How automation can help people do their jobs [Q&A]

The past year has seen many changes to the way businesses operate, including a stepping up of digital transformation and more interest in automating processes.

But many people still fear that greater automation could lead to a loss of jobs. We spoke to Yakaira (Kai) Nunez, senior director of research and insights at Salesforce to discover why she thinks enterprises can deploy automation to partner with rather than replace humans.

BN: What's the current state of enterprise automation?

KN: Enterprise automation is at an inflection point, and it is currently a bit of a two-pronged entity. It is moving on from what is probably the most-widely understood -- automation done on the back-end -- and moving towards IT processes like cyber-security detection and response, network maintenance, etc. Essentially, this is the automation that we don't see -- we just benefit from it. That type of enterprise automation (Robotic Process Automation) has been around since the beginning of the era of ‘digital transformation’ when enterprises were looking for ways to automate manual and repetitive tasks.

Now we're seeing an emergence of a new type of enterprise automation that puts the human at the center. Shortcuts and workflow capabilities are being used to make the employee experience easier and more streamlined, helping drive productivity and engagement. The benefits here are certainly being used across the board as a recent study of ours found that 90 percent of IT leaders are prioritizing workflow automation. To give you an example here, low code tools are being used by pro code developers as an automation tactic to remove time that used to be spent building out-of-the-box capabilities to now spending time building more critical customizations. We'll see this trend toward augmenting the human experience with automation continue to grow but with a focus on optimizing repetitive work so that the sales person, the service representative and the employee success leader can attend to the critical tasks that require a human touch.

BN: How can automation help make better use of existing data?

KN: I think the value isn't how automation makes better use of existing data, per se. But instead, how it provides better access to that data while also making it actionable. This is especially important in the work-from-anywhere environment we see today. When data is stored and shared across one or multiple clouds requiring multiple touch points, automation can create a seamless experience for both the employee and customer. Automation in the cloud helps everyone get what they need, when they need it by removing process barriers.

Here's a great example I like to go back to -- data normalization. It's a painstaking task, requiring copying and pasting, adding or removing commas or periods, through hundreds of rows of data. With automation, the data transformation can happen in a click of a button -- giving the analyst working on the data their time back to work on more fulfilling tasks (ideally!) In this example, automation is helping an employee, and helps them be more accurate, while offering an opportunity to do what humans do best -- be creative. The point here is that automation is actually helping humans be more human.

BN: What are the opportunities and threats that this presents?

KN: I think when you look for threats, opportunities are born. A threat and an opportunity can be two sides of the same coin. Oftentimes, companies use automation to remove a known threat or pain point like replacing paper forms with digital forms. This is a commonality in today's business landscape. The threat here is inefficiency of paper forms, and the opportunity is what digital forms can offer to remedy the inefficiency. Something like that is a great place to start, but there's more to be done. There will be times when it's impossible to remove the threat entirely, but the fact that it’s being looked for opens up a world of possibilities for solutions.

Here's another example. Imagine that it typically takes an employee three months to get a purchase order approval through finance. While you can certainly optimize the approval process with automation, why not also give the employee intelligent vendor recommendations? It's just one lever, but focusing on this area of opportunity helps to optimize the approval process and improve the employee’s day-to-day experience.

BN: How can companies build user engagement and trust as they roll out automation projects?

KN: There's one essential step that businesses miss entirely too often; create an effective feedback loop from a diverse set of customers. Make sure the input that's gathered from users doesn't get thrown over the fence and disappear. Businesses must be accountable by owning the feedback, incorporating it, and serving it back to users.

But businesses won't be able to incorporate every single insight all at once -- this is a process. Focus on those that will have the greatest impact on business. If certain insights can't go live right away, don't just throw them out. Oftentimes, businesses will find it needs to put ideas on the shelf for a bit. Eventually, when the time is right -- dust them off and make them part of the solution.

Think about in-app feedback and how important that is because of the proximity to the end-user. There might be an astronomical amount of requests, ideas, or nitpicks on something that can't possibly all be addressed. No matter what, the goal is to co-create actionable solutions that work for everyone involved and continually evolve with user needs. This will undoubtedly keep users engaged if they know they're being heard. The more individuals impacted by automation understand the science and process behind it and have skin in the game, the more they will trust and value that automation.

BN: How important is it to continually review the automation rollout?

KN: That's a great question, and it's one that I get asked a lot. It is so important to continually review the automation rollout because this is something that’s directly impacting the workforce. It's a delicate process that’s still relatively new, so it needs to be treated like a marathon, and not a sprint.

I implore businesses to connect with users, ask questions, make employees and customers a key part of the process, and keep the conversations and feedback loops going. It's the users that are key to all of this working like it's intended to. After all, in order to make automation more human, we need to include humans throughout the process.

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