Atomatik had the pleasure of attending the OPEX Week Business Transformation World Summit that took place in Miami between January 30th- February 1st, 2023 at the Hyatt Regency.
The event united people from all over the world, eager to discuss the challenges of driving business excellence through digital transformation.
Event Objectives
Transformation leaders have seen tremendous changes in the past few years. No longer considered a competitive advantage, transformation is a survival strategy for companies of all sizes and industries. Organizations cannot afford to run their businesses in the same way as three years ago. As quoted by David C. Williams, Assistant Vice President – Automation at AT&T, today’s problems, can no longer be solved with yesterday’s solutions.
The 24th edition of the 2023 OPEX Week: Business Transformation World Summit captured the key theme of navigating the fast-paced change by using key software and tools to ultimately achieve business excellence. More than one hundred inspirational speakers from the world’s leading brands were in Miami to talk about their experiences, lessons learned, and what is next for their digital transformation journeys.
Atomatik CEO Dmitriy Blyumin and CSO Craig Nicholson
Our team did not want to miss this unparalleled opportunity to gain experience from enterprise organizations about how they accelerated their business to enable end-to-end digital transformation. Valuable ideas about strategy, people, processes, technology, data, change and leadership, were shared.
As leaders tackle complex challenges and strive to develop new ways of working, a few clear trends have emerged.
1. People are key
Technology is a part of digital transformation, not its main focus. People-centric optimization is pivotal in achieving world-class results and plays an important part in any transformation journey. One of the greatest assets of any organization is its people, teams, and leadership. During the interactive workshop sessions, there was a close focus on aligning customer needs and employee capabilities in a compliant way to deliver commercial outcomes.
Finding and developing the right talent is critical for the sustainability and longevity of all change programs. This is widely regarded as an issue, even for global brands.
OPEX was abundant with practical insights into how an organization can develop a talent pool by identifying, acquiring, and developing people into future leaders who can facilitate the cultural changes needed for successful business transformation.
2. Understanding your processes
Defining the process first, before automating, enables digital transformation. Process Mining technology is the “next hot thing” in today’s business process management industry. But is it enough to replace traditional process improvement methodologies? Process Mining fits into the process/solution lifecycle, bringing benefits of visibility and data-driven decision-making, and where “normal” process management activities are still needed and valuable.
Applying process mining technologies is linked to successful transformation and business growth. Organizations leveraging these tools help them stay competitive by better understanding their processes and applying those insights to identify opportunities for improvement.
This takeaway aligns with our predicted automation trends for 2023.
3. Using low code/ no-code to become agile
Using smart technologies like Intelligent Automation can help build digital capabilities internally. If your goal is agility, no-code can be a viable solution. Consider the Agile sprint. Sprints don’t always result in a billable final product–there’s a limit to what a programmer can accomplish with coding in a 2-week timeframe. That’s not to say a 2-week deadline will come without limitations when using no-code platforms. However, practice shows that processes can be much further into production as a result of saving time to code by hand.
In the low-code/no-code era, traditional programming might be more suited to long-distance running than sprinting.
Critics claim that no-code platforms are not equipped to build mission-critical applications, and ultimately that depends on the platform and the demands of the software. But with the growth of the low and no-code markets, there are constant developments that push the boundaries of what these platforms are capable of. At Atomatik, we are continuously striving to open new doors and possibilities for our customers.
If you want to create more agility and efficiency within your business, a no-code platform can get the gears oiled and turning smoothly. It can operate compliant with IT, where the latter can govern and monitor all activities to avoid the risk of ‘Shadow IT.’
4. End-to-End Process Excellence and Enablement
Using Intelligent Automation to achieve this excellence can only be done by taking the right steps, and the first ones are usually crucial. Identifying and evaluating improvement opportunities across the entire organization should be the foundation.
Creating your own methodology using proven methods such as lean six sigma and design thinking can instill best practices in delivering results through multiple levers, by breaking down the silos to create end-to-end processes. Reengineering and integrating robotic process automation (RPA), business process management (BPM), and artificial intelligence (AI) facilitates end-to-end processing for optimization with operational excellence experts.
These tools are, of course, interacting with employees of all types. Digital workers, employees, and intelligent automation systems require orchestration and scheduling. Much as the data integration layer was created years ago, it is time now for Business Process Orchestration to become a must-have.
5. Rethinking Customer Value Creation
There were multiple discussions throughout the event about how transformation leaders can leverage their skillsets to reshape customer experience. This can be achieved by designing and mapping the customer journey effectively, ultimately improving customer satisfaction.
Companies that can engage and delight their customers are market leaders in their respective industries. Creating a customer-centric digital transformation strategy is paramount for all companies looking to drive transformation value.
Customer requests can be better catered to by changing engagement patterns completely. End-to-end digitalization, big data and analytics are crucial in this regard.
Final takeaway points in a nutshell:
· Isolated pockets of improvement no longer have enough impact for substantial change; companies are being pushed to fundamentally revolutionize their operating and value delivery model, elevating transformation to a strategic level that can cover enterprise-wide initiatives
· Leading companies are investing in full experience transformation to redefine customer and employee relationships
· Digital tools such as RPA, Process Mining, Workflow Automation, AI, and Analytics are no longer simply good to have; they have become part of the essential toolkit for transformation leaders, and are every bit as fundamental as lean six sigma and change management methodologies
· Developing continuous improvement and problem-solving mindsets across the workforce remains critical as a foundation for navigating new ways of working
· With the scale and pace of change at an unprecedented level, companies that are unable to effectively manage change at this scale will be confronted with considerable risk of failure of their transformation projects
· Finally, transformation levers have been expanded from the traditional People-Process-Technology triangle, adding new critical success factors including Strategy, Data, Change & Leadership
OPEX Miami 2023 was a wonderful opportunity for us to exchange knowledge and gain valuable insights into how the future of business will look and how Atomatik can become a more powerful enabler of digital transformation.
If you want to learn more about what Atomatik can do for you, book a call with our sales team.