OREANDA-NEWS. July 13, 2015. Advanse in technology, automation, interconnectedness, user experience, process analytics and machine intelligence have finally aligned to redefine and reshape the very nature of work,” writes Robert H. Brown. “Over the next decade, disruptive changes are forthcoming and are akin to the magnitude of a second Industrial Revolution.” Excerpts:

“Digitally-fueled automation is likely to engender industry-wide change everywhere, and the impact of seemingly magical advances in connectivity, robotics, biology, and processing power will absolutely re-shape how we work and live. This is already happening.

However, humans won’t be rendered as redundant in the equation. Instead, envision a near future where functions become intelligent through technology, allowing humans and digital processes to put their heads together to create a more intuitive, more responsive enterprise. Through such collaboration, enhanced business results will be delivered via new digitally encoded processes.

Robots, machine learning, artificial intelligence, the Internet of Things: many buzz words are used about automation. Processes are becoming digital, instrumented, analyzed, and increasingly operated by smart machines and code instead of humans.  

In Asia Pacific, including Japan, business intelligence/analytics, cloud and mobile are ranked the top three technology priorities in 2015. Seventy-five percent of Chief Information Officers (CIOs) in the region recognize the need to refashion from “control” to “visionary” leadership style in the next three years in order to succeed in digital business.

The conscientious move towards digital entails multiyear changes in information, technology, business processes, business models and talents—including embracing SMAC technologies and evaluating technologies such as thinking machines and Internet of Things.

On the road to 2020, there are already evident signs of a powerful interplay of knowledge workers and digital processes. This is especially true when you look at middle- and front-office processes within industry value chains.

Prompted by innovative competitors, a full digital re-think for making money and meaning may be crucial to transform core processes in the future of work. Truly digital processes can use Code Halos to automate processes right from the outset, but the real prize is the data produced as a result.

Today, delivery models such as business process-as-a-service (BPaaS) probably come closest to making the promise of making digital processes a reality. While many BPaaS offerings are almost entirely automated, their outputs are leveraged to help process and knowledge workers make quicker, more informed business decisions, using a model that’s typically less costly than traditional sourcing options.

Consider the Internet of Things, in which sensors are beginning to totally digitize and automate processes in a straight-through data flow. Those companies that harness these types of digital technologies to recombine and drive innovation in their business processes will out-compete those who can’t—or don’t—for years.

Whether your organization completely digitizes its business processes or takes a one-off approach, advances in foundational information technology, process automation and analytics, as well as machine intelligence, will unleash the potential for more productive and innovative ways of working.”