Tag: Robotic Process Automation (RPA)

With more and more of our world becoming digitally dominated, always-on and always connected, consumers literally have a world of choice when it comes to obtaining the products and services they need. Pricing is no longer a real point of differentiation, and the ability to deliver an excellent Customer Experience (CX) is more important than ever.

As more businesses face the technical realities of digital transformation and advance towards 4IR, the customer experience is always front-of-mind – and it is little wonder the call centre has emerged as the frontline of technology-driven, fully automated service delivery.

Originally, process automation was implemented to good effect in the manufacturing space for almost a hundred years. It started as mechanical automation of parts in the early 1920s. In the 1970s, huge manufacturing efficiencies were gained through the adoption of Computer Integrated Manufacturing (CIM).

There is a technology that is disrupting the workplace, it’s called Robotic Process Automation (RPA). Using software ‘robots’ to mimic repetitive human interactions with computers, this technology can do these tasks much faster, without any rest and no errors that human are prone to making.

Artificial intelligence (AI) is one of the key pillars of the Fourth Industrial Revolution, which is transforming and digitizing everything from backend customer service centres to procurement and supply chain management. In fact, AI capabilities are increasingly being embedded throughout organisational structures, opening up a new digital frontier that most companies, both large and small, are still grappling with on a day-to-day basis.

So far the effects of Artificial Intelligence (AI) have been slow to reveal themselves in businesses in South Africa but the scale of the oncoming change is starting to become apparent overseas. AI’s influence is growing in the workplace and will bring substantial change to South African offices in the next few years as machine learning, task automation and robotics are increasingly used in business.

It’s no secret that the role of IT specialists and CIOs alike has changed drastically over the past few years, stemming from the need to get a better handle on the ever-evolving technologies integral to doing business in an age of disruption.

Cloud Technology is a critical enabler of the 4th Industrial Revolution. Particularly when data intensive processes are involved, ‘platform as a service’ allows for innovative new ways for traditional problems to be solved, bringing agility, speed and scalability.