In this 4-part series I'll share my predictions for what's coming in digital process automation, and its effects on work and business, for 2021. In Part 1, I have some thoughts about digital process automation and "the new normal" we are adjusting to: effective collaboration through remote work.
Prediction No 1: The “New Normal” Changes Automation forever
Is remote working temporary? Is it here to stay? How do you make your critical business processes flexible to adapt to whatever comes next?
People are already changing the way they work both physically and through technology. Tweaking and making minor “quick-fix” changes to processes by adding a bit of automation here and there won’t be enough; it’s not sustainable for the long run.
Re-engineering and automating the processes that your employees work with to improve efficiency will become a necessity. Profound re-engineering includes operational changes, as people are changing the way they work. It includes organizational changes, as people are changing where they work and how they work together. And it includes technological changes, as people need the tools to make operations and organizations work well.
Will the changes that come with the new normal make your business stronger?
How does having some or all of your organization working remotely affect your processes? What do you actually need that common office space for? It is necessary for daily work, or as a place for creative thinking and coming together for innovation? What are your common spaces like, physically and on-line?
When you have two people in a room, you may need less automation in your processes than when you have forty people working remotely. And as we saw in early 2020, that balance can change in a heartbeat, so processes need to be maximally flexible. End-to-end automation of business processes can be agnostic to time and place, and if we learned anything from Covid besides what “social distancing” means and how to do it, we learned what robust processes look like and how they can mean the difference between business survival...or not.
