Everything that can be automated, should be automated. In the eyes of some, that sentence alone is enough to conjure up images of a daunting dystopia, ruled entirely by robots. But in fact, the opposite is true.
Sure, there’ll be robots. Only their purpose will be to make the everyday an enjoyable, more fulfilling – almost utopian – experience, by way of removing repetitive, menial, mundane tasks and freeing up your time to focus on the things only humans can do.
For many industries, such as insurance, they’re already embracing automation and leveraging the limitless capabilities of digitalisation. Others such as the public sector have been slower to act. But even so, they too are realising that future success increasingly depends on technology.
But while the many benefits of automation aren’t in dispute, seamless implementation and adoption requires the cooperation of your most important asset: people. Let's take a look at how strategic partners, like Fujitsu and SAP, are helping customers to embrace a new dawn of digital-driven success.
Redeploying and reskilling your workforce
If the pandemic has taught us anything, it’s that our energy isn’t infinite. But it’s also shown if a team or community directs their mental strength towards a specific, unified goal, the results are unbelievable.
Embracing automation is part and parcel of unleashing this mental strength. In this digital age, progressive companies can no longer afford to waste time on procedures that can be automated. Especially when we’ve seen how the end-to-end deployment of automation in SAP operations can be the key to unlocking operational efficiency and excellence. Spearheaded by benefits such as the streamlining of processes, seamless scalability and faster deployment of services, at the same time as increasing agility and the ability to respond to critical situations.
But in order to unlock its full potential, this also requires the upskilling or reskilling of your people. In the past decade or so, digital transformation has been a buzzword in almost every vertical – especially in the wake of COVID-19. But there’s been an altogether different transformation bubbling beneath the surface: the skills transformation.
Of course, with the rise of automation, some jobs will become redundant, but that doesn’t mean people will. Instead, responsible businesses are helping their workforce to learn new skills and master new technologies, to equip them with all of the necessary knowledge to thrive in this new age of business.
In response, we’re already seeing that automation, combined with a more skilled workforce, is driving greater productivity – and this is just the tip of the iceberg. As more and more industries embrace automation, new career paths are being forged and employees are thriving in creative, meaningful roles that don’t drain your energy, but instead, energises you.
Culture eats strategy for breakfast
In business, there’s a famous saying that culture eats strategy for breakfast. Well, the same is true of digital transformation, because if you can’t change the mindset of your people to embrace change, emerging technologies will never be successfully implemented and adopted.
For Fujitsu, when employing automation or other digital capabilities, our first port of call is to take the human behind the technology into consideration. So, we ask ourselves: how can we make things human-centric? And how is cultural change being enabled and supported? Failure to acknowledge the human will almost certainly be followed by the failure to deploy digital.
To overcome this, consider any training or motivations to ease the introduction of new ways of working. Educate employees about the positive environmental impact technology can bring, or the practical, enriching impact it will have on their own day-to-day. Ultimately, this also means understanding the individual, knowing their motivational drivers and acting to appeal to people on a personal level.
It’s also vitally important to remember the adoption of new technologies is an incremental journey – it’s an evolution, not a revolution. Businesses can’t hope to go from 0 to 100 overnight, it’s progress, and small steps to a bigger goal.
Of course, some industries are having to move faster, owing to external pressures and the need to keep up with competitors. But if there isn’t an external driver, it should come from within. Consider the cost savings, fulfilment and other motivational drivers – because at the end of the day, there’s no one single industry that wouldn’t benefit from automation. Just remember your people are the key to making it work.
But don’t just take our word for it. One clear use case for the marriage of people and automation was Fujitsu Network Communications, who used Fujitsu SAP to deliver smarter operations, decisioning and processes, where human skills were only elevated by the introduction of automation. Today, by leveraging Fujitsu SAP solutions, Fujitsu Network Communications has used automation to take the skillsets of its workers to the next level, futureproof the factory floor and lay the foundations for success in a post-pandemic world.
Moving forward, together, with Fujitsu and SAP
Finally, on your journey to smarter, more fulfilling work, start now! Because it is exactly that: a journey. Begin by exploring where you can deploy automation and embrace digital, and don’t get caught up in the ideal of making the perfect decision for the end result – the end result will always be a moving target. So, it’s important to start now and make the incremental improvements over time.
And this is where a supportive partner ecosystem comes into play. Since the start of the pandemic, we’ve seen the benefits of co-innovation, agile working and DevOps. Where the lifting and shifting of operations that would usually take months, or even years, is being delivered in a matter of weeks, and perfected over time.
Fujitsu and SAP is just one example of a long-standing, mutually beneficial partnership in action, which is already helping thousands of businesses to move forward. Get in touch today to see how we can help you to achieve your transformation goals and embrace automation, for a more fulfilling future.
