Intelligent automation: Improving the future of work via next-gen ERP

It’s natural for people to be mistrustful of technology, especially when it comes to automation in the workforce.

But let’s ask a simple question: If you had to harvest an acre of wheat in an hour, would you use:

1. A sickle?
2. A combine harvester?

Most of us would opt for the latter: do the work you can, and let the machines handle the heavy lifting.

Now, imagine you had to process 50 terabytes of business data for your quarterly report. Would you use:

1. A spreadsheet?
2. RPA, machine learning, and AI?

Intelligent automation is poised to do for knowledge work what the combine harvester did for farming. Data-heavy jobs will be less repetitive and more efficient, but will undoubtedly require new skillsets and processes to keep up with the tech.

In this episode of Tech Unknown, our experts explore how business leaders can prepare for intelligent automation, both on the technological side and the human side.

Listen, learn, leap: Intelligent automation on a next-generation ERP

What does the future of work look like? How can businesses prepare?

Our experts discuss the history of work and discuss what to expect in the not-to-distant time ahead. They take a hard look at what business leaders need to do to prepare, including:

1. How to get buy-in across the organization for your intelligent automation initiative
2. How intelligent ERP can serve as the backbone for automation
3. What businesses can accomplish with intelligent automation in place
4. What skills and mindsets to train and hire to prepare for intelligent automation

About our guests

Tim Crawford is the CIO strategic advisor at AVOA, advising business executives on strategic IT transformation initiatives. He also hosts the CIO in the Know podcast.

Timo Elliott is the global innovation evangelist at SAP. He has spent over 30 years presenting to business and IT audiences in over 58 different countries, talking about digital transformation, AI, analytics, and the future of digital marketing. He also blogs at timoelliot.com.

Isaac Sacolick is the president and CIO of StarCIO and the author of Driving Digital: The Leader’s Guide to Business Transformation through Technology.

Andreas Welsch is the head of intelligent processes, SAP S/4HANA Product Management. He holds a PhD in information systems from the Technische Universität Darmstadt.

Words of wisdom on the future of work and intelligent automation

“With intelligent ERP… you get to take advantage of newer technologies that are coming down the road when they become available, which is a huge improvement over the traditional approach, which could mean a 5–7 year lag in adopting new technology.” –Tim Crawford

“The history of computing is absolutely about augmenting human intelligence… I really think we’re at the start of a new golden age for knowledge workers.” –Timo Elliot

“The way we used to do things doesn’t work anymore. We need more accurate data, we need to be looking at forecasting more frequently, and the volumes of data we’re looking at are bigger.” –Isaac Sacolick

“Expediting many steps through a concerted effort of different intelligent technologies along an end-to-end process: That’s where I see the key value that we can bring in ERP.”–Andreas Welsch

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