https://t.

me/blinkistfree

Bionic Reading
 https://t.me/blinkistfree

1/8

What’s in it for me? Automation will

continue to change the world – Here’s
some guidance for how you and your
organization can succeed in this
technological future.
Over the coming decades, it’s looking likely that
automation and AI will continue to transform the
working world. And not just in the predictable ways
– in manufacturing and heavy industry. Whole
sectors, where these technologies are still in their
infancy, from journalism to medical science, will be
changed unrecognisably. If businesses fail to adapt
with the times, they could be swept aside. Because,
just as it revolutionized manufacturing, automation
is reshaping other areas of work.

In these blinks, you’ll be given guidance and

strategies for how to ensure that you and your
business are not only able to adapt, but are also able
to benefit from these technological advances. You’ll
see things from the perspective of a leader, looking
to integrate automation and AI in their organization.
And, last but not least, you’ll learn how automation
and AI can leverage the talents of human beings,
rather than simply replacing them.

We’ll be taking you through this Blink to The

Automation Advantage by Baskhar Ghosh, Gayathri
Pallail, & Rajendra Prassad. Though the content is
 https://t.me/blinkistfree

geared toward a more intermediate or advanced

listener/reader, you may be able to follow as a
beginner to the world of automation and AI.

This is a rich, in-depth work with lots of valuable

nuggets of wisdom, and so, in the interest of
expediency, I’m going to walk you through the most
powerful ideas that ultimately distinguish this title
from others in its field. And so what you’re going to
get here is a focus on the fundamental steps to
developing your automation and AI integration,
setting up a roadmap for automation maturity, and
insights on why a human-centric approach to your
automation strategy is essential.

In these blinks, you’ll learn

 what happened when an Italian newspaper

employed a virtual assistant;
 what learning to ride a bike has to do with
developing your automation strategy; and
 why a human-centric approach is crucial to
ensuring a sustainable automation and AI
integration.
 https://t.me/blinkistfree

2/8

Automating your systems and AI

technologies should make business
sense.
Let’s begin by defining a term which’ll come up
frequently in these blinks: Intelligent automation.
When the authors use the term, they mean: the use
of machines to automate tasks like data analysis,
and decision-making, including the follow-up
actions and learnings that stem from those. Yes,
these are typically tasks that are still performed by
humans, which might set a few alarm bells ringing in
people's minds. But don’t waste that energy
worrying – Ghosh, Pallail, & Prassad’s work shows
us how we can make intelligent automation benefit
teams and businesses in our ever-changing
technological landscapes.

Take the example of one of Italy’s leading

newspapers, Il Secolo XIX. Long at the forefront of
innovation in the newspaper business, pioneering
color printing, a digital presence and integrated
newsrooms, Il Secolo XIX nevertheless faced
serious challenges.

The leadership realized that if they didn’t change fast

to keep up with the digital world, they’d fall behind.
They knew that they needed to produce high-quality,
cost-effective journalism to sustain and grow their
readership.
 https://t.me/blinkistfree

Their solution? They introduced something called a

virtual assistant. The AI technology would quickly
check pieces of journalism for grammatical errors,
while also scouring the internet for surprising links.
This meant that journalists at Il Secolo XIX could
reference sources and previous news items that
might’ve escaped their attention – the end product
being in-depth, expansive pieces of writing that
readers would be hard-pressed to find elsewhere.

It meant that they could spend their time writing

great journalism, while the machine did the tiring
research and proof-reading. Rather than making the
human writers at Il Secolo XIX redundant, the virtual
assistant simply allowed them to do their jobs better.

This is a great example of how leadership saw an

opportunity to not only improve their key metrics,
like maintaining and growing their audience, but
adapt so that the journalists could do their best
work, at scale. It also shows us the necessity and
value of aligning business strategies with intelligent
automation and integrated AI. So, let’s get practical
– how can you set your business on the right path
by integrating intelligent automation with your
business strategies and systems? Well, as a leader
in your business, you have to begin by asking
yourself the right questions: Where do you want to
take your business or organization? What does the
future look like for your industry? Will developments
there affect how your business’ value is defined a
few years down the line?” In answering these key
questions, you can then implement a clear strategy
that will allow your leadership teams to think through
all the components and systems, resources and
 https://t.me/blinkistfree

boundaries that need to be reviewed and aligned.

