Let’s Shape The Future
Let’s Shape The Future
Embracing Intelligent Technology with Pascal Bornet
Use Left/Right to seek, Home/End to jump to start or end. Hold shift to jump forward or backward.
Pascal BORNET is an AI, Automation and Innovation pioneer, a member of the Forbes Technology Council, ex-McKinsey, and was awarded Top Voice in Technology just to name a few accolades.
He joins host Ben Dickinson to discuss the importance of businesses embracing Intelligent Technologies, his new book, current industry trends, what the future holds and more!
You can purchase Pascal's new book - Intelligent Automation: Learn how to harness Artificial Intelligence to boost business & make our world more human HERE.
If you enjoy listening, please leave a review! Feel free to send me a message on LinkedIn - and don't forget to share the podcast with friends, colleagues, family and anyone else you think would also enjoy!
The business is that when that have not implemented yet some form of intelligent automation, I mean I'm not here anymore. Extensively using people to build technology. But what if we could use technology to help build technology? If you don't do it, your competitors are doing it and you're losing market share cost advantage and so on.
SPEAKER_00On today's episode of Let's Check the Future, we've got a huge leader in the industry, which is uh technology. Um so Pascal, did you want to introduce yourself and maybe talk a bit about some of the roles you've had within businesses? Um I'm sure you do it a lot better than I would.
SPEAKER_01Thank you. Thank you, Ben, and thanks thanks for having me today. Um it's really a pleasure to share with with you and your audience about my passion. Okay, so um it's all gonna be around around this topic, around this main aspect of of what I'm doing, which is which is uh around my passion. Um so to shortly introduce myself, I'm I'm um I'm a global expert and kind of a pioneer in the field of intelligent automation that we call also hyper-automation. Um I'm passionate about making our world more human using artificial intelligence, automation, and and I would say technology in general. Um I'm I'm a senior executive, so I have more than 20 years experience in digital transformations. Uh, and especially over the last 10 years, I built for uh McKinsey and for EY, uh Ernst and Jung, uh, the AI and automation practices, a few hundreds of people each time. Um uh since three weeks now, I've been the author of the first book on intelligent automation, which is called Um Learn How to Harvest AI to boost business and make our world more human. Um, we are so happy. So I'm I wrote this book with two co-authors, um, Jan Bachin, who's an entrepreneur who created Symfony Venture of uh five years ago and sold it a few years ago for a few millions. Um and and um and Jochen Wirs. Uh Johan Wirs is the vice dean of National University of Singapore um and a professor in marketing. Uh so he brought a lot in terms of of uh customer experience and and uh how robotics and automation can help in that field. That said, so we are very happy to be um Amazon bestseller for the last three weeks. Um it's it's been a long way to write this book. It took us 18 months. Um, and um yeah, very proud of this and very happy to be able to share our message to the world. Uh that said, I'm also a member of the Ford Technology Council. I'm also a senior advisor to the Institute of Robotics and Automation and Artificial Intelligence. And um, and I'm as I said at the beginning, I'm passionate before all and and um and I like to share and influence uh uh around this this this passion. So I I give a lot of lectures. I'm a speaker, I've been uh awarded uh global top voice in tech last year, and um uh and you can follow me on Twitter, uh LinkedIn, where I like to share every day some insights on those topics.
SPEAKER_00So you've got quite an extensive CV then. Thank you. Um so just uh a quick question before we dive into the detail. How would you define intelligent technologies, intelligent automation? How would you define that those sorts of topics for anyone that hasn't come across them before?
