Author Archives: Simon McCabe
Architectural Principles for Customer Centricity
Organisations across all industries are grappling with changes to customer relationships as the physical and digital worlds converge. Many businesses are beginning to look to their students, patients, passengers, clients, citizens and tenants as customers in the more traditional sense, and are racing to keep up with growing expectations for end-to-end customer experience. Organisations are therefore looking to customer centricity initiatives to support this end-to-end experience with either their existing or new technology landscapes. But this can prove more challenging than expected, due to increasing numbers of data points/sources, channels, technologies and integration complexity. … Read More
Process Automation: 7 Principles for Sustainable Growth
Our inboxes and social media feeds are peppered with case studies citing incredible successes in process automation rollouts – X thousand hours saved, Y % reduction in turnaround times, delivered in a seemingly impossible Z weeks. These real impacts are rightly celebrated, but there is also a plethora of stories where automation projects stagnate after a promising yet cautious beginning. Overwhelmingly, experienced operators and market analysts alike advocate a “just make a start” mindset. We recommend this approach ourselves, but what is going to sustain an automation capability beyond the initial fireworks, or breathe life into… Read More
Rebooting the Citizen Developer with RPA
The concept of the ‘Citizen Developer’ is no longer revolutionary. Nor has it necessarily lived up to the hype that has seen it embedded in the lexicon of multiple technology vendors and how they structure their solutions. With such golden potential, the question is why hasn’t it caught on? Were the vendors and experts over-promising? Are the ‘citizens’ not up to scratch or actually not that interested in being a ‘developer’? Or is there just a misalignment of understanding for this elusive role? Perhaps it was just a case of a workforce underdone in technical skills?… Read More
How Technology Makes for a Better Business Strategy
The Decision to Change (or not) In an increasingly dynamic business environment, organisations are compelled to question whether their existing IT systems can support their business strategy going forward. This is often a major pivot point: a choice between upgrading or enhancing that existing technology, or supporting larger-scale IT overhaul. The complexity of this decision, however, can be enormous. When technology is embedded, all business stakeholders can be affected. Yet businesses often lack a clear structure to approach decisions from both a technology and a business strategy perspective. Through operating a continuous… Read More
Automation: Delivering value in a crisis.
Long before the COVID-19 health pandemic many businesses were working to digitise and automate their processes to improve response times to their customers, alleviate strain on their workers and streamline operations. Automation delivers benefits in normal business environments, but in a dynamic or crisis environment the value of automation really comes to light with its capacity to adapt to change and to absorb strain. We’ve seen some great examples across our clients where their automation initiatives, particularly using Robotic Process Automation (RPA) have responded to the demands of the new operating environment. These automation use cases have had a big… Read More
5 Key Observations in Embracing Integration
Intelligent Pathways has attended several events recently and have engaged with a number of clients on a strategic level around the subject of integration. We quizzed Simon McCabe on some of the key themes from these meetings and the types of insights clients are seeking. 1. How important a role do you see an integration platform for modern enterprises? The operative term here is modern enterprise. What characterises the modern enterprise? Broadly, they have adaptive offerings, multi-touch point engagement with clients and streamlined and collaborative relationships with suppliers. All these elements require integration, but not necessarily a platform. However,… Read More
Building an Ecosystem for Automation Success
Customer Experience and Streamlined Operations are at the heart of every progressive business. Competition is increasing, as is a customer’s expectation of their digital experience. Their judgement of your service capability is based on the efficiency with which they can interact, the knowledge and insights they can derive and the relevance and personalisation they experience.
So to deliver on all these customer expectations, and keep process efficiency in check, we see automation as playing a central role. And while its role is central, its execution almost always is not. So in this blog we’re going to attempt to demystify some of the elements of automation.
Adapting to the Era of Two Speed IT
Glaciers and waterfalls. Both made of water. Both powerful in impact. One robust, enduring (climate change aside) and impenetrable in its protective ability. The other forceful and dynamic, fluid in its ability to exhilarate and be harnessed to generate immense energy. But glaciers travel at…..well, glacial speed. And so it is with IT, with two speeds of technology driving the growth and sustainability of enterprise organisations.