Basically, what you need to remember here is that
while the goal of automating repetitive work and
freeing up human potential is a great one, it must
also make business sense. For automation and AI
integration to really take off at your organization,
you need to have a serious strategy.

3/8

Business strategy is a key part of

introducing successful automation.
So what needs to be done? Firstly, you need to
understand how, through automation, your
organization intends to get a competitive edge; you
need to be clear how it’ll give you that edge.

This might even involve a complete overhaul of your

business model.

So, as you’re considering embarking on the journey,

ask yourself questions like: “Will my organization be
bringing in automation or AI to compete on price,
and focus on market-share gains? Or is the intention
to out-innovate competitors, leave them in the dust
technologically, with an eye on the long-term
advantage that brings?”

Then, you need to narrow down which automation

projects your business will focus on. Automation is
a difficult and energy-intensive process, so you
need to be sure that the right projects have been
 https://t.me/blinkistfree

prioritized. If there is more than one automation

project in development, ask yourself which of those
presents the best business case? That’s one you
should focus on. In addition, leadership in business
and IT must ensure that they work closely when
establishing the organization’s automation and AI
integrations. Think of it this way: If your service-
oriented business is taking a financial hit because
customers loathe the experience of the service via
your app, it won’t matter how sophisticated your
tech architecture is, if it doesn’t address their needs.

You have to identify what the pain points are for your
customers, and use those findings to inform your
next actions in tweaking the tech architecture. Once
automation has been adopted, companies then need
to keep improving it. It’s very tempting to think, right,
we’ve automated one important area, now we can
relax. But this is a serious mistake.

To remain competitive, businesses must treat each

day as if it’s day one at a start-up. In terms of tech,
they must continually innovate. The losses from
missing out on tech innovation far outweigh those
you might experience if you adopt new tech, which
have not been thoroughly vetted. Yes, it’s risky to
jump in head-first, but sitting out might mean
missing out on the competitive edge of your
business being seen as “current.”
 https://t.me/blinkistfree

4/8

Outlining your automation roadmap,

and setting your business up for
successful automation and AI
integration.
Creating an automation roadmap will help you
clearly identify how you can implement, track, and
innovate your integration strategy. It should be
developed on two levels simultaneously: One with a
focus on business results, and the other on the
journey to better automation maturity in your
company. Let’s get into the business results
roadmap now – We’ll cover the strategic model for a
successful automation maturity process in a
moment. Okay. The authors structured the business
results process into three main phases. The first is
titled, Establish. For this phase, you should explore
and pinpoint where there’s potential for automation,
across your business applications. The next phase
is Scale. As the name implies, here’s where you
develop, activate, and scale your solutions. Finally,
in the third phase – Operate – you’re ready to widen
your geographic coverage to better observe true
value realization, and update your intelligent
automation strategies based on your learnings.

Remember this level of processes should be

interwoven with your processes for ensuring
successful automation maturity. So, as we delve into
this part of your strategic roadmap, keep this front
 https://t.me/blinkistfree

of mind. Okay; so now you’ve reached the point

where you’ve aligned your business strategy with
your automation and AI goals, what’s next?
Integrating automation and AI into your
organization. This is a methodical process, and to
embark on that journey means passing through
different developmental stages.

Think of them as like the different stages of learning

to ride a bike. First, you must learn to walk. Next,
perhaps, you learn to master a tricycle. Then, a bike
with stabilizers. After taking these steps you’re likely
to be able to finally ride a bicycle with confidence.
The same can be said for a business looking to
automate: you have to go through the paces –
without that first step, you’re not likely to ever make
real advances. You need to start at the foundational
stages where you examine the current state of your
infrastructure and gaps for improvement, before
setting a sustainable and successful automation
strategy that’s agile enough to grow with your
business. These are the building blocks to
successful automation and AI integration.

First is the tools driven stage. At this point, you’re

focused on solving isolated, but recurring problems,
specifically in the areas of implementation and
where there’s room for improvement. This means
that automation efforts here are generally
fragmented, and siloed, with a limited overall value.