SPEAKER_01Yes, and it's and it's very and and because of the buzzwords that we hear around there and here, uh it's it's very difficult to give for any one of us to have clarity in our minds on on what is what. Um if it is about defining intelligent automation, okay, we call it also hyper automation. And by the way, over the coming minutes, I might say uh name IA, give the acronym IA to go shorter instead of intelligent automation. Um I would say IA, which is called also hyper automation or cognitive automation by by some other people. Uh so that's really the synonyms, those three words are synonyms. Um, it is one of the most recent trends in the field of artificial intelligence. Um, it's it's a combination of methods and technologies that involve people, organizations, machine learning, local platforms, robotic process automation, and more. Um IA is aimed simply at automating end-to-end business processes in a computerized environment. Okay, so it delivers business outcomes on behalf of the knowledge workers. So basically, uh we, I think most of us on most of the audience and and both of us for sure are knowledge workers. We are not using our hands and legs to produce something, but we are using our brain, our knowledge to produce. Um, intelligent automation is focused on that. So it's really in a computerized environment. So, for example, uh IA can help to automate most of the activities in a procure-to-pay function, uh, from the selection of vendors to sending orders to those vendors to uh receiving and processing those invoices, the invoices coming from them up to the payment of those vendors. Okay, and across all those different steps, different technologies will be used and will be linked the one to the other to be able to achieve this outcome. So IA effectively creates a software-based digital workforce, okay, we call it like this, that enables synergies by working hand in hand with the human workforce. Okay, it's really technology and uh IA and people working together to achieve uh to achieve increase in process speeds, reduction of costs, elimination of errors, I mean uh enhancement of compliance, and um and I think and I think most importantly at the end it's it's about improving employee and customer experience um while boosting revenues, I would say.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, no, no, just I couldn't answer a better answer to that question. So uh sorry. Um so take me back uh with all of my guests. I like to sort of go back to the start of where they they commenced with the with the topic for that episode. So so where did um intelligent automation and intelligent technologies, where did you first come across that and what sort of sparked your interest to start with?
SPEAKER_01That's that's a great question. And my and my background is is is very different from from all these. I'm coming from um CPA finance background. Um I moved into consulting like 20 years ago when I joined UI, um uh and and and especially finance consulting. Okay, so help so basically leveraging my CPA knowledge, uh but helping CFOs basically to organize their departments better and to implement the right systems, and that's where I started to get to really like working with technology, um, helped to implement the first, for example, uh reporting systems, consolidation systems. At that time, it was called Hyperion Financial Management, for example. Um so got really my my tools into technology at that point, and um and from that um helped to help digital transformations across industries, uh, across clients. Okay. And um, and it was about 10 years ago uh while I used to help a lot of clients uh centralize their business functions and especially their back office functions in countries like India, Philippines, China, um, where they can get scale and labor cost arbitrage. 10 years ago came an alternative to this, uh which we we called robotic process automation, um, which is basically uh the capacity for uh to automate simple tasks on a computer. So and and and the big advantage that came with that is it was cheaper than outsourcing processes into Philippines or India. It was it helps the client to keep those processes closer to them, easier to control, easier to uh to manage and to and to change. Um so cheaper, better, easier to control, less risky. Um so this alternative really became something uh I mean a key aspect of business and and and uh large groups transformations in the world. Uh it started 10 years ago, and and as I said, it started with RPA, robotic process automation, which is I would say dumb robots, okay, simple rule-based automation from robotic process automation and the offerings on the market and what we could propose to clients, climbed up the intelligent intelligence leader, uh, adding on top of RPA, machine learning, computer vision, natural language processing, and all those technologies that we know today. Um and it's really again about combining those different technologies that you get, that you get the best to the to the organizations.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, no, no, that makes sense. And so from from when these technologies first started, how big a growth have you seen in terms of their capabilities, but also their usage between between then and now?
SPEAKER_01It's uh it's huge, it's exponential. You know, uh robotic process automation started like in 2001, 2002, okay, uh, with Blue Prism and the first articles by uh HFS, Field First, and and so on. Uh intelligent automation has been coined only uh three years ago in 2017 by by IEEE. Uh so as you can see, uh in and and and today, and today, according to Deloitte, more than 50% of the large companies in the world have already started to implement intelligent automation in in at least one of their functions. Okay, so just to show you how fast it's been in less than 10. We've been able from we've been able to go from the inception of a technology that couldn't do much, okay, rule-based, simple, to today uh intelligent automation that is able to automate end-to-end processes and deliver significant improvements to companies and and again more than 50% of the companies in the world.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, no, no, it's amazing. And you sort of um touched on that stat from Deloitte there about businesses. So I know it's such a broad question, but why do you think it's so important for large businesses or businesses of any size to embrace intelligent automation and these sorts of technologies?
