A monthly blog by either Leslie Willcocks or Mary Lacity covering specific areas of Service Automation in detail, often with critical commentary on recent media articles on the topic. A must-read section of the website to keep up to speed with the latest news on RPA, CA & AI.
Hype has plagued the subject of technology futures since the birth of commercial computing. In this LSE Business Review blog, Leslie Willcocks and Wendy Currie argue that AI is no exception, that it has more in common with older technologies than most people realise and that overestimating the speed of technological change can lead to fear. On AI, post-truth is doing us few favours. ”
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“There is an ancient and well-developed narrative supported by historical events concerns the power, transformation, and peril brought by technology. During our second and third eras of computing, this belief fed into a second story emerging of an ‘unprecedented digital future’ induced by computer and digital technologies. Enough evidence, vested interests, and anxiety developed to lend credibility to predictions of even greater advances, together with immense, both positive and adverse consequences ... ”
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“...developed this map to help us navigate through what we have identified as five main areas of computing. Each has its own underlying economics.”
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“Many are expressing anxiety about AI at the moment. But automation anxiety is not a new concept... that debate now goes far beyond concerns about job displacement”
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“Our commentary on these stats is a little less starry-eyed. Predicting the future about technologies, even to five years, is a really risky business! That does not mean that it cannot be informative ...”
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... “More recently, what we also found in many big companies was that there was this hole, where automation initiatives were not connecting up with the team running the digital transformation initiatives.”
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“Digital transformation is one of those terms where so many people have said it for so long. It's a buzz word in danger of losing meaning. What does digital transformation really mean?” ...
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We have been studying this for the last 9 years, and a clear picture has emerged. The top attribute is that they have an executive team that believes that digital technologies can be transformational and of strategic importance to its business as whole. Actually, the evidence is ...
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At the start of our research, in 2014, there were few RPA users, and we chose to look at only the most successful. What surprised us was the multiple benefits they were getting—many unplanned for, and completely unexpected-many.
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Think in terms of human skills like empathy, teambuilding, leadership, motivation, critical thinking and imagination. We once did this exercise in a hi-tech company and we spent some 40 minutes listing out the skills which humans bring to the workplace that singly—and especially in combination—cannot be inexpensively and easily, if at all, replicated by machines...
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Across our 750 plus cases and in our surveys, we found certainly around 10–13 percent looking for labour displacement. But, looking at the 2015–2023 period, the majority were automating because they were experiencing year-on-year massive increases and intensification in work, they had skills shortages, productivity problems, and/or they could not meet work processing targets.
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Over the next few months, we will provide an introduction to the book, but in a relatively novel way. During the last year I have conducted many interviews with journalists, magazines, online think tanks, and academic journal editors, who have asked for summaries of research, perspectives on emerging issues, and predictions .
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The authors provide a two-part account, and indeed there is much to discuss. Part 1 reviews pre-computer information systems development (ISD) methodologies from 1915, through to methodologies created for early computer-based information systems development in the 1980s.
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The term ‘AI’ is misleading: Despite suggestions to the contra—and some surely impressive achievements in specific areas—we are still far from reaching the benchmark of ‘general human intelligence’
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Unfortunately, as you can experience from the latest manifestation—ChatGPT—AI is so over-hyped with fantasies of power that, with AI’s publicity machine, it’s not just the pigs that are flying.
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Matt Agnew from Blueprint Software Systems interviews Dr Leslie P Wilcocks
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The purpose of this third article is to highlight out robust findings on management action principles for automation..
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Using software to automate tasks is not a new idea, but interest in service automation has certainly escalated in recent years. In this first article I would like to take you on our journey of study - I will also identify the first 13 management actions that were leading to effective automation deployments.
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Using software to automate tasks is not a new idea, but interest in service automation has certainly escalated in recent years. In this first article I would like to take you on our journey of study - I will also identify the first 13 management actions that were leading to effective automation deployments.