Next is the process driven stage. This is when

closer, or external evaluation of current automation
infrastructure reveals or exposes inefficiencies in
processes that don’t generate value for the company
 https://t.me/blinkistfree

or organization’s bottom line. Once these are

examined, look for opportunities to optimize by
paying close attention to the points of overlap and
connection in your products and services.

Following the foundational and optimizing stages,

your business should be ready to explore robotic
process automation. Simply put, what you’re doing
at this point is automating repetitive tasks, which
generate quick wins, using software programs. For
instance, looking at the customer service
experience at a bank, from initial query to
sophisticated answer – all of these can be provided
by a chatbot.

The penultimate stage is the data driven one. With

useful and reliable data, your business can benefit
hugely from the insights they reveal. Solid data will
allow you to be able to – for example – better predict
product experience, which means you can shift your
focus from the goal of reducing cost, to one where
you’re looking at improving efficiency and being
agile and responsive to the ever-changing needs
and behaviors of your consumers or clients.

For instance, by running algorithms over different

data sources, it’s possible to learn about a
consumer’s purchasing behavior. The business can
then send personalized product offers to that
person. So, pay a close mind to your data.

Finally, the top level of maturity in automation is

intelligence driven automation. This is when
computing power is set up to perform complex
functions or tasks that have traditionally been
 https://t.me/blinkistfree

limited to human beings. So, sensing or

comprehending ambiguities, learning these, and
then acting on them. To be clear, here’s an example:
When AI in insurance companies in the US were
able to detect patterns in claims management
operations, it was able to flag fraudulent ones, which
costs the industry billions, and directly impacts
premiums in the average household, forcing them to
pay between $400 and $700 per year for these false
claims.

As I mentioned earlier, it’s important to start at the

beginning — You have to learn to walk before you
can even consider riding a bike. So, if you want your
business to reach the final level of maturity in
automation and benefit from advances in
technology, don’t skip on all the necessary stages.
Follow this guide and take your organization into a
sustainable and profitable future.

5/8

For many organizations, there are

obstacles to automating. To implement
automation, leaders need to reassure
and inspire their workforce.
Next, let’s dig into the practical implementation of
intelligent automation in your business. Right off the
top, it needs to be said: If a business fails to adapt
with the times, they could be swept aside; and many
will fail to adapt. Change is hard, and in addition to
 https://t.me/blinkistfree

that, there are several reasons for this inability to

adapt. Some of them are self-imposed obstacles,
and others are due to external factors. But without
going into too much detail about those, what the
important takeaway here is, when faced with
obstacles to technological adaptation, like skills
deficits in your teams, resistance from leadership, or
reliance on outdated tech infrastructure, the answer
is to build an entirely new system with automation
and AI at its heart. Now, let’s address the people
factor. Automation in the information age, means
leveraging people’s talents. That’s a key difference
with the first wave of automation – where, the reality
is, machines did take lots of labour-intensive jobs.

Fundamentally, automation today means saving

time by getting machines to do the things they do
better, while allowing people to focus on their
uniquely human talents – like creativity and
innovation.

In this regard, what exactly can leaders do? The

most important thing is to build support for new tech
by showing everyone how it’ll help them do their jobs
better.

When attempting to “sell” the benefits of automation,

it’s important to avoid getting side-tracked
explaining its technological features. While this
might excite software developers, it does nothing to
reassure everyone else.

The following example illustrates this point well:

When the fossil fuel company, Shell, wanted to
introduce intelligent, head-mounted displays for
 https://t.me/blinkistfree

their miners, they had to explain why this was

necessary. Rather than hyping all the computing
wizardry behind their head-mounted technology,
managers at Shell chose to instead focus on the
practical benefits.

Miners do dangerous work – digging through the

bowels of the earth is no joke. Real-time assistance
can mean the difference between life and death. And
so, to sell their new tech, company leaders at Shell
described situations when a miner could use the
voice-controlled device to send an image of a
technical problem, and receive real-time assistance.
In the end, the new tech didn’t need much in the way
of a sales pitch – the AI was absolutely welcomed.