SPEAKER_01It's critical for companies, for business, okay, for business in many different dimensions. And I think um, and I think we are experiencing uh, we've been experiencing for the last few months with the COVID crisis, how uh what is the I mean the lack of resilience of a lot of businesses that are uh relying too much on human workforce uh that are not digitalized enough, that are not automated enough. And some of and some of those businesses, the businesses that were that had not implemented yet some form of intelligent automation have, I mean, are not here anymore. Um so it's it's so I would say in today's world it's more critical than ever. Uh, but otherwise, it's been critical for for for a long time. The minimum thing we can say is if a company doesn't implement IA, the competitors will do it. If they do it, they will uh be able to decrease their cost, they will be able to increase the customer experience, they will be able to do all this and and to improve the employee experience before the before before the company. So in the race of uh our economies today, uh it's it's critical, it's vital for companies. Okay. And here I'm only talking about at the company level. Okay. Um yeah, and another key key point here is is um uh it improves um I mean based based on our research and based on our experience as well, the efficiency gains from from um intelligent automation are in the range of 20 to 60 percent, um, depending on the companies. Um, but that's that's really significant. So it really gives a competitive advantage.
SPEAKER_00I think when when you've got some companies which rely on such slim margins, depending on what industry they're in, if they can sort of improve efficiency gains and other sort of metrics by that, by embracing intelligent automation, it seems like a no-brainer, doesn't it? So you you spoke about coronavirus quickly there. So do you think that the pandemic has made companies sort of step back and reevaluate their timelines and really sort of accelerate if they hadn't already embraced this sort of technology into their business? Do you think this has now made them sort of kickstart that journey?
SPEAKER_01Yes, definitely, definitely. And and this is what we see uh on the market, more uh huge demands around digitalizing, automate, automating. And again, here it's really about about uh question of survival of businesses. So it's it's really critical. Um back back to the point you just mentioned, it's a no-brainer for for businesses to go into it. I agree with you, uh, but it's not as simple as it as it can seem. Okay, so there are a lot of of critical success factors that need to be to be to be followed. Um okay, and we and we we we we summarize them in in the book. Okay. I would say the key ones are are around keeping the people in the center of those transformations. IA is built by people, for people, okay. Um with I I used to say without um without IA, there is still people, but without people there would be there wouldn't be any IA. Okay, so it's really that critical. Um and and when we talk about people, it's about managing change, it's about explaining what it is, it's about educating, it's about training those people, it's about involving them as well in the transformation so that they own the transformation. Okay. Um a second key aspect that we see um as a common point across the companies that succeeded in these in these transformations is uh management support, the vision, the strategy, the management support is really key because we are talking here about large changes to the company, large changes to the to the organization, to the processes, to the to the to the to the people with with large impacts in in the organization. Um and very often as well, I mean they require large investments. Um so have so it's critical to have management that supports uh clearly supports these transformations.
SPEAKER_00And you so you you touched on what I was going to come into next, which was was some of the challenges that maybe businesses face when they want to implement intelligent technologies. Do you think it's also uh um important for companies to have a strong foundation in terms of um obviously companies have so much data coming into them. Do you think for them to really get the most out of this intelligent technologies, they need a great way to consolidate that data and really manage it effectively before they jump into sort of the intelligent automation?
SPEAKER_01I think I think definitely data is the fuel of an IA system. I think when you're working on an IA transformation, you definitely need to work on data. Um, so back to your point. I don't think it's first you work on your data and then you you think of intelligent automation. It's while you think of intelligent automation, you invoke the data as a critical aspect. And again, here it's a it's it's uh it's a fuel to the success of an IE transformation. So it's it's important to consider it as a as a whole because you will work on the data that really makes sense. Okay, uh, as you know, we are flowed by data. Which one which one are the most important? Which one um needs, I mean, are worth working on it, uh and worth improving. And and um uh these ones, I mean, that the answer to this question is given by the the objectives of the IA transformation, the strategy of the IA transformation.
SPEAKER_00No, I completely agree. And did you want to um obviously you mentioned earlier your your new book? Um, did you maybe want to go into a bit of detail on what sort of content the book includes? And did you want to sort of summarize it for anyone that hasn't um read it just yet?
