Automation enables implementing the seven lean principles of eliminating overproduction, reducing waiting, prompt transportation, avoiding unnecessary processing, eliminating unnecessary inventory, doing away with excess motion, and eradicating defects, with gusto.
Automation Improves Safety
Automation eliminates the risks associated with several hazardous jobs, from handling molten lead to operating shredders, and preempts employees from being infected with ergonomically related disorders through monotonous data entry, injuries due to lifting heavy weights, and so on.
Automation Offers Macro Level Benefits
Automation removes the kinks in the production and operations process, leading to a high level of efficiency and better products. At a macro level, such improved efficiency leads to reduced costs and lower prices which boost demand, both factors improving the now all-sacrosanct bottom-line.
A spin-off benefit is, gains to the environment. The highly efficient operation of heating and cooling systems, brought on by automation, reduce energy. Likewise, automated robots used in mining reduce waste and conserve the environment.
However, often overlooked are indirect benefits of automation, which may be just as profound. Automation spares employees from drudgery and allows them to focus on meaningful tasks. Such work enrichment plays no small part in giving employees a psychological boost and can contribute to employee retention in a big way.
Automation and the Job Loss Quandary
For all the benefits, automation poses certain challenges as well.
One of the biggest benefits and a major reason why companies opt for automation is to reduce their wage bills, which often constitutes a sizable chunk of their operations expenses, to the point of making operations unviable. In fact, it is the wage bill that sounded the death knell of many industries in the US and other developing economies, shifting business to China and other developing countries. Automation is widely seen as an effective tool for competitive advantage, to overcome the challenge posed by low-wage economies.
Automation does lead to a reduction in workforce and reduced wage bills. About 43% of businesses expect automation to lead to job losses. About one in every three companies in the manufacturing, technology, clean tech, and food & beverages sectors expect automation to replace at least 5% of their workforce.
However, enterprises salivating on the prospects of a substantial reduction in their wages bill, as automation takes over manual tasks, may have to hold on to their celebrations. Automation takes away manual tasks, but brings in additional complications, such as the need to monitor and maintain the automated system, with adherence to Quality Assurance (QA) process. In essence, it may replace several low-end jobs with a few high-end jobs. Only large enterprises can be assured of a reduced wage bill. For small and medium enterprises, automation reducing their wage bills depends on the scale and nature of operations, and in the worst-case scenario, automation may actually end up inflating the wages bill!
Automation induced job losses can cause macro-level disruptions as well. In Stephen Hawking’s words, automation can “decimate the middle-class jobs” and displace the working class. Apart from the remaining employees being psychologically unmotivated, such a trend can result in the enterprises finding it difficult to get talent, and having to spend more resources and effort than necessary of its human resource and strafing functions.
Automation May End up Being Costlier!
From a financial perspective, deploying automated systems requires significant capital investment. A situation may well arise when the cost to implement and maintain the automated systems exceeds the manual costs, making automation financially non-viable. There are also unpredictable costs related to maintenance, and repair, and also predictable but indirect costs related to supervision and training that make automation financially dangerous for an enterprise.
Also, automation depends on having a highly matured technology infrastructure as its backbone. Without reliable ultra-fast backbone and equally dedicated supply of energy, automation will fall flat on its face and become counter-productive. Many companies assume this as given, when the reality may be different, or at least much costlier than anticipated, even in first world economies.
Automation is Not Yet Compatible with Customization
A more significant challenge is the loss of versatility or flexibility. No machinery is as flexible as the human body, and no artificial intelligence can supplant the human brain. An employee can perform a flexible variety of tasks, whereas a machine is limited to what it has been programmed to do. Automation basically entails repeating the same process over and over again and requires standardization. One off customizations, to cater to any special situations or exigencies, or even approaching each customer in a special way, is an anathema to process or operational automation.
The latest developments in 3D printing may provide a breakthrough in applying automation in a customized way, but it is still early days, and there is a long way to go before viable models emerge and mature.
Unless automation is implemented without a thorough understanding of the business process, or customer preferences, it can make things pretty annoying for the customer. Consider the case of an automated customer service helpline, where the customer has to spend minutes selecting one option after another, and in the end, be cut off because he made a wrong choice somewhere and now cannot find the option he wants.
Also, automation works well in a perfect world, but in a practical world, where there may be a need for compromises, automated systems may fall flat on its face. For instance, a strike or a hold up may disrupt the supply chain, throwing the entire synchronized system in disarray.
Each wave of automation has come with fresh benefits. The first wave of automation, heralded by the Industrial Revolution of the 19th century and made production robust. The second wave of automation in the 20th century boosted production capabilities and speeded up things. The latest wave of digitally inspired automation, powered by IoT and related technologies, promises intelligent insights which have the capability to overcome, almost all these existing drawbacks or challenges.
The trick is to get the implementation right. It requires effective teamwork, bringing together all stakeholders. A partner who knows his trade is essential to develop cutting edge and seamless solutions that leverage the benefits of automation and customize it for the enterprise.