Every company is undergoing some kind of digital transformation. Whether you’re upgrading your tech stack, migrating to the cloud, or analyzing your processes to improve your employee experience, every enterprise is saddled with the need to improve their systems. But what if that daunting process was a thing of the past? What if instead of having to undergo massive technology upgrades every few years that process was continuous? If you ask Jon Knisley, Principal Consultant, Automation and Process Excellence at FortressIQ, that’s the way of the future.
“Process data is that missing puzzle piece that nobody’s had access to. Once we get it in place, that’s when you’ll have a complete and comprehensive understanding of how [your company] truly operates. I’m starting to play with this idea that when we get to that point, is that going to be the end of our digital transformation journey?
The end of digital transformation? Sounds too good to be true, but is it? In this episode of IT Visionaries, Jon explains why the reality of continuous system improvement through the use of automation tools is not far off. Plus, Jon dives into data-driving insights, powering continuous transformation across enterprises and why employees should embrace automation tools. Enjoy!
Main Takeaways
- Building a Roadmap for Tomorrow: Understanding how your organization actually operates is foundational to improving key business initiatives. Enterprises need to have a 360 view of how their organization operates on a day-to-day basis to have a better understanding of not only the knowledge that long-time employees possess, but how they can improve the overall experience for those employees as well.
- It’s an Ongoing Process: Digital transformation projects tend to be slow and take years to complete. Companies should not rely on large-scale changes every few years, but instead implement a continuous improvement model where they are consistently measuring their tech stack to understand what is being done today so they can improve, automate and optimize for tomorrow.
- Automation as a Companion: Employees should view A.I. and automation as a companion to their work efforts and not as a piece of technology that is going to eliminate jobs. When automation is implemented properly into an organization, it should free up employees to be more productive and more creative.
For a more in-depth look at this episode, check out the article below.
Article
Every company is undergoing some kind of digital transformation. Whether you’re upgrading your tech stack, migrating to the cloud, or analyzing your processes to improve your employee experience, every enterprise is saddled with the need to improve their systems. But what if that daunting process was a thing of the past? What if instead of having to undergo massive technology upgrades every few years that process was continuous? If you ask Jon Kinsley, Principal Consultant, Automation and Process Excellence at FortressIQ, that’s the way of the future.
“Process data is that missing puzzle piece that nobody’s had access to. Once we get it in place, that’s when you’ll have a complete and comprehensive understanding of how [your company] truly operates. I’m starting to play with this idea that when we get to that point, is that going to be the end of our digital transformation journey?
The end of digital transformation? Sounds too good to be true, but is it? In this episode of IT Visionaries, Jon explains why the reality of continuous system improvement through the use of automation tools is not far off. Plus, Jon dives into data-driving insights, powering continuous transformation across enterprises and why employees should embrace automation tools.
Founded in 2017, FortressIQ helps companies gather a better understanding of how they operate on a daily basis. From data gathering to normal everyday tasks, FortressIQ utilizes an A.I.-based approach that helps companies gain a 360-degree view of how work is done internally and to give them a better understanding of the technology needed to improve. After all, you can’t get where you want to go without understanding where you are.
“We want to eliminate those unknowns to really enable companies to better plan and better execute,” Knisley said. “The whole idea is if you don’t understand your current state, it is so hard to get to that magical future state.”
Helping companies reach that future state includes converting unstructured data into structured data that companies can then use to get a complete picture of their end-to-end workflow.
“If I was the CEO or the COO and I’m spending millions of dollars every year on systems of record and a majority of my employees’ time is not even in those systems, all that knowledge and my organization is walking out the door,” Knisley said. “If I want to build A.I. models in the future, none of that data’s being captured. If I want to outsource the process in the future, my workflow is so unstructured, I can’t outsource it.”
So what opportunities are companies seeing from process automation? Knisley said it depends on what the company’s needs are.
“Sometimes it’s a re-skilling opportunity where there’s a massive bottleneck and we found somebody who just found a better way to do it,” he said. “The outcomes come in various ways. A lot of our work very early on was in the automation and the RPA space, but we’re seeing more and more companies use it for that continuous improvement model.”
Continuous improvement models mean companies are consistently measuring the performance and work of their employees’ process. Knisley related the idea to the measures a company would take when it comes to cybersecurity: once you run an antivirus software on your computer, you never stop running that software. The same should be true for how a company measures its processes.
“Everybody’s trying to do more with less,” Knisley said. “If we can shift work from lower value to higher value work, we’ve got a massive opportunity to improve employee experience, improve productivity in the organization and really, you know, sort of make everybody’s life a bit better., Ultimately we’re going to move towards a more continuous measurement… The world’s ever-changing, your applications are ever-changing, your customers are ever-changing and you need to have this constant insight in terms of what’s going on in your organization to make it better.
To hear more about continuous improvement, process automation and the future of RPA in the workplace, check out the full episode of IT Visionaries!
To hear the entire discussion, tune into IT Visionaries here.
