Intelligent Automation by Pascal Bornet,IanBarkin,JochenWirtz - A Summary and Review

Author:??Pascal Bornet, Ian Barkin, Jochen Wirtz

Publisher:??World Scientific

Publication Date:??2021, 414 pages

About This Book

Written in the middle of the long-drawn Covid19 pandemic, this book provides a timely survey of all the enabling technologies for IA ( Intelligent Automation) for the practioner/business strategist- whilst the world fast tracking all of its digital transformation.

The book offers a very logical framework for putting the several technologies together - to realize IA a.k.a "Hyperautomation". It further suggests a process for selecting the appropriate technology and for ordering 'which comes first' providing any practioner with a sound way to start and make deliberate progress.

Within the book is also a rich set of reference use cases as testimony of possibilities and as well tips on how to overcome the resources justification and organization resistance, that comes with any change. In this review, I would like to just summarize key take away on technology and then provide my summary view of the book overall.

Who is This For?

The author has intended this to be read by management all the way up to senior executives, with a basic appreciation of machine learning, process technologies, big data and analytics - looking for a way to navigate the multitude of evolved automation technologies and a way to formulate the business case, as well as a process to engineer the change.

Take Away #1 Key Technologies of Intelligent Automation

IA automates knowledge worker's activities by modelling 4 main capabilities with technology :

1)Vision :: Technology - 1a)Image Analysis 1b)Video Analysis 1c)Character Recognition 1d)Optical Character Recognition

2)Execution ( or doing ) :: 2a) Smart Work Flows 2b)Robotics

3)Language and Communicating :: 3a)Natural Language Processing - including Sentiment Analysis, Speech Analytics, Unstructured Information Management,Intelligent Chatbots

4)Thinking and Learning :: 4a) Data Management 4b) Machine Learning 4C)Data Visualization

Take Away #2 How to leveraging all these IA Technologies

Baseline : Acknowledge that IA acts on top of existing IT and foundation systems ( such as ERP ) and to not to replace them.

Building an IA roadmap ( that is which technology deployed first ) needs to be based business context and expected benefits.

A guide to navigate these technologies ( which first ):

a)Language and Vision- These two technologies' the most purpose it so to capture data or to to structure the organization's data.

b)Execution - is used mainly as a glue to connect the other capabilites

c)Thinking & Learning technologies - create the ultimate sophistication of the IA system, and is often the part that encapsulates the intelligence and even to provide business differentiating capabilities.

Take Away #3 : Future IA Technologies to watch

These technologies being new-new , and not part of the 4 key levers above, but are already emerging

3a) Reinforcement Learning

A system that learns by doing, ( instead of ML with data /tagging ). Employ goal-oriented algorithms eg. a virtual assistant that observes your actions and acts to support you to achieve a goal.

3b)Blockchain

Blockchain can be employed to prevent the need for resource intensive tasks, especially those where human worker are involved to authenticate parties and check transactions.

Organization

This book has 4 parts with the first two covering technologies, and the third addressing the organization imperatives for succeeding in the implementation of IA. The last chaper, talks about the 'greater good' that IA technologies achieve and why there may be clear motivation do this not just for business, but to make our technology world more human. Loving the "Key Takeways" at the end of each of the 4 Parts, that helped me to conclude what I should internalize and keep has food for 'future' thought.

Final Thoughts

This is one of the best business books I have read so far providing great and insightful exploration of how to leverage Intelligent Automation. I consumed it in a single sitting and found every chapter useful. A great book to buy and keep, dog-earred, and referred to from time to time , for clarity and inspiration.