Page 21 - Bizmod Thought Leadership Articles 2020

MARKET TRENDS
THE FOURTH INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION IS ON OUR DOORSTEP
Written by Seugnet van den Berg, Published by ITweb, M&A Africa, Channelwise, Brainstorm, ITweb
Robotics not delivering on potential
Despite business anticipating the fourth industrial revolution there is still a definite need to understand the process.
“The hype around robotics
and intelligent automation (IA) programmes has many organisations launching into these and very quickly finding that the return on investment (ROI) is just not there,” says Seugnet van den Berg, a founding partner at Bizmod consulting.
“Leadership teams need to be implementing the correct processes and support structures required by IA and robotic programmes,” says van den Berg. She cites the following reasons that ROI is being affected:
Robotics initiatives and larger IA initiatives are still frequently viewed as a technology intervention with little or no attention being spent
on processes, practices, people and most importantly company culture.
The current trend is for organisations
to embark on robotics programmes by focussing on obtaining and implementing the technology. However, once completed, project teams are finding that they encounter resistance from individuals who have been performing the tasks that are now to be automated. This results in the entire approach having to be re- evaluated. ;
Van den Berg says that they
have found that the main reason
for disgruntlement developing
is that little or no attention is focused on people, structure, process and practices as part of
the implementation. To make the programme sustainable and to generate a return, employees need to understand why the programme is being implemented, the processes required to accommodate digital workers and how the organisation
practices will need to be adapted to accommodate this. It requires an overall change in the thinking about “the way we do things around here”,
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