#47 Skills for Automation Teams in 2022

Hello and welcome back to another episode of the Process and Automation Podcast with the Automation Guys. We have been asked by several customers what kind of skills are really needed these days when building sort of a team for automation and when it comes to hiring automation experts, maybe for long-term or short-term projects. So we thought it would be nice to do one episode on this one to share with you what we think is really key. Obviously, the world is changing completely from manual to digital and from digital to automated, and every business, we believe, needs to be ready for that shift. Many, many businesses have started already last year or a couple of years ago, but most, most have to catch up. And look into the market and into sort of the supplier market to find the right partner and, or maybe to build your own internal team. Yeah, so it's, it's very important to, to find the right skills and talent in the market. So yeah, we thought we will go through this one and go through the different skills which are needed to, to help you to be successful with automation. And yeah, we have 6 skills we believe are important. Arno, which one do you think is sort of skill number 1, or one skill of the 6?

Well, of course, artificial intelligence and machine learning is a very hot topic. And of course, you know, it's an essential component of automation, you know, in particular robotic process automation. Where we use robotic software agents that automatically handle, you know, many of these low-level business processes. And RPA robot mimics the actions of a human employee, and it can accomplish that sort of action within a much shorter timeframe compared to a human, and also it removes the chance of human error. And for us, what we see is for, for RPA agents or RPA robots to truly succeed, you know, it's, it's, it's not enough for them to, to, to follow just a simple set of predefined business rules. You know, they also need to be reactive and intelligent and capable of responding to new and unforeseen situations. So this is where AI and machine learning comes into play. Play, and this helps RPA robots to learn from experience and apply knowledge they gain. So we think AI probably makes number 1 in our list.

Yeah, I agree. So, and the next one is all about low-code development. So nowadays, low-code and no-code software platforms and development platforms are on the rise, and probably every, every business going forward will build business applications with that. So, so yeah, low-code applications have enabled sort of what, what IT research and advisory firm Gartner and others are calling sort of the citizen developer. So basically with low-code, non-technical employees can build, build business applications and, and filling, filling that gap in in IT really, isn't it? So the low-code platforms bring software development to everyone through features. Yeah, you can, you can build easy features, you can build apps with drag-and-drop functionality easily on the, on the user interface, lots of pre-built components. And yeah, with so many digital transformation initiatives we see all around us, Yeah, so lots of those transformation initiatives have used low-code application development for, for really huge success. And it doesn't require— those applications do not require you to have a specific programming language. You can build your applications faster. And in particular, automation developers can use these low-code applications in order to automate all of or business processes end to end. And low-code doesn't stop just with business process user interface development. So nowadays you have low-code AI, low-code chatbot technology, all sorts of stuff nowadays when it comes to developing solutions is available as a low-code and also as a no-code platform. So yeah, look out for those to, to get your idea into, into like a proper solution out there in a matter of days, weeks, instead of months and years.

Yes, and of course the, the third skill set to look out for when you hire an automation expert is somebody that's got experience using process mining. Now, of course, process mining is the sort of a discipline where you use IT data like event logs and databases and audit trails to analyze and optimize your business processes. So you could point a process mining tool at your ERP system, and it will tell you a lot about how performant your processes are and where the bottlenecks are. You know, some of the larger enterprises out there might have processes that generate, you know, gigabytes and terabytes of data every day. So it's really impossible to analyze those processes and the sort of perhaps the inefficiencies that those processes have. It's impossible to kind of analyze that with a human eye or traditional business analyst. So, you know, skilled automation developers can use process mining to really gain more insights into these processes by using that data and identifying which parts of those processes can perhaps be improved. So, and you know, the improvements might range from fixing errors or deleting unnecessary steps in your process, you know, with the view to increase the efficiencies of your process. And the underlying automation.

