Technology evolves at a much faster pace than we can typically manage. We all have our continuous learning processes. We try to keep current, relevant, and competitive. Some days it feels like we are just trying to drink from a firehose. Staying relevant and competitive is a challenge, but with the right tools, BlueKatana can help your company increase productivity, stay relevant, and become a more efficient competitor in the market.
Background
When Ford launched their Model A and T cars, everyone thought it would be the end of jobs for the horse, hay, manure, and many other industries related to the one mode of transport available. The immediate conclusion everyone draws is that people will lose their jobs. As each technological leap happens, these are typical concerns. People with valuable skills, up until that point, are at risk of losing their livelihoods.
Those concerns lead to the almost disappearance of whole industries, but in place appeared a few other industries that not only were opening more jobs that those that were closing, but also required more knowledgeable workers. Jobs related to maintenance and care of horses, carriages, and other related services gave way to car services, oil & gas, gas stations. Each of those gave way to more services that required even more people to fulfill positions.
We all have these concerns at one point in our careers: Will I ever become irrelevant?
One thing that we all know in the Technology field is that we all need to be continually learning to stay relevant. Continuous learning leads to staying agile and able to focus on the next star technology. Those who don’t will remain in their niche, becoming “less capable” in the eyes of their industry.
Staying Relevant and Competitive
A few decades ago, working in an administrative position meant that you would manage paperwork, fill out forms, and be good with a mechanical typewriter. Slowly but surely, larger companies implemented large digital systems. As that trend trickled down to the smaller companies, you’d be hard-pressed to find a large company where paperwork is the primary way to complete processes. Some are out there. However, most companies will require administrative workers to have a working knowledge of computers, office productivity software, and maybe even some industry-specific software.
Where did those workers who used mechanical typewriters go? The quick answer is that they evolved.
Looking at it in more detail, we can see that this was a decades-long transition. The transition we know today as the typical knowledge worker. What we describe today as administrative work is much more advanced (technologically speaking) than what people did “back in the day.” Transplanting someone with administrative expertise from 40-50 years back to today would be a significant learning process. However, because of our upbringing in contact with technology from a young age, managing technology is not a chore, but of a known measure. We do this entirely naturally.
However much we would like to keep things the same, technology keeps moving forward. Continuous learning is what keeps us current and our companies relevant, even competitive. But, how can we make a quick and efficient leap over our competitors?
Welcome To The New Reality
The new reality is that to stay competitive; we need to increase productivity. Increasing workforce output leads to a productivity increase too. Could we increase the workforce to gain efficiencies? Yes, of course, but this would be only a short term solution.
Until it’s no longer a solution.
Whenever we reach a certain point, increasing the workforce to increase output becomes unsustainable. We no longer achieve the productivity goals we want to. There’s too much manual overhead, causing all kinds of challenges.
Considering Robotic Process Automation, you can make your existing teams become multiple times more efficient and productive if they only focus on the part of the processes that require of their creativity, smarts, and decision-making. Anything that can be automated should be. Automation frees up your existing workforce with knowledge of your business to focus on your growth areas where their skills can be more useful.
In parallel to RPA, you want to provide your knowledge workers with relevant training to evolve with you into the new reality: the automation of business processes.