Data Informed: Assistant Vice President of Cognizant’s Center for the Future of Work Says Machine Learning, Artificial Intelligence and Big Data can Help Companies Predict Rather Than React

“Robots, robots everywhere. Automation, whether it’s on the factory assembly line, vacuuming floors, unloading ships, or in the latest Hollywood blockbuster, it’s as if we are facing an invasion of “all-things-automated” in the zeitgeist of business and the popular press,” writes Robert H. Brown. “But haven’t we been automating tasks since the dawn of computing? So what’s the big deal about today’s intelligent process automation tools?” Excerpts:

“While virtually every process uses technology to make it work, there’s still a lot of repetitive, manual data entry, searching, and collating to get things done. And the next wave of process efficiency gain and business outcomes will be driven by automation that helps smart robots complement smart people by using sophisticated software to automate rote tasks.

This has led to our arrival at a profound inflection point in how critical business services will be sourced and, more importantly, delivered. The physical and digital worlds are converging at a speed unfathomable even just a decade ago. It seems as if almost every physical process is getting instrumented with sensors, telematics, and things that drive ever-growing feedback loops of data. This is where the data generated from the automated processes we call intelligent process automation, or IPA, come in.

The insights gathered from IPA are about the interplay of smart robots for knowledge processes that can unlock data, which makes smart people even smarter. We see this happening most predominantly among software tools performing repetitive and rote processes and unleashing a new era of human-machine interface. But because of the analytics potential, the far bigger outcome of these enterprise robots is the potential for analytics: augmenting the creative problem-solving capabilities and productivity of human beings, catalyzing superior process outcomes and business results.

The data generated by these increasingly astute technologies of process automation and digitization is the real prize, for businesses and workers alike. With advances in machine learning, artificial intelligence, and big data, companies can predict rather than react to rapidly changing demands and expectations.

Across industries, organizations are using intelligent systems and the rich data they provide to increase speed to market, reduce human error, achieve regulatory compliance and reduce fines, realize faster processing times, and gain immediate ROI through faster implementation times.

It’s a new era in business, one in which growth will be driven as much by insight and foresight as by physical products and assets. Process automation is about not only cutting costs, but also optimizing workflows and aligning business processes. And analytics is what determines the direction that businesses must take to effectively translate those improvements into higher customer satisfaction and sales.

By harnessing the power of emerging technologies, such as social, mobile, analytics, sensors and cloud, companies are completely re-imagining customer, supplier, and partner interactions. By igniting the digital information surrounding these entities, organizations can realize business process insights in far greater fidelity than has ever been possible.”

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