“ Even with the right team and tech partnerships it takes time for an Automation programme to mature and bear fruit ”
— Danilo McGarry , Globally recognised automation industry thought leader and practitioner
building capability , training people and managing the change .” Butterfield adds that a clear plan needs to be in place from day one . “ You don ’ t want to stop , reevaluate your needs and end up doing something different . Trying to do it on the cheap and not thinking strategically enough will mean the investment doesn ’ t provide what is expected . There are a lot of things that you need to be thinking about , but getting the strategy correct is vital .”
The benefits of automation have been demonstrated by company resilience in the face of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic . With a number of reports highlighting automation as the sector seeing the highest cash injection during the pandemic , it was the companies who had already gotten on board who were able to thrive .
“ Companies that already had automation before COVID started had a significant competitor advantage ,” says McGarry . ” Once COVID happened and everybody was scrambling to log in from home and get all that working smoothly , meanwhile , robots were functioning fine in the background keeping some vital processes alive . Companies that had mature automation capabilities definitely had an edge during COVID , and will again in any future pandemic or crisis ’ s .”
Danilo emphasises that time must be taken into consideration , however . “ It ’ s important to note that even with the right team and tech partnerships it takes time for an Automation programme to mature and bear fruit so that top and bottom line benefits can reap rewards . For such a transformative programme such as Automation and AI , it takes an all-inclusive environment to make it really work . Also , with any such transformative programmes , it is a journey that can often take one to two years before it starts to bear fruit and potentially make any impact on the company ’ s valuation ”.
85 aimagazine . com