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It became clear that, facing today’s environmental dynamism, connectedness and uncertainty, together with rising, increasingly unpredictable competition, these organisations recognised the need to become not just digital but also agile and adaptable—that is, ‘future-ready’. What does this mean?
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Much can be made of executive and organisational ‘blind spots’. For example, in her 2007 book Blind Spots, Madeline Van Hecke devotes a chapter to each of ten mental blind spots that afflict even the smartest people:
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In this briefing I explain the business payoffs possible from digital transformation, the challenges, and the core capabilities you need to build to compete against the digital leaders in your sector.
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This month I am reporting on joint work done with my colleague John Hindle of Knowledge Capital Partners. So what about utilities, usually seen as one of the more stable sectors in developed economies?
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Over the past two months we have taken highlights from the discussion. This, Part 3, is the final paper focuses on management and emerging challenges.
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Over three months we take highlights from and update the discussion, with this Part 2 dealing with business value, risks and jobs; Part 3 management and emerging challenges; and last month, in part 1, the trio talked about technology …
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Over the next three months we take highlights from the discussion. Part 2 will deal with business value, risks and jobs, and Part 3 with management and emerging challenges.
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‘AI’ has always been long on rhetoric and striking examples, and short on what is mostly, really, happening in our organisations.
Read moreWhile intelligent automation can be operationalised to support companies objectives, we found that it requires four knowledge-related changes to occur.
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These technologies have massive potential, which is being super under-optimised. In this article John and I look at the opportunity, and a more positive example, in the banking sector.
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Our research findings are very rich, and are available at KnowledgeCapitalPartners.com. Here I want, with John, to focus on a further sector—insurance—and give illustrative examples of the headway that can be made.
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Our research findings are very rich, and are available at Knowledgecapitalpartners.com. Here I want, with John, to focus on just the one sector and give illustrative examples of the headway that can be made.
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Kate Crawford (2021) Atlas of AI: Power, Politics and the Planetary Costs of Artificial Intelligence, Yale University Press, New Haven.
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A Review of:
Broussard, M. (2018) Artificial Unintelligence: How computers misunderstand the world, The MIT Press, Cambridge, Mass.
Smith, G. (2018) The AI Delusion. Oxford University Press, Oxford.
Our research findings are very rich—and it’s still work in progress. But I would like to report on some headlines here, since we believe there are important implications for senior executives in any sector.
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The politics of technological change is, of course, a massive area, and in this article I am choosing to treat it only at the organisational level, and from a management perspective.
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Organisations have had a lot of problems moving this kind of use to the next stage, because they tend to treat RPA as a low level tool, despite the multiple benefits we have been seeing from its application.
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Many executives, if not in their plans, then in their actual behaviour, tend to fight shy of the inescapable corollary: digital transformation requires major organisational change. There are ways—difficult, time-consuming ways—of dealing with such change, but denial is not one of them.
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The rhetoric on automation and digital transformation is very much about the future pushing out the present, but the present seems to be a lot more resistant than the rhetoricians would have us believe.
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The case gives insights into how automation was adopted, the business case, challenges, success factors and the business value delivered. We get a glimpse of the future direction with automation, and the executives and researchers discuss the lessons and insights derived from the case.
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Major projects mean big change and such strategic moves need not just change management underpinning the project, but also require the organisation itself to change, to some degree or other. How to achieve this?
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Today’s organisations are facing a Digital Catch-22. On the one hand, digital transformation is difficult and costly, and short-term investment may be needed elsewhere to where it is really hurting. On the other hand, today’s organisations cannot afford not to become tomorrow’s digital businesses. Let’s find some evidence for this proposition.
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This month we are taking an in-depth look at how East Suffolk and North Essex Foundation Trust (ESNEFT)—one of the largest NHS trusts in the United Kingdom—have deployed Blue Prism and Thoughtonomy technologies (recalling that Blue Prism acquired Thoughtonomy in July 2019).
