What is Tech 5.0?

The driving force behind Tech 4.0 was interconnectivity between more powerful devices to improve business practices. The biggest changes of the past year have been the technological advancements that drive innovations in business applications and everyday conversation. A few of the most important tech advancements of 2019 for businesses include:

  • Mobile devices
  • Internet of Things (IoT)
  • 3D printing
  • Smart Technology
  • Artificial Intelligence (AI)

As technology evolves from 4.0 to 5.0, we expect the role of these technologies to shift from improving business processes to augmenting the human workers involved in workflows.

A common objection waged against automation is that it replaces human jobs for the sake of an increased bottom line. But going into 2020, the height of concerns around tech replacing jobs has dissipated.

In 2020, Tech 5.0 is about the reintegration of the human into the machine workflow. By enabling smarter human touchpoints and artificial-enabled human intelligence, Tech 5.0 will further evolve the way humans and machines combine to create greater value for businesses.

4 Automation Trends for 2020

Trend #1: An Emphasis on Robots as Collaborative Tools

You don’t have to search for long to find studies, news articles, or even fiction that speaks to the fear that robots will replace humans. But the one of automation trends 2020 suggests the opposite. We expect humans and machines to work together to further enhance their roles and help businesses from all industries innovate faster.

Take cloud migration, for example. Migrating to the cloud is a tough, time-consuming job that will always demand the human touch to get right. But there’s a lot of work that goes into migration that doesn’t require strategic thinking from IT personnel – precisely the kind of work that robots excel at. And while this technology is already used at some level in most IT departments, the role of automation in these types of processes will continue to grow at an accelerated rate in the coming years.

In 2020, we predict that, just as IT teams provide strategic thinking and insights for robots, robots will be able to provide greater insights than ever before for their human counterparts. For example, automation technologies allow us to process huge quantities of data to identify areas of improvement for a business, such as how IT infrastructure can be augmented or decreased to improve ROI.

Trend #2: Automation Fulfilling Growing Demand for Personalization

In 2020, we expect primary markets to continue to become oversaturated, increasing the role of niche markets in businesses of many sectors. The development of these specialized markets will continue to drive up the demand for personalization.

The challenge is that personalization in products and services has been traditionally difficult to scale. Despite the innovations of the past decade, businesses will require new technology in automation to meet demand. Human touch in an automated chain, driven by emerging technologies like AI and machine learning, will help achieve personalization at scale

Trend #3: Optimizing Human Efficiency and Productivity

Humans are great at a lot of things – but, let’s face it, manual, repetitive, and rules-based tasks are not one of them. This is the driving force behind the widespread adoption of technologies that automate these types of time-consuming, but limited value-add processes for businesses.

A great example of technology that will drive 5.0 is robotic process automation (RPA). Organizations across industries are adopting RPA for its staggering benefits. By using software robots to perform simple yet repetitive tasks, RPA can achieve cost savings of up to 60% and time savings of up to 90%.

The powerful thing about RPA – in addition to the metrics above – is the way it complements the human workforce. Think about it. You probably have some aspect of your job, like running detailed reports every week, that take up more time than you’d like to admit and add very little value to your organization’s bottom line. Fortunately, RPA can handle many of these tasks. This allows employees to spend more time and energy on creative and strategic work that drives revenue growth and innovation.

Trend #4: Increased Outsourcing of Automation Development

Automation provides numerous opportunities and measurable ROI for businesses that use it. However, to benefit from automation, you have to deploy it effectively throughout your organization. With increasing demand and high internal staffing costs, this is easier said than done.

Many businesses will be unable to accomplish the automation goals they want to with an in-house team. For this reason, 2020 will see an increase in the outsourcing of automation development.

Outsourcing can increase development bandwidth, reduce wasteful labor costs, and provide a more cost-effective way to tackle automation.

Conclusion

Tech 5.0 is fast approaching. As 4.0 wraps up, expect emerging automation technologies to transform how companies do business in 2020 and beyond.

Looking to augment your workforce with automation? We can help. Contact us today to learn more.