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Insights on workforce automation

The lasting impact of remote work results in a reassessment of the IT infrastructure that enables workforce automation capabilities. Worldwide IT spending is expected to reach $4.5 trillion in 2022 as the post-pandemic recovery continues and remote and hybrid work takes an even greater hold on businesses everywhere. This creates a significant opportunity for companies looking to bridge the gap between home and office work, create remote first solutions, automate workplace processes, and create a more seamless experience for employees.

IT spending is expected to reach $4.5 trillion in 2022

A growing market

Digital products and services will play a critical role in these digital transformation efforts, requiring continued investment in remote-first technology implementations and new technologies. Peerbie, for example, transforms how teams work with one super app for everyone and everything needed to get work done.

It’s estimated that 31% of all workers worldwide will be hybrid or fully remote in 2022. The U.S. is projected to harness the trend, with remote workers reaching 53% of the workforce. A hybrid workforce will continue to increase the demand for PCs and tablets. In fact, in 2021, PC and tablet shipments exceeded 500 million units for the first time in history, highlighting the demand across both business and consumer markets. Hofy offers a device pre-configuration service to give IT teams peace of mind­­–knowing that any devices they provide are set up correctly and securely­­­­­­–and to spare new hires a tedious first-day setting things up.

A hybrid workforce will continue to increase the demand for PCs and tablets.

The pandemic-fueled growth in the adoption of software robots designed to ease routine office work is making at least one task easier for CIOs: selling the idea to their corporate bosses. The technology — robotic process automation (RPA), or software bots — became a critical tool last year during COVID-19 lockdowns and office closures as companies worked to keep their businesses up and running. Many turned to bots to handle tasks like processing payroll data or expense reports and fielding call-center queries. At the height of the pandemic last year, UiPath said it added more than ten corporate customers daily.

The complexity and interdependency of systems today mean that when something doesn’t work between two entities — be it apps, servers, or something else — the effects can be disastrous unless those overlaps can be detected and mitigated ahead of a live deployment or found and fixed quickly even if they are already out in the wild. Gluware has built a platform that aims to do just that — specifically by providing network orchestration and automation tools that identify and automatically fix when something is about to go awry on a network.

Opportunities to automate common workplace processes are everywhere, which is why automation is becoming a common element of every business. This includes providing good customer service, streamlining the hiring process, or managing marketing campaigns more efficiently. As technology improves, more tasks will become suitable for automation.

Opportunities to automate common workplace processes are everywhere, which is why automation is becoming a common element of every business.

Machine learning and artificial intelligence enable new forms of “smart” automation. As the software learns, the more adaptable it becomes. These technologies open the door for the automation of higher-order tasks in addition to basic, repetitive tasks. There’s much focus now on tasks humans don’t want to do, but in the future, automation will not just be about automating those tasks humans are doing today. Still, it will be about realizing potential opportunities. For example, RPA can automate tedious insurance processes as insurers undergo many manual but critical processes involving disparate systems. RPA can help streamline and automate these processes without changing large amounts of legacy code — assisting insurers in cutting costs in necessary departments like underwriting, claims, and regulatory and compliance, as well as expedite policy decisions.

As data sets become more thorough and available, and as software draws on more sources and synthesizes more data sets, contextual information in human decision-making will only improve. Machine learning will serve as a supplement to–or perhaps even an enhancement to–human knowledge. Combine AI capabilities with improved data retention through the Internet of Things (IoT), and the possibilities are endless. Kadence is building an all-in-one solution for desk booking, room scheduling, people, and visitor management. The company’s platform helps transform workspaces into smarter, safer spaces to create frictionless experiences. It also offers workplace leaders to deliver data-driven insights into how people use spaces to work, enabling clients to manage their spaces when work patterns and workflows change dynamically in response to our ever-changing world.

VC and startup opportunities

Workforce automation sectors are becoming a hotbed for venture capital investing. In 2021, HR technology alone received $12.3 billion in investments worldwide. At the same time, global funding to RPA companies hit a record high of $3.5B, driven predominantly by a handful of mega-rounds (deals worth $100M+). And in the first part of this year, we saw Lattice, a start-up making software to help employers fight the “big quit,” tripling its valuation to $3 billion in 10 months. While Envoy, the leading workplace platform that allows companies to reopen safe and flexible workplaces, secured $111 million in Series C funding led by Brookfield Growth. Envoy’s workplace platform is built to solve the problems of flexible workplaces where teams split their time between home and the office.

