From automation-first towards value-first

September 30, 2023 Janus Boye

When you say business automation, it’s a topic that’s been heavily influenced by vendor marketing and where the vendors have been setting the agenda. That’s not unusual for emerging tech, but given the substantial investments in automation, it’s about time to think more about value, and perhaps a bit less about the ever changing tech.

For our local chapters focused on Business Automation, this quarter was really focused on thinking less automation-first and more value-first.

While the specifics of our conversations in the group meetings is confidential, this post is written in the spirit of sharing and summarises some of the bigger topics happening.

Hyperautomation: More hype than hyper

March 14, 2023 Janus Boye

The first and foremost question which comes to mind is: What is hyperautomation?

According to industry analyst firm Gartner:

“Hyperautomation is a business-driven, disciplined approach that organizations use to rapidly identify, vet and automate as many business and IT processes as possible. Hyperautomation involves the orchestrated use of multiple technologies, tools or platforms, including: artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning, event-driven software architecture, robotic process automation (RPA), business process management (BPM) and intelligent business process management suites (iBPMS), integration platform as a service (iPaaS), low-code/no-code tools, packaged software, and other types of decision, process and task automation tools.”

Now from the above definition from Gartner is very clear but at the same time it’s complex, it’s integrated, interdependent but mutually exclusive and independent at the same time. Which adds to more confusions, queries, fears, complex terminologies and eventually results in procrastination, lack of confidence and finally failures.

If there is any organisation which comes forward and say that we have attained hyperautomation or we are a hyperautomation organisation, I would humbly say either they are not sure or not aware what they are doing or they are definitely on the wrong path.

In my view, hyperautomation is not a state or a milestone or a title. It’s a journey. A journey that continues as we mature, as new technologies arrive and also when Gartner’s definition of hyperautomation changes, as it will in the foreseeable future.

Microsoft Power Platform at Heineken

November 11, 2021 Janus Boye

"Microsoft Power Apps is a game-changer"

That's what one of our non-technical Norwegian government members said when we returned from the summer holidays and met in our local peer group meeting.

Since then the Microsoft Power Platform and Power Apps have come up multiple times in several group meetings, be it communications focused, digital leadership and also our more technical groups focusing on Microsoft 365.

In a recent member conference call, Andrew Sayers from Heineken in the Netherlands told us more about the low code platform and the business apps he is responsible for. The call provided a look behind the scenes at how they approach governance, how he is responsible for the end-to-end support, and finally his work on promoting awareness and self-service usage of the Power Platform tooling to facilitate business processes and drive efficiency and transparency.

UiPath raises more money - what does it mean for customers?

July 21, 2020 Janus Boye

Fast growing technology firm UiPath secured another $225 million investment last week. UiPath is used by several of our members in the automation & robotics peer groups. Many of which have not forgotten that it’s actually less than a year ago, that UiPath was bleeding cash and had a huge layoff wave.

While the investment clearly is exciting to some, it’s also a big gamble that increases expectations. What does it really mean for customers?

Are robots taking over jobs at University of Copenhagen? Automation one step at a time

April 1, 2019 Janus Boye

This was relatively simple, but it saved 20 hours of mind numbing work each week for that team. It wasn’t optimal, but it worked, and it allowed us to showcase quick results and gain support for increased work with automation, which is what a pilot project should be aiming for.

How AI Assistants will impact businesses and consumers

October 31, 2018 Janus Boye

Then, on a nice Monday morning, the assistant would tell us that we have resigned from our current job, and that we are starting a job at another company. Of course, that job is better paid and with more perspective than the one at our previous company.