All right, very good. So we mentioned AI, process mining, and low-code applications, but effectively nowadays it's very important— nowadays it's very important as a developer, even as a sort of not a high-code developer, to understand sort of full-stack automation. And what that means is the use of, of several automation technologies in maybe one platform, or you can look at it as a sort of a full-stack, even if it's spread out over different platforms. But it basically means that you look at all the different automation technologies like RPA, artificial intelligence, and process mining, all combined in sort of one, one workflow. So if you have that understanding what combining these technologies together with people can bring to a business, then yeah, you can really have a huge impact in your organization. And yeah, so I think that's, that's really important as part of the full-stack automation. And this is what we see currently in the market as well. Lots of vendors are adding additional technologies like RPA, AI, process mining onto the, onto the same platform. So it can make that full-stack automation implementation easier for organizations. And yeah, I think the combination of full-stack automation, when you understand it right, yeah, will help you to improve productivity and efficiency like, like it was not seen before in, in the organization. Yeah, if you really get it perfect, it's fantastic, but you need to understand how all these technologies work with each other the best.

Yeah, sure. And of course, the fifth one to look out for in skill set, you've mentioned chatbots. And, you know, chatbots is really a special case of using AI, machine learning, and RPA for your digital transformation program. It's a software agent that can communicate with humans via a simulated text conversation. And of course, you know, one of the popular use cases is often to provide assistance or customer service to your end customers. You know, the use of chatbots within the organization can automate and streamline many activities that would, you know, formally require interacting with a human agent. So for example, processing a return or finding the correct resource on a website. So again, one of those skills to look out for in a automation expert, the understanding of chatbots, the ability to create these chatbots. And, you know, if you look at the chatbot market alone, it is massive. And, you know, IBM looked at it and, you know, there was a study they've done and around 80% of routine questions can be fully automated by chatbots. And, you know, if even if you just look at the chatbot market in back in 2019, it was worth around, worth around about, you know, $2.2 billion, and it's estimated to be worth roughly about sort of $7.5 billion by 2024. So it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a massive area of, of automation that's, that continues to grow, and it's certainly a skill set that you want to look out for when you hire a professional that will do automations and specifically automations that, you know, involve kind of customer interactions. So that's definitely one to look out for.

Fantastic. Yeah, and of course all these tech skills are very important, but yeah, there are other skills needed to be sort of a really good automation developer or be a member of automation team. Would be really good to have as well, business analyst skills, and be able to sort of sit down with the business departments and to understand how processes are currently running, what goals they have in terms of process and outcomes. So obviously these sort of core business analyst skills and communication skills are really needed. Obviously everything What you do, you should do with passion. And if you have a passion for solving complex business problems with technology, then those kind of things are really— yeah, so it's really your thing. And everyone who's looking for a developer should look out for that passion, the spark in their eyes when you talk about RPA and process mining. And agile project management, agile methodologies. Nowadays that's, that's the standard going through process or project development and software development. So yeah, so that's, that's a good summary of the skills we believe are important if you're looking out for supplier or for a new team member or for several team members. This is what they should bring maybe to the table. Lots of, lots of that. And yeah, if you, if you like to sort of get, get an opinion maybe on, on how to build automation teams or like help with building your internal automation teams or needs of temporary support for growing the automation teams faster, reach out to myself or Arno on our social channels and on our website, theautomationguys.net, and we will be very happy to help you to get your automation team right. So you are ready for what's coming up there in the future. It will be fast, it will be a big change for most businesses. And yeah, with an automation developer and a team of automation developers, I guess it's easy to cope.

That's right. And I think also with the advent of all of the low-code platforms out there, it is fairly easy to upskill people. It's fairly easy to introduce this technology, start small with low-code. Of course, it's, it's, it's quite easy to reuse a lot of components that comes out of the box. So, you know, with, with Ant, with these, with these skill sets, you know, automation professionals can really get stuck in and start automating those manual processes and, you know, bring about the change that automation brings inside your business.

Yeah, thank you very much for listening again today. And yeah, we wish you all the best in your automation journey. And yeah, reach out to us, tune in next time, and until then, let's automate it. Unfortunately, that's it again with this episode of the Process in Automation Podcast. If you like this episode, please give us a 5-star rating and don't forget to subscribe to this podcast so you don't miss any upcoming episode. We hope you will tune in next time, and until then, let's automate it!