Another way you, as a leader, can demonstrate the

benefits of automation, is through this simple
exercise. It involves just a pen and paper. For this
exercise, ask your staff about all the different
aspects of their job, drawing smiley, frowning, or
neutral faces depending on how they feel about
them.

Then, ask how they’d feel if all the aspects of their

job that made them frown were automated. Quite
suddenly, automation doesn’t seem like such a bad
proposition!
 https://t.me/blinkistfree

6/8

In many organizations, there are

obstacles to automating.
Intelligence automation integrations should be a
holistic endeavor. Everyone at every level of the
company from business and IT leadership to the
operational staff, should be engaged and active
contributors to this project. But in order to do this
successfully, Ghosh, Pallail, and Prasad suggest the
following model which can guide your decision-
making processes as you go. These are the four Ss
that’ll help you reach the highest automation
maturity level: Simple, Seamless, Scaled, and
Sustained. Simple: This is the point where you’re
performing a kind of diagnostic check. Take a close
look at your IT and connected business
infrastructures. Wherever you see deficits or room
for improvement, retool your applications and
architecture with the goal of simplifying your
functional units or modularity. Seamless: You have
to make sure that your automation and AI
integrations connect harmoniously with your core
systems. You also need to ensure that your
company culture supports and embraces these
integrations, and are also energized by, and
invested in their successful implementation. Scaled:
Once you’ve engaged your automation system and
strategy, you have to put it into action and see how
it holds up under real-world conditions that’ll test its
agility, robustness, and sustainability. So, don’t just
go in and do a hard switch. Automation integration
 https://t.me/blinkistfree

should be done in steady, mindful steps, which take

into account all the elements of your business’
strategy, culture, and goals. For instance, talent
development is key when it comes to scaling. Like
the tech itself, everyone in your organization should
be prepared to be agile and have growth potential,
as the landscape evolves. Sustained: Once you’ve
integrated your intelligence automation, the work
doesn’t end there. You should set up processes for
keeping up with developments in your industry,
recognizing emerging possibilities, and observing
how other businesses are exploring these
developments or trends. And again, thinking
holistically about your automation integrations,
make sure you maintain a company culture where
everyone can share their automation challenges and
solutions. Following this model, along with the other
suggestions we covered, can transform your
business’ performance, and ensure its strategic
purposes are met.

7/8

Successful automation and AI means

constant innovation.
In today’s world, companies can’t afford to sit still.
Such is the pace of technological change that
anyone caught dawdling will be left in the dust by
their competitors.

Whether that’s traditional booksellers waking up to

Amazon’s digital store, or taxicab firms watching
 https://t.me/blinkistfree

Uber’s success, those that choose not to innovate

will lose out. The same is true of those looking the
other way as automation and AI begins to take off.
Innovation means not being afraid of being a
pioneer. For some companies, when it comes to
automation and AI, this is a difficult step to take.
They believe that it’s stupid to jump in head-first
when the tech is still so new. After all, what’s the
harm of waiting for things to settle before leaping in?

Yes, it’s true that the pace of change means that

whatever systems are in place right now will become
obsolete soon. However, this can make it seem like
it’s never the right time to begin. All the while,
organizations that sit on the sidelines will fall further
and further behind.

While there might be regrets about investing in

soon-to-be-obsolete systems, the real risk is
missing out on all the learning dividends that come
with adopting the technology today.

And once automation has been adopted, companies

then need to keep improving it.

The truth is, the automation journey never ends.

 https://t.me/blinkistfree

8/8

Final summary
You’ve just listened to our Blink to The Automation
Advantage, by Bhaskar Ghosh, Gayathri Pallail, and
Rajendra Prasad. These are the main takeaways:
You have to make a clear plan for building a robust
automation and AI integration and diligently follow
those steps. The purpose for your organization’s
automation plan should align and work in concert
with your business strategy. Fear of job-destroying
automation is an enormous problem – and one that
emphasizes the need to explain how new tech
should augment human talent, not replace it.

Remember, without a human-centric approach to

automation, it simply won’t be sustainable.

Finally, the most important lesson for those looking

to introduce automation and AI: never, ever, stop
innovating.