SPEAKER_01Yes, uh yes, yes. So I um I I like to say that it's uh it's basically three books into one. Uh first of all, I think it's um it's a book for CEOs to clearly understand on a simple way, and that's that that has been the most difficult, you know, being able to explain simply complex uh concept. Uh so I would say it's a it's it's for CEOs, C levels, managers understand what it is, what is a simple framework to explain it, what is a simple framework to implement it, um, and and what they can expect in terms of impact on their organization. Okay. Um the second book that is included in this book is is uh a very detailed, pragmatic uh implementation guidelines. So it's really here for uh implementation managers, project managers, how how to succeed in implementing it. Okay, and we go through the steps of a project detailing the the critical success factors um and all that needs to be to be to be done to be to be to be successful. And this is based on our experience of hundreds of such implementations, but also um we we got insights, comments, and reflections from more than 200 IA experts that we that we that we made join um a survey a few months ago. Uh and the third book that is included in this book is more a reflection around what does it mean for humanity? What does it mean what does it what does IA mean? Uh what does what could IA bring to humanity if we had IA used more extensively in medicine, in um in education, in um in uh reducing frauds or losses of important sum of money that could be reinvested. Uh, all those questions around what does it mean for our world in terms of the promise of IA, but also what uh what needs to be in place to ensure that IA has the best impact on our society. Uh, and here it's about uh reviewing the way we educate people, uh, so rethinking the education, okay, uh, and really here uh focusing the education of what makes people uh different from technology. Why are we what are the skills that technology will never be able to get so that we can focus on those, like creativity, like adaptability, like learning how to learn. Uh we need also governments to start thinking of how to share the wealth that is created by IA on a more uh equal way between the people. Okay, I mean economists have identified for the last 50 years that technology has increased the disparity between people in terms of wages. So we need to think of how we share better the wealth created by technology. And thirdly, it's it's uh it's about if technology, if I is is is doing most of the transactional repetitive work that we are doing today, uh, freeing up this time so that we can focus on more value-add activities and also giving us the capacity to be augmented. Okay, like for example, being able to digest millions of data in a few seconds and create insight from it. If we get into this, the world of work will change. It will give us more time, more time to focus on the value-add activities, but also there might be less time required to spend at work. Okay, and uh and this this might be an opportunity to rethink uh the way why are we leaving, why are we on earth, why um what is important? Uh and I think we all agree that what is important is is family, is uh helping the others, is uh protecting our environment, is uh is love simply. Um if we have more time, we'll be able to really spend the efforts, the attention that we don't have today because we are crazy stuff, crazy every day about making sure we do our job, we can feed ourselves and our kids. If we have a wealth-sharing mechanism behind all behind all this, we we we will have the capacity to get to the next level, which is not thinking of our wage, but just thinking of what do we do with our lives? How do we want what is the impact we want to have on our world? So that's the third book within the book.
SPEAKER_00So there's uh you get excellent value for money, then three books in one.
SPEAKER_01The disadvantage of having three books in one is it's uh uh it's it's you you can't satisfy everyone. So some people will jump on it just in the middle with the methodology and how to implement right away. Uh the other ones will be we'll just read read the last part of the book where where it's more about philosophical aspects of the impact on our world.
SPEAKER_00No, it's uh it's a good point. And um so just I know in the book you mentioned some um examples of of great innovation that you've seen. Did you do you have on the top of your head what are the sort of best examples you've seen, recent or or whenever, of intelligent automation used in businesses? Any you want to highlight?
