Dispelling Common Myths on Automation
Successfully scaling a business continues to be one of the top hurdles facing small-to-mid sized companies and automation as a function of technology strategy is an important tool in unlocking that growth. Businesses in nearly every industry can benefit from automating time consuming and repetitive tasks to save time and cut costs. Despite increasing popularity, there are still common misconceptions that deter decision makers from actively implementing automated technologies. Let’s consider and dispel these myths:
Myth: Automation is a direct threat to my employees.
Fact: Automation won’t replace your team. Rather, it will clear their plates of many repetitive tasks and allow them to spend more time focused on strategic initiatives. Last year 50.5 million people quit their jobs vs. 47.8 million in 2021, according to the labor department. In the post-great resignation world, employees are demanding better roles and higher pay; automation can make strides in both areas for employees and can also greatly improve safety, depending on the setting.
Myth: Implementing automated technologies is cost prohibitive.
Fact: While automation can be an expensive investment, businesses can start implementing technologies in an affordable way. For example, seeking out contracts that allow you to pay by occurrence – you only pay when the automation is saving your employees time elsewhere – makes an investment largely self-funded. As business continues to grow, you can consider larger investments in automated platforms.
Myth: Investing in AI is more important than investing in automation.
Fact: AI is still an emerging technology, and it relies largely on data inputs. While AI will revolutionize industries, it shouldn’t be the starting point for your growth strategy. You first need to scale your business and properly capture data to achieve a useful AI output. For example, ChatGPT works because it has trillions of data inputs. If you only had a small piece of that data for it to generate responses, the outputs would not be nearly as sophisticated. Automation increases efficiencies, allowing for data to be generated more quickly. As businesses scale and continue to generate data, investing in AI may be the next step.
Navigating the complex landscape of today’s rapidly evolving technologies can be challenging. However, by taking a step back to view automation as a starting point for optimizing your businesses investment in IT, you can make meaningful progress towards scaling your business.
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