In 2021, HR technology alone received $12.3 billion in investments worldwide.

These are exciting times for startups in this space, and these are a few of the ones that have caught our attention.

EthSign is a developer of a decentralized application designed to revolutionize agreement and signing. The company’s application helps to make comments, edit, and access each version of your electronic agreement without privacy and communication concerns, enabling clients to have a simple and decentralized alternative and helping parties to upload a document with pending signatures.

Seatti is a developer of a flexible working platform intended to bring together your hybrid team. The company’s platform provides Microsoft Teams and Office365 integrated SaaS solutions allowing you to book a workspace in or outside of the office and share location plans with the team.

Namely is a developer of a human capital management platform intended to meet the complex demands faced by today’s HR professionals. The company’s cloud-based platform provides tools across payroll, benefits, human resource information, and talent management, enabling mid-sized companies to focus on developing their people and providing a better employee experience.​​​​​​​

Diversio is a developer of a people intelligence platform intended to measure, track, and improve diversity, equity, and inclusion. The company’s platform is created using artificial intelligence to bring rigor data, diagnosis, and analysis to help organizations become more inclusive, develop cutting-edge technology, and eliminate barriers to diversity and inclusion. Their platform enables users to trust a platform that values feedback, transparency, collaboration, and impact.

Planless is a developer of a project and task management tool designed to automate teamwork. The company’s intelligent platform takes care of the planning by finding the people in the team who are the best suited to perform a task depending on their knowledge and availability, enabling organizations to focus on their core business.​​​​​​​

TeamEQ can accelerate results through intelligent teams for leaders who no longer want to guess the situation of their teams but instead take their decisions based on actual data. Team analytics and intelligence platform designed to transform any group into a high-performance team that exceeds its objectives. The company’s product uses artificial intelligence to track the impact of a person’s actions. It guides people in real-time with transparent data and predictive algorithms while offering tailored people management strategies and training programs for leadership development, enabling businesses to monitor performance, discover and reduce attritions and boost productivity by promoting collective intelligence engagement and well-being.

TenSpot (Future of Work, HRtech) is a workforce engagement platform that helps companies connect and engage distributed teams to boost employee happiness, morale, and productivity. The company’s platform combines live and on-demand content with sophisticated tools that help measure engagement and sentiment, enabling clients to improve their culture, identify leaders, and create a space that welcomes everyone.​​​​​​​

The extent to which automation transforms the economy remains to be seen, but it appears inevitable that we’re headed toward a future of more automation. What this means for businesses, workers and consumers will be the subject of enormous debate moving forward. One thing seems inevitable, however: if it can be automated, it will be.

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Augmented Reality: The gateway to the future

Several exciting technologies are at the center of discussions about the future, from virtual reality (VR) and the metaverse to 5G and artificial intelligence (AI). While these emerging technologies are expected to disrupt our daily lives eventually, most of them must still overcome significant obstacles before mass adoption is plausible. However, augmented reality (AR) could bridge the gap between the present and the future due to its increased accessibility and interactivity.

First, what is AR?

AR is the integration of virtual objects into the real world. In an AR experience, users can interact with virtual features that are overlaid in the real world, in real-time. These virtual items are accurately rendered within the real physical environment to create a believable experience for users. While VR creates an entirely simulated world, AR alters the perception of the real world with its added elements, which can include visual, haptic, auditory, and olfactory components.

The current state of AR

AR is far from perfect and still has many issues to iron out, but its growth is possible alongside its adoption. AR does not necessarily require more than a smartphone to function. This differentiates it from technologies like VR that require specific gear and virtual environments, which limits adoption until its framework is fully resolved. VR headsets can be somewhat uncomfortable and can cause eyestrain and motion sickness. While developers are addressing those concerns, there is also the issue of true immersion. One of the main benefits of VR over AR is its promise of total immersion into virtual worlds and scenarios. Technologies that would support that capability exist, such as haptics and omnidirectional treadmills, but they are still a growing sector and difficult to afford for the average consumer. An ever-improving AR app on your smartphone is far easier to adopt than expensive VR gear that takes you to limited virtual experiences and currently incomplete worlds. By introducing AR to consumers on devices they already own, it could become easier to encourage them to adopt fully fleshed-out AR and VR technologies down the line.