SPEAKER_01I would give uh a few a few trends that that we see uh impacting intelligent automation. Um the first one is is is about the the democratization of of IA and more broadly of technology. Um so the capacity to offer a technology that is simple to use, simple in the sense that doesn't require any specific skills or limited skills to business users to use the technology. Um we see that starting to happen with low-code technology, that is basically the use of drag and drop, or with the use of technology that is able to react based on vocal comments. By generalizing these technologies and by simplifying them more and more, um, we will have the opportunity to increase the scale of IA transformations. Um increasing the scales, the scale because of two key points. The first one is when more people can use the technology, then you'll be able to implement it faster. Okay, so it's more workforce to more workforce joining the same projects definitely helps to implement it faster. But I think the second one and most and the most important one of the two is because people, anyone, any business user, any anyone in a in any employee in a company uh is empowered to use technology to help themselves in our and their in their work, in their day-to-day work, because they have the capacity to implement things that are useful to them. They are part of the transformation. They they start to own the transformation. And this is the start of the shift of the culture of the company to more digitalized, more automated company. Um, so the culture shifts shift enabled by those technologies is is, I think, the most important point. So that's the first the first trend is around this, is around democratizing technology. Um the second one, and I think we discussed already about it, is about combining technologies to be able to address the most complex end-to-end processes in companies. Okay. Um, the third one that I want to mention is most, and that's that's crazy, that most of the digital transformations in companies today are manual, extremely manual, extremely human resource-based, extensively using people to build technology. But what if we could use technology to help build technology? Um, an example to identify which processes or which uh opportunities, IA opportunities uh in a company could be could be implemented. Um, it requires interviews, observations, crunching data. So basically, you need you need a huge team, uh depending on the size, you need you need a team of people working full-time on this for months, just to build the pipeline, just to build what are we going to do and how do we prioritize those opportunities. Instead of doing this, now you have uh tools that can do that automatically just by observing what people are doing, just by observing which data are getting used. And uh, and those tools do it better than people because because they can really do it on a complete set of data, a complete um uh work day of an employee. So those technologies are called data discovery, process discovery, uh process mining. Um, and they are helping uh companies to identify two times more opportunities in five times faster. Uh and so this is just for discovery of use cases, but you you you probably heard about auto-machine learning, about uh automated maintenance of IA solutions. Um, I mean, all those technologies start to come on the market today and start to get mature and have the capacity to help companies to implement faster and better and and and make those digital transformations more digital than they are today.
SPEAKER_00As you say, there's there's so many benefits to companies implementing these technologies. The question I have now is is there some hesitancy from some individuals to embrace this technology in businesses because they think their job will become redundant? Do you is do you see that in businesses and and that stop that stops the development? And do you think it's obviously do you think it's important for them to sort of see the bigger picture of them being able to do more value-added tasks and that sort of stuff? Is that is that where you go with with those individuals?
SPEAKER_01Exactly, exactly, completely, completely. So it's it's it's it's a matter of education, of information first, education then, and and it's also a role of the companies. Companies have to take their responsibilities behind behind that. Um companies, organizations, uh, thanks to IA, are able to produce faster, cheaper. Um, it's their responsibility to also take care of their employees and to think about uh reskilling them, upskilling them. Okay, I mean it's it's it's it's really something very important. And I think employee experience is almost becoming more important than customer experience. You know, we've heard about customer experience for the last 10 years as a key focus of companies. I think with the crisis that we've where we've been through with COVID-19, uh, we've seen successful companies taking care of their employees. They've made everything to make sure that they they kept engaged, they kept being motivated by offering them the tools, by offering them also the capacity to work remotely. Um I think really the companies that will succeed in the future will be those taking care of their employees.
SPEAKER_00I think I don't know if you've seen the the as I mentioned before, the comp I work for SAP and obviously recently we acquired a company called Qualtrics, um, who really are based around experienced data. And we've found even internally through embracing that data, that um we've had a lot more conversations with the business because they've asked us for our opinions, they've asked us about working from home, what we're comfortable with, how we're doing, how um how it's affecting our life, like it's and it it is building a better workforce internally. So as you say, I think it's it's so key for individuals to embrace it and not sort of put it off because they think it's gonna put them out of a job anytime soon. Um, where do you see the future of this technology? Where what is the art of the possible in your eyes that you think we can see in our lifetime?
SPEAKER_01I'm dreaming of something um uh which would be the the uh our capacity to as humans to be to to be closer and closer to technology. And to okay, and and it's really two ways here. It's technology, because we are closer to technology, we technology understands us better and is and is able to serve us better. And because technology is closer to us, we are able to use technology to to do more, to do better. Um so it's really a two-ways relationship. Well, and and this what we can call maybe a symbiosis in the future, um I guess will will really help us create a more human world. And and so this this trend started uh decades ago when when we started to use those desktop computers, and then uh and then and then we use those laptop laptop computers closer to us, easier to use, easier to transport, and then our more smartphones now that are even closer to us, even easier to use. Future will be maybe uh glasses, uh and we've seen already some on the market that help us to read better the world, to connect better with the environment. Um lenses, and uh and you can see and you can see uh Elon Musk working on Neuralink, which is about which is about this, connecting us, connecting our brain, or connecting our spine, nervous spine, nervous with with technology to help us again be better and really be able to focus on what makes us human, which is about um our social aspects, taking care of the others, family, love, and so on.
