Covering Disruptive Technology Powering Business in The Digital Age

Authored by: Zakir Ahmed, Senior Vice President & GM – Asia Pacific & Japan at Kofax

The pressures of COVID-19 are forcing organizations to face—and embrace—a “new normal.” Employees are largely working remotely for the foreseeable future, and enterprises must maintain operational continuity and efficiency, while still trying to meet customer needs. Some organizations are feeling the pain of a sharp reduction in demand, which is making cost-efficiency imperative; yet others are seeing spikes in demand that are overwhelming their employees and operations.

Even before the pandemic, many knowledge workers were facing a surge of increasing responsibility, and in the last few months, this pressure has increased exponentially. During the current turbulent times, many organizations must get by with smaller workforces, further burdening employees preferring the work that brings value to the organization and helps deliver on its overall mission—not the tedious, repetitive activities wasting skills.

More than ever, organizations are seeking to strike a balance between their human employees and a digital workforce powered by automation. The end goal is higher overall productivity for the business and, since manual tasks can be delegated to software robots, more engaged and satisfied employees.

Business Agility through Intelligent Automation, Everyone Needs to Be Onboard

It seems that automation was born for just the types of challenges global enterprises are facing today—increasingly remote workforces, sharp fluctuations in demand and pressures to keep overall costs in check. The bottom line is a need to increase agility and responsiveness through automation that can deliver value right now, but also position the organization for business resiliency over the long term. But automation success can only be realized if organizations and their employees are aligned on its inherent value.

So, how exactly do enterprises and employees feel about the value of automation?

Consider data in the 2020 Kofax Intelligent Automation Benchmarking Study, just released* by Forrester Consulting and commissioned by Kofax. The study results suggest that enterprises and their employees absolutely view automation as driving value for the organization as a whole—and for workers’ own job satisfaction and productivity.

According to the study, enterprises have realized broad-based value from their investments in automation. Half reported an improved customer experience (50 percent). Not far behind were cost savings (46 percent), efficiency savings (44 percent) and increased revenue (42 percent). And greater employee job satisfaction was reported by more than one in three (36 percent) IT decision-makers as a benefit of intelligent automation within their organizations.

Likewise, data from the study show employees also have broad enthusiasm for automation and its benefits. When thinking specifically about technology automating portions of their jobs, employees somewhat or completely agreed with the following statements:

• Working in conjunction with automation can make some aspects of my job easier – 85 percent of employees agreed.
• Automation technology helps me add value to my organization – 84 percent of employees agreed.
• I wish my organization used more automation – 79 percent of employees agreed.

Moreover, the vast majority of employees believe automation has a positive impact on their positions:

• 66 percent of enterprise individual contributors surveyed said they expect automation will have a positive impact on their role (20 percent reported a “high positive” impact).
• Only 13 percent of respondents believe automation would have a negative impact on their roles.

It’s essential to keep in mind that realizing the time- and cost-saving benefits of intelligent automation, coupled with an overall higher degree of job satisfaction for employees, doesn’t magically materialize. A well-reasoned approach is essential, from initial planning to selection of technology vendor to deployment and training. Enterprises should ensure employees understand how intelligent automation can help them not only do their jobs faster and more efficiently, but also how partnering with a digital workforce can empower them to shed tedious responsibilities and focus on work that provides value for them personally—and for the larger organization.

*The 2020 Kofax Intelligent Automation Benchmarking Report is based on a January 2020 survey of 450 automation and AI decision makers, and 450 individual contributors in North America, Australia, France, Germany, Hong Kong, Japan, Singapore, Sweden and the UK. It provides insights into the current state of enterprise automation.

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