AR is currently used in applications like mobile, retail, healthcare, and education. Mobile applications include popular games, like PokemonGO, Amon, and Angry Birds AR; visualizer apps that allow you to place furniture or change the color of your home’s walls, like DecorateAR and Paint Tester; and social media apps like Snapchat and TikTok. Retail AR saw significant growth during the COVID-19 lockdown. Many brands embraced different virtual try-on technologies, from IKEA Studio to ASOS’ “See My Fit” to Kohl’s virtual closet on Snapchat. AR in healthcare is currently focused on medical imaging technologies that improve surgical planning and outcomes, such as HP Tech Ventures’ partner Surgical Theater, which uses AR, VR, and 3D technologies to provide a precise visualization platform for surgeons and medical students. For non-medical education, AR apps like Elements 4D and JigSpace help students learn important concepts through immersive visualization.

The future of AR

In the future, AR applications will see both improvement and innovation. The AR market is expected to grow at an impressive compound annual growth rate of 40+% from 2022 to 2030. Already existing technologies, like the above apps, will improve, expand, and become easier to use and access. New and emerging technologies, like AR glasses, smart lenses, holograms, and the metaverse, will enable AR’s further expansion and adoption. AR glasses and smart lenses are already in progress, with companies like Apple and Nreal working to create comfortable and fully functional AR glasses. HP Tech Ventures’ portfolio company Mojo Vision is also working on smart contact lenses and recently reached an incredible milestone with the first-ever on-eye demonstration of a feature-complete AR smart contact lens.

Holograms, powered by AR goggles, glasses, or contact lenses, are another potential technology innovators are beginning to explore. As our world embraces hybrid and remote work, hologram meetings could become the new norm. 3D holographic displays could also become another feature of the future of work. And in our personal lives, board games of the near future could see a holographic boost, with companies like Tilt Five creating holographic AR versions of popular games like Settlers of Catan.

Finally, AR technologies will play a significant role in adopting the metaverse. While many envision the metaverse as a fully immersive experience enabled by VR headsets, there is a growing belief that AR will be a more palatable gateway, augmenting our existing world rather than replacing it with a virtual one. Perhaps more likely is the existence of two metaverses: one enabled by AR and the other by VR, with possible entry points between them.

The importance of AR boils down to one essential factor: accessibility. Incredible strides have been — and will continue to be made — with several emerging technologies, however mass adoption cannot occur if the average consumer can’t access them. Allowing consumers to interact with the metaverse and related technologies through devices they own will shorten the adoption time and onboarding process for future devices. This makes AR the perfect gateway to VR, the metaverse, and many future technologies.

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Using trends to create a sustainable future

Thinking like a futurist in this era of constant change provides an incredible opportunity to create the future we want. By staying on the lookout for trends and weak signals shaping the world around us, futurists can identify future opportunities that lead to consequential disruption.

But what happens if you miss these trends?

In the best-case scenario, missing these signals may simply leave you reacting to disruption and working hard to catch up. At worst, however, you are in danger of becoming irrelevant and going out of business. The corporate graveyard is littered with companies that didn’t react fast enough to the changes in the world around them.

Blockbuster

Founded in 1985 by David Cook, Blockbuster was an entertainment staple in the 1990s and early 2000s. At its peak, there were 9,094 stores globally. Consumers would flock to their local stores to rent movies and buy snacks for their Friday nights, making Blockbuster a fixture in households worldwide.

After a few CEOs and missteps, Blockbuster made its biggest blunder when it failed to acquire Netflix in 2000. Netflix saw the rise of DVDs as a significant opportunity and launched its original mail-based DVD rental business in 1997. Because DVD players were not yet standard in the average household, Netflix partnered with HP, Sony, and Toshiba to offer free DVD rentals to new DVD player buyers. Netflix grew in popularity but wasn’t yet profitable, so its leadership approached Blockbuster to propose an acquisition, which the movie-rental giant declined.

Netflix persisted, confident that DVD players would gain popularity, and that confidence paid off as the company became profitable in 2003. The following year, Blockbuster began its DVD-by-mail service seven years after Netflix. From 2007 to 2010, Netflix continued to monitor trends and take calculated risks that majorly paid off, starting their on-demand video streaming service and signing deals with industry giants from Disney to Paramount.