SPEAKER_00No, I agree. I think there's so much more to it than people a lot of people that don't know much about this sort of technology just think oh, it's just robots, but there's so much more to that technology. And so just to round off. So if a business is listening, if there's anyone, if there's an executive listening or anyone and they think, right, I want to get started on this journey of embracing intelligent automation and technology in my business, where do they get started? What's the first sort of steps that they should take?
SPEAKER_01Um, the different ways to get started. Um the first one is is getting informed. Okay, so and to get informed, I mean before we wrote the book, I would say you go online, you try to read articles and and so on. But basically, now we I can I can be very clear on that. Read the book, you'll you'll you'll see everything you need to know about it. You'll understand the why, the how, the who, the when, the all all the questions are answered there. And and and and maybe to so to summarize them, there is first of all the when there is no better time than than now. Okay, uh it's never too late. Uh, and think of it, if you don't do it, your competitors are doing it, and you're losing market share, costs, advantage, and so on. Um, the how, how to start, um get informed, educated, uh, start to get the right people in your teams. Okay. Um, you'll be able to reskill a lot of your people. I usually say a rule of 60-30, okay, uh 60-40. You'll get you'll get 60 60% of your people, you can retrain them, you can reskill them. And and those people are great people because they know the company, they know how it works, and so on. But you can't get all the skills from from reskilling. Um, there is a need to get about 30 to 40 percent of new people in the team with talents that are coming from elsewhere, um, and and with the experience of doing it. Okay, the ex it's really important to have done it at some point, to have done it in in the past, because uh those are very specific projects, and um, and again, dealing with very delicate, sensitive dimensions, experience is key, experience is really key. And um, and the next step will be to identify where to start. Okay, and and and very often starting with the right use cases, the right processes uh is is critical because it's gonna be visible in the company, it's gonna show case the benefits that we can get from those transformations. So it's very important to have a compelling selection of company collection first, and then prioritization and selection of the use cases. Um, and start with those ones, those use cases that will deliver the highest benefits. Okay, and and and and based on this collection of different uh um uh use cases, you'll be able to understand what is the total benefits you can get from implementing all those opportunities. Um this is basically your capacity of investment, okay. And and um and you'll you will also be able to build your own map. So when those different use cases will be implemented in time, return on investment on on an IA transformation is something that very often is less than a year. Okay, so it's it's it's really powerful, but again, it's it's not a magic world. Okay, there is a need to have the right skills, the right change management, talent management.
SPEAKER_00As you say, I think the key message there is there is no better time than now to get started. Um and just to to finish off, so if anyone wants to find some more information about yourself or intelligent automation or to purchase your book, where's the best place for them to do so?
SPEAKER_01Without any doubt, on on my LinkedIn blog, okay. Uh so on my LinkedRoy, you can see every day I will I will I I share every day some insights on what's happening around the world in terms of innovations and how they benefit to our world. Um I I write regularly articles that come in that come to Forbes and so on, that I also re-um publish on on my LinkedIn. So I would say my LinkedIn is really uh the central point of of all this.
SPEAKER_00I'll leave the link to your LinkedIn and I'll leave the link to the to your book um in the description. But uh yeah, that that's it for today, Pascal. I I've I've really it's been a pleasure to meet you, and I really appreciate you you joining me on Let's Check the Future. It's been um it's been a really inspireful episode. So thank you very much for joining me.
SPEAKER_01Thank you, Ben.
SPEAKER_00Thank you. Thanks for that. So we've come to the end of another episode of Let's Check the Future. If you're enjoying the episode, please subscribe to the podcast and share it with friends, family, uh, colleagues, and anyone else you think would enjoy the content to go together coming out over the next couple of weeks. So please keep an eye out for future episodes. Have a great day, guys.