Claude's Book Review - Special Edition 1/2024

The New Automation Mindset

The Leadership Blueprint for the Era of AI-For-All

by Vija Tella , with Scott Brinker and Massimo Pezzini

John Wiley & Sons, 2023. 301 pages

I was asked if I would be interested in reviewing Vijay Tella’s latest book, “The New Automation Mindset,” which I gladly accepted under the condition of independence. Tella strongly believes success is linked to implementing a unified enterprise automation strategy. Automation is the goal, integration the means. The author introduces the need for companies to adopt an automation mindset. This mindset should be rooted in generative AI and cloud-native automation technology. The book is thoughtfully structured in four parts, each addressing a specific dimension of the automation challenge. Part one delves into the mindset a firm needs to adopt, while part two tackles the underlying architectural challenge. Part three offers a practical practitioner’s guide to automation, as envisioned by the author, and part four provides actionable advice on how to implement automation in a company.

In the first part, the author makes the case for how thinking about automation and artificial intelligence will decide about success or failure. To do so, the author proposes the antifragile company framework, which builds on three mindset dimensions: process, growth, and scale. The process mindset requires applying systems thinking to combine automation and AI throughout the organisation. Companies must move from thinking about independent tasks to interconnected processes requiring employees to work collaboratively rather than individually. Next, a growth mindset is necessary to ensure companies are built for change. This means that adaptability needs to be integrated into the process landscape. Agility becomes key. Finally, embracing a scale mindset allows companies to enable employees. Automation needs to be part of the mindset of every employee rather than only enacted in the IT department. Leadership must ensure synergies between IT and business functions.

While the first part focuses on the mindset a company needs to adopt, the second part provides insights on how to achieve this. Multiple dimensions exist to implement process automation, from automating task activities through implementing straight-through processing to what the author calls orchestration. Successful organisations focus on automating by coordinating people, software, and data in an end-to-end process to get the job done. This requires event-driven workflows, combining human and system actions, and interoperability between automation tools and AI to monitor, learn, and improve workflows. The concept of plasticity helps reach the required growth mindset. Companies must focus on brainpower above and beyond machine power. This means achieving technical and organisational excellence, technology operating in lockstep with the organisation’s operating model. Finally, achieving a scale mindset requires democratisation. Organisations need to find a balance between individual empowerment and corporate governance. IT and business must join forces and complement each other rather than compete.

While the book’s first two parts take a conceptual approach, the author offers hands- on insights to achieve world-class automation in part three. Automation is a journey built around the five towers: customer experience automation, employee experience automation, suppliers and operations efficiency automation, front-office system automation, and back-office system automation. By introducing an enterprise automation maturity model, companies can assess their proficiency in business automation. Organisations must realise that customer-facing roles are only as good as the back-office processes supporting them. Unlocking back-office automation, therefore, builds the foundation for customer centricity. The author presents numerous automation use cases to underpin his beliefs and thinking. Under the umbrella of front-office automation, the author underpins his way of thinking on enhancing customer experience, elevating employee experience, and improving both the top line through generative AI-supported automation. Numerous short-use cases illustrate the cases in point. Another chapter is devoted to supplier operations and the future supply chain. Automation in the context of platform-driven businesses requires fresh thinking to traditional business.

Finally, part four describes how to make it all happen. According to the author, the enterprise AI platform provides the core for successful business automation. It provides the foundation for an automation ecosystem built around automation tools, robotic process automation, business process management suites, platforms as a service, and API management. Built around the new automation mindset framework (orchestration to achieve a process mindset, democratisation to achieve a scale mindset, and plasticity to achieve a growth mindset), enterprise automation offers a dynamic environment where businesses must operate, where human tasks and system actions must interact. It requires successful integration of processes, experience, and data. Organisations must rethink their operating model targeted to their strategy and mindset to make it happen.

“The New Automation Mindset” is an exciting and insightful book. While I disagree on numerous occasions with the way of thinking offered by the author, I enjoyed reading his arguments. I specifically challenge three areas in the author’s way of thinking. First, I do not believe that AI, large language models, will play a significant role in business automation. To me, these models and their future are overhyped. Neural network-based AI models only rely on historical data (meaning that any automation proposed by AI will be a combination of existing automations and never fundamentally new), and they are, by design, unable to infer causalities. This means that AI cannot and will not drive innovation. My second disagreement with the author is his view that automation requires democratisation. I firmly believe in specialisation, having employees do what they are best at doing. Ultimately, automation results from resource (time and money) allocation driven by the expected reward. These strategic decisions belong to top management and should not be delegated to functional units or individual employees. Finally, automation, although highly relevant, will not be a strategic differentiator. Business models will evolve towards business automation being a must-have function, like HR or IT, to operate rather than contributing to excellence and success. Set apart from these three areas of disagreement I have with the author’s way of thinking, the book provides numerous ideas that one can cherry-pick from and adapt to one’s own business.

As always, this is my personal subjective assessment of the book The New Automation Mindset with which you may or may not agree. Any well-argued opinions, whether in agreement or not, are welcome!

Disclaimer: The author’s company provided me with a free copy of the book reviewed.

? 2024 innovate.d llc

#book #bookreview #businessbook #business #management #automation #mindset #process #growth #scale #orchestration #plasticity #democratisation #backoffice #frontoffice #employee #customer #supplier #platformbusiness #ai #llm #artificialintellicence #ecosystem #om #operatingmodel

Download as PDF | Buy on Amazon #kickback | Subscribe to my newsletter