On the other hand, Blockbuster failed to innovate in time and had to play catch up with Netflix while rapidly losing customers. That failure to embrace change, paired with severe debt, became the unraveling of Blockbuster, which declared bankruptcy in 2010 and closed all but one store.

Toys “R” Us

Later considered a category killer, Toys “R” Us had a humble beginning as a baby-furniture retailer in Washington, D.C., in 1948. Initially named “Children’s Bargaintown,” founder Charles P. Lazarus changed it to Toys “R” Us in 1957, dedicating the store entirely to toys and moving it to Rockville, Maryland. Throughout the next half-century, Toys “R” Us experienced incredible success, building a powerful brand, exploring spin-off clothing stores, and assisting in the launch of several pop culture games and toys.

By the late ‘90s, Toys “R” Us began to feel the pressure from growing competition, like Walmart and Target, which eventually led to the closure of its spin-off, Kids “R” Us, in 2003. While competing companies created their e-commerce sites, Toys “R” Us entered an exclusive 10-year partnership with Amazon in 2000. This partnership, while successful, prevented Toys “R” Us from developing autonomy over its online presence, which became a severe problem when Amazon elected to grow its toy category and allow competitors to sell on its platform.

Toys “R” Us sued Amazon and won, but it was too late. The once powerful toy seller had lost out on the essential opportunity to create its e-commerce website, and by the time it had one, it fell far behind what competitors had to offer. Toys “R” Us not only failed to keep up with e-commerce, but it also ignored changing consumer habits and buying preferences, instead focusing on offering the lowest prices, which proved unsustainable. Finally, Toys “R” Us failed to create an enticing in-store experience, instead deciding to cut costs. Unable to provide a satisfying in-store experience and struggling to keep up with e-commerce innovation, Toys “R” Us filed for bankruptcy in 2017 and closed all stores in 2018.

In 2019, the company rebranded as Tru Kids post-bankruptcy, opened new stores, and partnered with Target to sell toys. By 2020, the agreement had lapsed, and Amazon took on Target’s role as a fulfillment partner. In 2021, the financial impact of the COVID-19 pandemic closed its stores again. In 2022, the company plans to open stores within all U.S. Macy’s by October 15.

Borders

The first Borders bookshop opened in Ann Arbor, Michigan, in 1971, by brothers Tom and Louis Borders. The company didn’t open its second store in Beverly Hills, Michigan, until 1985 and was subsequently acquired by Kmart in 1992. Three years later, Kmart spun off Borders into a new company named Borders Group. Through the 1990s and early 2000s, the Borders Group expanded globally, with stores and franchises everywhere from Singapore to Puerto Rico.

Initially, Borders stayed ahead of innovation with a robust inventory system that could predict consumer behavior. However, when the industry began to go digital in the early 2000s, Borders began to lose its grip, leaning heavily into CD and DVD sales instead of working on its internet presence. Competitors like Barnes & Noble focused on online sales and digital innovations like e-readers, while Borders chose to outsource its online operation to Amazon, which rapidly became a competitor.

As competitors grew and embraced innovation, Borders steadily lost revenue, and its last profitable year was 2006. After constant financial trouble, Borders filed for bankruptcy in 2011, closing all its stores except those operating in the United Arab Emirates, Oman, and Malaysia, which other owners took over.

In the examples above, it’s clear that while some companies missed the boat on specific innovations, others were on the right track. They did this by paying attention, listening to the true needs of their customers, and prioritizing learning from all failures.

So how can you avoid missing trends?

I may sound like a broken record, but thinking like a futurist is the best way to avoid being left behind by innovation. Pay attention to weak signals, explore emerging trends and technologies, and adopt an innovative mindset. You need to have a good sense of what you want in the future. Ask yourself:

  • What outcomes am I looking for?
  • What inspiring vision and goals do I need to put in place?

Your goals need to be bold enough that they cause you to work backward to discover what disruptions will get you there, rather than taking today’s solutions and incrementally improving them over time.

Visualizing outcomes is essential, and so is having an open, innovative mindset and attitude. Success is 95% attitude. Make peace with failure and learn from it instead. Think boldly, and never give up. Having the right attitude is essential to staying ahead of all this change and creating the future you seek.

Finally, remember: the future hasn’t happened yet. The future is something that we all get to create. It is the result of all the choices that we make today.

What future will you create?

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