Intelligent Automation: Creating the Workforce of the Future | Oct 27 | Roundtable

Intelligent Automation: Creating the Workforce of The Future
Roundtable
October 27 | Cleveland

The Bloomberg Intelligent Automation roadshow came to Cleveland, where business and technology executives convened for a roundtable breakfast to discuss how automation is rapidly changing businesses across all sectors. The roundtable discussion focused on the mass adoption of cloud technology, customer-centric applications of artificial intelligence, the need for innovation, and employee retention.

Speakers: 

Jordan M. Olack, Senior Vice President, Director, Voice & Chat Automation / Contact Center Delivery, KeyBank
Venkat Iyer, Vice President, Consulting Services, CGI
Albert Ferreira, Director, Telehealth Operations, The MetroHealth System
Youngjin Yoo, Professor, Department of Design & Innovation, Case Western Reserve University
Brian Gaunt, Senior Director, Operations Development & Regional Head, Accelerated Digitalization Program, DHL Supply Chain
Shari Diaz, Enterprise Supply Chain, Leadership Partner, Gartner
Geoff Gates, Senior Director, P2P & Technology, Cleveland Clinic
Matt Yanosko, Program Manager of Intelligent Power Solutions, Eaton Corporation


IBM Participants:

Parul Mishra, Vice President, Business Development, AI-Powered Automation, IBM
Nate Stewart, Automation Specialist, IBM

Bloomberg Participant: 

Deidre Depke, Senior Programming Director, Bloomberg Live 

 

Roundtable Highlights:

Opening Remarks

Following introductions, Parul Mishra, Vice President, Business Development, AI-Powered Automation, IBM, discussed big-picture trends in automation. She compared the rapid commoditization and normalization of cloud technology among everyday consumers to the way cars became part of every-day life after once being luxury goods. “In the 1800s, if someone had a car they took it around, they wanted everyone to know they had one. It was a luxury item until Henry Ford came and mass produced it so everyone could now have a car,” Mishra said. “The same thing is happening with cloud. It’s almost being given away for free” Mishra said.

Mishra pointed out that the demand for sustainability from corporations coming from younger consumers and investors will become increasingly important to corporate strategies. “We’re dealing with Millennial customers and employees, and they feel very passionately about sustainability,” she said. Sustainability, she continued, also is a key factor in workforce recruitment and retention. “Thirty percent of millennials will not take a job at a company that does not practice sustainability in some form.” 


Improving Customer Service

Jordan M. Olack, Senior Vice President, Director, Voice & Chat Automation / Contact Center Delivery, KeyBank, brought up the benefits of automation in predicting solutions to customer-service issues. “If you miss your credit-card payment, AI can recognize that you have been a good customer of ours with no prior missed payments, and then reverse the fee and interest-rate charges right away.”

Venkat Iyer, Vice President, Consulting Services, CGI, went a step further and suggested that AI will be used to predict consumer problems before they happen and then proactively offer a solution. “Can we predict when someone’s modem is gonna fail so we can ship them a new one before it stops working?”

Albert Ferreira, Director, Telehealth Operations, The MetroHealth System, warned about the potential harm that automation can bring to customer service if applied incorrectly. “There is certain automation that sometimes inaccurately takes someone down the wrong path. This adds an extra layer of frustration and dissatisfaction which means now you have to do damage control and relationship management.”

 

The Importance of Innovation 

Nate Stewart, Automation Specialist, IBM posed a question to the group, “Why don’t people adopt automation? Why are they afraid to be early adopters?” The roundtable agreed that corporate hesitancy around risks and costs  in the short-term is impeding long-term proliferation of automation. A legacy of projects undertaken and then dismissed as ineffective also has had an effect. “CFOs are sick of pilot projects not producing revenue,” said Youngjin Yoo, Professor, Department of Design & Innovation, Case Western Reserve University. But lack of experimentation can slow development, said Shari Diaz, Enterprise Supply Chain, Leadership Partner, Gartner. “Budgets at a corporate level have to budget for investments in failures that we can learn from.”

The best way to shield against such risk aversion is to nurture a culture of innovation, panelists said. Brian Gaunt, Senior Director, Operations Development & Regional Head, Accelerated Digitalization Program, DHL Supply Chain noted that “maturity of a company is not when innovation is just a title or department in a company, but when it’s woven into the fabric of the entire organization.” 

Sometimes the resistance to innovation can come from reluctance among employees to adapt to new tools and technologies. Geoff Gates, Senior Director, P2P & Technology, Cleveland Clinic recognized that “if you used to write everything down by hand, and then suddenly you have to use a computer instead, that’s a hard change.”

At the same time, though, encouraging innovation can also keep employees happier and lower attrition. “We have to take a leap of faith. We might not know where we will be by the end at the start of the project” said Matt Yanosko, Program Manager of Intelligent Power Solutions, Eaton Corporation. “If we see something not going well we will learn from it. This helps us retain talent because they understand that even if a project takes a big loss, we can still grow from that.” 

This Bloomberg briefing was Proudly Sponsored By

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