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The general view has been that the 2020–2021 pandemic has been already accelerating the adoption of automation...
So what are the major emerging digital technologies that will impact business everywhere? My rough guide begins with ...
We talked to two, senior executives at Nielsen—Deborah Fassi, SVP Transformation & Automation, Media and Retail Measurement, and Oleg Royz, Vice President – Global Digital Transformation / RPA. This is mainly in their own words, and we provide, at the end, an analysis of Nielsen’s progress.
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One truth that has been made manifest is that businesses have been, slightly blindly, operating in an interconnected, integrated, complex, dynamic world for some time. These tendencies are accelerating, and are creating, radical uncertainty and systemic risk.
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One essential task of management is to look after the short-term in ways that not only protect, but even enhance medium and long-term prospects. For businesses, the COVID-19 crisis presents massive challenges to fulfilling this quest.
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The interview was published in: Rethinking Finance magazine (www.rethinking-finance.com), June 2020
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In late April 2020 Silicon UK contacted me with a range of questions on automation and digitalization. They published my answers in abbreviated form, so here is the full commentary …
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Leslie Willcocks discusses his ‘future scenarios’ research that will appear in his forthcoming book, Global Business Strategy in Context, due for publication towards the end of 2020.
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After much confusion, clarity! Working from home, and now self-isolation, brings the chance to simplify my life. In some ways, as an academic, I am lucky because I have been doing this on and off for many years.
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With ‘AI’ (‘Artificial Intelligence’, and please note the inverted commas) I often feel dizzy enough to channel Alice In Wonderland: “When I use a word,” Humpty Dumpty said in rather a scornful tone, “it means just what I choose it to mean—neither more nor less.” Yes, indeed.
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Part 2 of an interview with Professor Leslie Willcocks, London School of Economics and Political Science by Peter Warren, Future Intelligence, April 2020.
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Part 1 of an interview with Professor Leslie Willcocks, London School of Economics and Political Science by Peter Warren, Future Intelligence, April 2020
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Before the coronavirus pandemic the evidence on remote working was that as long as the job is suitable for performing from home, most people are more productive... Has that changed?
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Full answers from 2 summarised magazine interviews
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Our three cases illustrate some of the opportunities already being grasped by some organisations.
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Interview extract - Leslie Willcocks talking to Dr Christian Langman
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If you believe the hype, the potential is massive. But developments are surprisingly slow.
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Are Robots getting a bad name?. Definition or modern culture, who's to blame?
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More On The Market. A Three-Part Conversation With Professor Leslie Willcocks, co-author of ‘Becoming Strategic With Robotic Process Automation'
Read more What's Happening in the Market. A Three-Part Conversation With Professor Leslie Willcocks, co-author of ‘Becoming Strategic With Robotic Process Automation'
Read more A Three-Part Conversation With Professor Leslie Willcocks, co-author of ‘Becoming Strategic With Robotic Process Automation'
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South Korea is at a key moment in it's development, and, as a global would-be AI leader, should be studied.
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If you want to optimize business value from your RPA investments, you need to replace seven of your actions, with a quite different philosophy. Here’s what the effective, smart companies do…
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...and What Do They Do With the FTE Savings?
We asked clients to indicate the adoption stages for RPA, CA, and blockchain in their organisations.
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We describe Royal DSM’s successful implementation of RPA, using Redwood Software
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Key technology trends were explored in the revision of Zurich`s Technology & Operations strategy
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One case we examined looked an unlikely candidate for RPA.
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“AI will create a shift in the skillsets which are in demand.”
Originally posted at – https://www.wealthwizardsplatform.com/blog/how-ai-will-impact-the-financial-jobs-market/
While cognitive automation does different things from RPA, the two technologies can be highly synergistic.
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A key learning point
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Truth behind the headlines
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Will there be between 35% and 47% job loss in the next 10-20 years as a result of automation?
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