Automation is the New Normal: How Does Automation Affect Business Today

The business world was always striving toward the highest level of efficiency. Of course, the bar of what was considered efficient was raised over and over with each new disruptive technology and each new business model. Over the last couple of years, we have witnessed the beginning of what we can safely call the age of automation – a period when companies systematically reduce the involvement of human labour in workflow management and put these processes under the stewardship of AI.

Although these things have been in motion for quite some time now, the outbreak of COVID-19 that physically prevented countless workers to attend their work positions finally completed this process and made automation a new normal.

But, how is this development actually influencing the business field, and, more importantly, how can it benefit your company? Let us try to find out together.

Changing the labour structure

The introduction of automation raised serious concerns that the new technology would lead to massive layoffs and position terminations. Still, these fears were unfounded, since the recent projection by the World Economic Forum forecasts that the process of automation will, in fact, create 97 million new jobs as well as lead to a 26% increase in global GDP. This will especially affect the industries like health care and finances where such positions were not previously present. If you want to use this trend to your advantage, you will need to start expanding your IT department and grooming prospective new talents.

Management taking a new subtler role

With everything we mentioned above in mind, we can say with great certainty that the companies won't be ready to give up the trained and experienced labour they already have at disposal. The positions that will take a hit and need to change their MO are the middle managers that usually oversee the tedious tasks that will soon be automated and base their metrics and earnings based on the number of people they directly oversee. However, an automated workflow can effectively use even these positions if they are refocused to increasing overall productivity, managing tools, and performing higher-value initiatives.

Tailor-made software platforms

Spreading like a wildfire the process of automation will soon cover all sectors and industries. That should make clear that all-size-fits-all solutions for managing the workflow processes will no longer be possible. Even if we dissect a singular industry like for instance the construction sector, we will see that modern companies need customized construction software that will be able to keep up with their unique requirements, processes, and IoT environment. But, that change is for the better, and the companies who make an early transition will be able to attain a higher level of efficiency than direct competition.

Pulling the outsourced processes back in-house

For a very long time, outsourcing was seen as one of the best ways to make your company leaner and better equipped to deal with sudden market changes. While this still holds true we have to observe that, being as efficient and result-driven as it is, the process of automation is often mutually exclusive with the autonomy implied by the outsourced department. The companies will need to make an important decision here. If they choose to walk the path of complete automation, they will need either to assert greater control of outsourced processes or once again bring these entire departments back in-house.

Shifting culture amongst workforce

The workplace relationships and company culture are on a very long way to changing their meaning and core purpose. One of the reasons behind this transformation definitely comes from a growing number of workers that are being assigned to remote positions. Some surveys go as far as to say that as much as 22% of the US workforce will work remotely by 2025. And then there’s the fact that, in most cases, these workers will be overseen by automated AI processes. All these disruptive forces will force the company owners to take deliberate steps to promote and encourage company culture in this new environment.

Scaled capabilities

In one of the previous passages, we mentioned that automation will inevitably push outsourcing in the background. This development, however, shouldn't come at the expense of the scalability of one company since the very process of automation is capable of making organizations far leaner and augmenting the activities that may be outside their core field of operation. All the activities that are usually outsourced, like, for instance, taxes, digital marketing operations, and logistics require repetitive work that lends itself to AI supervision. So, you still have the same level of scalability but through a different channel.

We hope these few examples gave you a general idea about the shape the business world will take as a part of the overall automation process. Even though the most unfavourable scenarios of this transition most likely won’t come to fruition, the corporate landscape will inevitably change and the organizations able to keep up with these trends and leverage them to their advantage will eventually come at the top of the market. Be sure to join this selected company as soon as possible.