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Dm ROUNDTABLE: 2021 PREDICTIONS "ANY ORGANISATION THAT ISN'T USING R.P.A. IS MISSING OUT ON SERIOUS AUTOMATION QUICK WINS. THE PANDEMIC GAVE COMPANIES ADDED MOTIVATION TO AUTOMATE IN GENERAL, ESPECIALLY AROUND MUNDANE TASKS, THE TYPE THAT ARE IN R.P.A.'S WHEELHOUSE. EVEN THOSE WITH AN AUTOMATION SOLUTION IN PLACE WITH TRADITIONAL TOOLS LIKE WORKFLOW, WILL BENEFIT FROM THE 'AUTOMATION EXTENSION' PROVIDED BY R.P.A." - TIM HOOD, HYLAND TAKING A LEAD Digital transformation itself could be a trend that really takes off in 2021 and beyond, thanks in part to the demands of a post-pandemic shift in how we all work. As Amanda Holmes of Kodak Alaris adds: "2020 forced businesses around the world to hit 'fast forward' on their digital transformation plans. Facilitating effective remote working on a scale never seen before placed IT departments under massive pressure to very quickly ramp up the use of digital-first technologies to keep business moving. For companies committed to digital transformation before the crisis hit, the transition was undoubtedly much smoother than for those whose transformation efforts were in their infancy. "2021 will be the year that separates the digital leaders from the digital laggards. Lessening reliance on paper-based workflows, eliminating manual processes and replacing them with streamlined digitised alternatives that seamlessly integrate into line of business operations and enable faster access to information; will be critical to maximise organisational efficiency, employee productivity, and most importantly, profitability." Sean Baird of Nuxeo agrees: "The major changes to the workplace environment in 2020 have accelerated the focus on digital transformation in many organisations, and I expect that we'll see a continued focus on adoption of the technologies that enable firms to achieve this. Content will continue to be critical, and the organisations that can bring content-centric applications to market quickly will be well-positioned for 2021 and beyond. In addition to the need for content services, organisations are increasingly looking at artificial intelligence to help automate their content-centric business processes. I expect AI to become mainstream in 2021, as an increasing number of organisations achieve real AI successes." LEARNING TO SUCCEED Several of our panellists cited AI and machine learning as technologies that will help organisations to get the most from their content, including Max Kelleher of Generis: "AI/ML solutions will absolutely become a commodity over the next 5 years for the large majority of standard use cases. While before customers were forced to reach out to specific AI-focused companies in order to run POCs with crossed-fingers, now vendors are taking up that role and integrating algorithm services directly into their platforms for a repeatable and consistent quality of product. With that, the market competition will resolve not around who can understand or implement the technology, but the accuracy of the results and the ability to provide greater value beyond standard methods." AODocs' Stéphan Donzé agreed: "AI will play an increasing role in automating manual and mundane tasks, which continue to increase efficiency and accuracy while enabling information workers to focus on more strategic and high-level activities. In particular, AI will be leveraged in 2021 - and beyond - to substantially reduce manual data entry where human fingers would have been used to enter information into a database from an invoice, a W9, a scanned driver's license, and so on. The nature of AI is that it continues to get better and better at understanding and processing unstructured documents, and this is a game changer for enterprises that are still tethered to manual processes." Repstor's Fergus Wilson also feels that AI is on the verge of becoming a commodity service: "To this point, AI and ML are very much niche - requiring hand-holding and supporting specific use cases. To be successful this has to move to a model where they are fully embedded into the applications we use daily. The user doesn't need or want to think about AI - they want systems that make it easy for them to complete their tasks. So AI and ML will 8 @DMMagAndAwards January/February 2021 www.document-manager.com
ROUNDTABLE: 2021 PREDICTIONS Dm "CONTENT MANAGEMENT AND DATA MANAGEMENT HAVE BECOME COMMODITIES. THE VALUE THAT BUSINESSES WILL BE LOOKING FOR IN THEIR SYSTEMS IS TO BE ABLE TO STEP THROUGH THEIR ENTIRE BUSINESS PROCESS, REGARDLESS OF WHETHER INDIVIDUAL STEPS INVOLVE CONTENT OR DATA - AND TO DO SO IN AS FEW DIFFERENT SYSTEMS/USER INTERFACES AS POSSIBLE." - MAX KELLEHER, GENERIS become seamless - and this will be helped by commoditisation of this technology with initiatives like Project Cortex from Microsoft." AUTOMATION FOR THE PEOPLE Alongside AI, RPA was one of the topics we returned to again and again throughout 2020, so it was no surprise to see it feature in the thoughts of many of our panel. Amanda Holmes of Kodak Alaris said: "Intelligent capture in combination with RPA will be particularly powerful in areas such as finance, IT, operations and information governance that have large process volumes and amounts of unstructured information and content tied to critical processes. RPA technologies which can automate repeatable processes, uncover efficiencies and provide insights, will make the path to digital transformation faster and more cost-effective, enabling companies to take information capture to the next level, by making total automation and paper-free processes a business reality." Hyland's Tim Hood agrees: "Any organisation that isn't using RPA is missing out on serious automation quick wins. The pandemic gave companies added motivation to automate in general, especially around mundane tasks, the type that are in RPA's wheelhouse. Even those with an automation solution in place with traditional tools like workflow, will benefit from the 'automation extension' provided by RPA. A typical use case is integrating with an otherwise inaccessible application to copy and paste data from one system to another. The future of RPA will have self-learning bots with the integration of AI, especially machine learning. Systems and bots will learn from previous decisions to handle more and more rulesbased processes independently. " Liz Benson of Kofax expands on this theme: "RPA has caught on like wildfire, because it made automating routine, mundane tasks fast, easy and dare I say, fun. It made motivation-killing work like monotonous, cut-and-paste data entry a drudgery of the past. Where does RPA go from here? It's all about workflow." She goes on: "For savvy companies, 2021 is about harnessing their RPA automation expertise - and leveraging it with complementary technologies like process orchestration and document intelligence to automate their mission-critical business workflows." For some, the idea that certain technologies are on the verge of being seen as commoditised is not limited to emerging tech such as AI and RPA. Generis' Max Kelleher again: "Content Management and Data Management have become commodities. The value that businesses will be looking for in their systems is to be able to step through their entire business process, regardless of whether individual steps involve content or data - and to do so in as few different systems/user interfaces as possible: meaning a true enterprise workspace is the shape of the future, not as an empty phrase but really as a space to do all your work. The lines between content and data will become increasingly blurred: it will be essential to be able to extract data from documents, manipulate and manage the data through complete workflows and lifecycles, and then build documents from data." PFU's Mike Nelson sums up the general view of most of our experts: "Solely embracing digital technologies will not help businesses adapt to the new normal. A significant 86% of decision-makers say that managing the amount of information in their business is a challenge, and almost a quarter cited inaccurate decision making and lost documents as a result of 'information overload'. Therefore in 2021 we expect to see more organisations look to harness their collective organisational intelligence, breaking down silos and creating opportunities for the document management industry as a result." www.document-manager.com January/February 2021 @DMMagAndAwards 9
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