Time for Autopilot?

Surveys show that the typical enterprise subscribes to more than 20 software as a service (SaaS) platforms. It can be said that compared with traditional centralized architecture, cloud computing has proven to save a lot of costs, but these savings are usually achieved by consolidating infrastructure and reducing the need for expensive on-site server farms. The additional pressure of outsourcing IT operations has led to the rise of IT vendors, each of which provides different types of software designed to optimize existing and well-known processes.

FREMONT, CA: As SaaS platforms evolve, each promises more functionality in terms of automation, but with a corresponding increase in complexity and cost. However, there is some good news, as consolidation of operations across departments is now more attainable and generally a good place to start, but it’s clear that fundamental change is needed. The notion of subscribing to a plethora of disconnected platforms cannot be sustainable in the longer term, and it’s fair to say that overall IT expenditure is at an all-time high.

Much of the development emphasis of a typical SaaS solution has been to optimise the interface to keep the human operator “in the loop”. Many marketing straplines talk of making software “beautiful” and the UX designers have done wonders in their quest to simplify the user journey. Where simplicity and ease of use have been key drivers for this change to date, there is now a trend towards empowering users to become the “digital citizens” of the future. This direction of travel promises to give operators more responsibility for setup and configuration and may even facilitate the creation of some high-level administrative workflows. However, although this upskilling is an attractive prospect for many, the sophistication offered by these toolkits is unlikely to have the necessary power or capability to enable the automation of complex business processes.

As automation software becomes more intelligent, the operational demands expected of the user will change considerably. It is inevitable that the next generation of business software will almost certainly take full ownership, or have direct responsibility, for the end-to-end business process. This is already happening, so what impact will this have on user interface design, if direct human interaction is significantly reduced or even required?  A good analogy is the self-driving car. If the self-driving autopilot algorithm becomes demonstrably better and safer, in comparison with a human driver, then the logical outcome would be to permanently remove the steering wheel and pedals, as they would be redundant.

Make no mistake, the demand on business process automation software is no less complex than the example given.