Automation is the biggest technological shift CEOs will face this decade
Shifting to automating business processes is the biggest technological change CEOs will face this decade. The rise of smart machines will force us to turn the way we work upside down and will give birth to new industries and job functions. So what? What does this mean for us?
After this “uprising”, mundane jobs may become outdated but, as I said earlier, this opens the door to new job types as people will need to design, produce and service the smart machines, as well as train and programme these to work optimally. We’ll need to create entire new job functions even as smart machines replace old ones. If you own a business or are a CEO, you’ll need to move quickly so you can get these skills into your company and meet the changing market’s needs.
A new revolution is upon us
Research companies such as Gartner have likened the rise of smart machines to the Industrial Revolution, which - at the time – was blamed for so many jobs being lost. This is not the case:
- When machines started taking over weavers’ jobs during this revolution, the need for 98% of labour to weave cloth was eliminated. However, it also lowered the price of cloth to such an extent that people consumed more, and the greater demand meant that textile jobs quadrupled as a direct result.
A more recent example is Amazon’s impact on the retail bookshop market:
- This company automated most of the functions of a physical bookstore assistant, leading to several large retail bookstore chains retrenching staff. However, today the book-selling giant employs nearly 100 000 people, compared with the 30 000 employed by Barnes & Noble, the largest ‘bricks and mortar’ book retailer in the US. Amazon’s emergence has also resulted in a growing number of independent booksellers which employ knowledgeable clerks who provide a level of expert advice on book choices that Amazon can’t match – giving rise to an entirely new job function.
Automation is a key requirement for economic growth
Companies need to optimise their processes so the economy can grow. Spending more and more money on inefficient business processes leads to higher prices for products, which makes these more expensive. Higher prices mean fewer sales, lower profits and, ultimately, stagnation and decline.
Automation doesn’t mean you need fewer people as by streamlining processes you can deliver more products at a quicker rate and lower cost, growing your business and your workforce. And while a machine may replace a box-packing job, it immediately creates the new job of servicing, optimising and managing the same machine – a more skilled job, with more responsibility and a bigger salary. The challenge for CEOs will be to train and upskill staff and launch them into the new job functions without causing too much disruption to the business and its staff.
