The business is working – Why Change?
FOMO – Is that a reason for change that beats a “Do Nothing” strategy?
Does change need to start Today or can it wait until Tomorrow?
Benjamin Franklin said:
“Never put off till tomorrow what you can do today.”
As businesses face many pressures, if something is working there is a temptation to focus on other priorities.
Could a process be better? Yes, but does it have to change today?
An earlier edition of the newsletter covered “What are the Triggers for Automation?”
The focus on Generative AI and more recently AI Agents / Agentic AI has created a profile in the media which can cause FOMO (Fear of Missing Out).
Why has every business not implemented Automation?
- TLDR
- FOMO
- Do Nothing Strategy
- Inertia for Change
- Herds – Changes in a Crowd
- Partial Change – Experiment with a Pilot
- Turn Automation off
- Is there a Politician’s approach to Automation?
1. TL;DR
Why have more businesses not adopted Automation?
There is plenty of evidence that Automation is effective, yet many business have little or no automation in place.
Change is always difficult, but it can be driven by FOMO when competitors are known to be adopting the technology.
Although benefits can be achieved from specific automation implementations, the biggest benefits often come when automation is implemented across complete streams of work.
The best time to start adopting automation is today.
2. FOMO
Compliance forces businesses to change but FOMO is almost as powerful.
Very few businesses are in a position where there are no competitors. Visible competitors are known and can be monitored, but it is sometimes the new market entrant who poses the biggest threat.
When a major business in a sector adopts automation technology, others in the sector are likely to follow. FOMO drives the decision process as the ability to retain staff, recruit staff, achieve lower operating costs and the ability to scale can all be influenced by automation.
3. Do Nothing Strategy
A positive choice to adopt a “Do Nothing Strategy” in any activity when confronted by the potential for change, can deliver some benefit.
A strategy to “Do Nothing” does avoid been a pioneer with all the costs and risks of using leading edge technology.
“Do Nothing” today does not necessarily mean not changing in the future.
Some financial analysts will argue that Inflation can determine the success of a “Do Nothing” strategy. Depending on the value of Inflation it could be cheaper or more expensive to Automate today or put it off until a future date.
Unless there is a period of Deflation (Negative Inflation) it is cheaper to automate today as the ROI in the future will be against higher costs.
Natwest have a marketing phrase:
“Tomorrow begins Today.”
Depending upon what you hope for tomorrow, could mean starting planning or taking actions today.
4. Inertia For Change
There is always inertia acting against any change.
When things are working, the prospect of something better being available does not cause a reaction to embark on the change.
Trigger events are often required to over the inertia. Competitors taking action can be that extra spark to FOMO which enables change to commence.
5. Herds – Changes in a Crowd
Many businesses have some automation. It could be in the form of Document Processing, Data Entry, Data Reconciliation (aka Cross Checking), Systems Integration or handling Frequently Asked Questions. Yet, automation has not spread across the whole business.
Although people are individuals in business, people within a peer often act like a crowd. There is a generic quote:
“When the Herd moves, it Moves”
The phrase can be used to explain why in some business sectors the adoption of automation is more wide spread than in others.
6. Partial Change – Experiment with a Pilot
Despite lots of research and examples being available, many businesses believe their situation is unique and will want to embark on a pilot for automation.
The evidence and confidence of a pilot can overcome the change of inertia and enable automation to be adopted as a business strategy.
An alternative to a pilot can be focussing automation on a specific small set of activities. It could be specific to one customer or one type of business. By isolating the activities to a group, the scope of the automation can be limited with the impact of the change can be carefully assessed.
There can be approaches to roll out of automation in a business. One approach is to “Cherry Pick” specific projects that offer isolated activities that can deliver a discrete good ROI. It will deliver clear benefits but probably will not be a transformation for the business.
An alternative approach is to go “All In” for automation in a complete stream of business activities. By Automating across connect activities, additional benefits can often be achieved by adjusting the timing of the business activities, the potential for 24 x 7 operation and the ability to scale.
It takes time to build and implement any automation. A good design will include “Human In The Loop” (HILT) activities to provide oversight, handle exceptions, etc.
As confidence grows from successful automations, it is usual to look for incremental automations to expand the existing scope with the corresponding reduction in HITL workload.
Growing the automation activity can also leverage the fixed overheads associated with the adoption of automation such as the investment in staff skills to build, operate and maintain the automations.
7. Turn Automation Off
With the growing threat from Cyber attacks, it is important aspect during the planning for the adoption of automation, to consider a scenario where the Automation is turned off.
Could the business operate manually if the automation was not available?
Could the design for automation enable a scenario for “Catch-up” and “Re-synchronisation” of the activities?
Such questions may not be easy to answer but the investment in considering architectural options could pay significant dividends should the situation arise.
8. Is there a Politician’s approach to Automation?
Politicians are skilled at dealing with questions.
Addressing a question about Automation, a politician is likely to emphasise agreement with the potential benefits available and talk in terms of long term direction of travel but avoid any short term commitment to action. Instead offering a study, a review or similar, to explore the approaches to Automation which can be adopted.
Effectively politicians will often “Sit on the Fence” unless FOMO prevails and then will question why the decision was not made years ago.
There is a generic quote:
“If you do not want the answer, do not ask the question”
Could your business be asking questions about adopting Automation?
Manager’s Guide to Automation: https://www.ether-solutions.co.uk/managers-guide-to-automation-using-software-robots/
#businessbeyondautomation
Article Author
David Martin
Managing Director, Ether Solutions
https://www.ether-solutions.co.uk/
