New research from Deloitte, “Automation with Intelligence: Pursuing Organization-wide Reimagination,” reveals that the number of organizations deploying automation at scale has tripled in the space of two years. COVID-19 accelerated the need for automation solutions – particularly those that offer options for scalability and rapid deployment – within enterprise organizations. However, while adoption of automation technologies has increased rapidly, only a third of survey respondents say they have an enterprise-wide intelligent automation (IA) strategy.
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The survey, now in its fifth year, polled 441 executives from 29 countries to examine C-suite and leadership perspectives on the state of automation within organizations today, how IA is impacting employees and the effect of COVID-19 on automation strategies.
Key takeaways from the study show that two-thirds (68%) of business leaders used automation to respond to the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, and one-third accelerated their investment in cloud-hosted automation. In addition, 13% of leaders say their organization has implemented over 50 automations, up from 8% in 2019 and 4% in 2018. With this rise in deployment, other areas of organizations have also seen impact. The study shows that 23% of workers have seen their roles and ways of working change because of the implementation of IA, while one in 10 has had to retrain.
“The study shows that, while organizations are widely adopting automation and using it to increase productivity, reduce costs, improve accuracy and enhance customer experience, IA tools and techniques have yet to be used to their fullest potential,” said Gina Schaefer, managing director and US intelligent automation lead, Deloitte Consulting LLP. “To drive better outcomes, businesses should ensure they have a clear vision for their automation strategies, eliminate barriers such as process fragmentation and lack of information technology (IT) readiness, and train their employees to work with machines in order to achieve the best possible outcomes in the Age of With™.”
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