18th April 2023

Business Processes

“The more we reduce ourselves to machines in the lower things, the more force we shall set free to use in the higher.” - Anna Brackett

I happened to randomly come across this quote shared somewhere in the Facebook Ether. I typically pay no attention to all the various memes that crop up on my feed, you know the sort of thing, funny, emotional, inspirational, etc, however this one actually caught my eye.

When Information technology really started to become mainstream in business, I would often overhear debates around the fear of computers and robotics replacing humans and taking away jobs.

I was one never to subscribe to this way of thinking, I have always believed that technology is a force for good, or phrased another way, how humans apply and use technology is a force for good.

Over that past 30 or so years, we have seen how technology has revolutionised the way we live, every aspect of our lives have been touched by the rapid advancement of technology, granted not always for the benefit of humanity, but on the whole, I would argue that it’s definitely for the good.

I’ve always held the belief that technology will free us from the mundane, and enable us tap into two of our greatest gifts as humans, Compassion and Creativity.

The same parallel can be applied to how we use technology in our day-to-day business life, all be it a bit more grounded than solving world issues, using the power of automation can really free us up to do more.

Throughout my 30+ years as an IT professional, I have always kept these thoughts at front of mind, and have always looked for opportunities to automate business processes.

For example, have you ever thought about your current business processes, which of these are manual, which of these would lend themselves to being automated, freeing resource to focus on adding value to your business and ultimately your clients?

So, get curious about your business processes, and ask the questions!

However, I’ll leave the final word to Bill Gates – “The first rule of any technology used in a business is that automation applied to an efficient operation will magnify the efficiency. The second is that automation applied to an inefficient operation will magnify the inefficiency.”

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