BPO
Volvo announced the introduction of a “digital key” to unlock and start cars via Bluetooth as from next year. Read more “Digital key: How about using your smartphone as your car keys?”
BPO
BPO
The level of branding has gone a step ahead. Have you ever thought cat videos and spoofing could be beneficial for branding? There is something about a cat causing mayhem in a video that draws in our attention, transfixes us to a screen, has us in stitches of laughter and before we know it we are sharing it with all our friends and family. Read more “Cat videos and spoofing proving beneficial for branding”
BPO
Avast’s researchers set up networks near the MWC registration booth at Barcelona Airport and found that many attendees took the risk of being spied by cyber criminals.The WiFi networks’ names were “Starbucks”, “Airport_Free_Wifi_AENA” and “MWC Free WiFi”, which are all expected or common SSIDs for public networks. Read more “WiFi experiment catches out ‘reckless’ MWC attendees”
BPO
Panasonic’s European customer service team was established in 2006 in Cardiff, where we house a European repair center, field support team and multi-language call center to cater for B2B customers and to achieve customer satisfaction. Read more “Why did Panasonic build its own call center?”
BPO
A new Xerox report, The State of Customer Service 2015, reveals that over half (54%) of customers would pay more money for better customer service from their favorite brands. Read more “Survey showing customers are willing to pay more for good customer service”
BPO
Automation is unquestionably the flavor of the month in business chatter today. Robotic process automation (RPA), and a storm of other smart automation approaches like Artificial Intelligence, are being pitched and perceived as the NEXT BIG THING, akin to the emergence of outsourcing some 30 years ago, and offshoring 15 years ago. Smart automation through RPA or AI promises massive efficiency savings, increased compliance, faster processing, deeper insights and any number of other good things for transaction processing, customer engagement, IT, Finance, HR, Procurement and other business processes.
The more examples that emerge, the more it seems that RPA, AI and other emerging automation technologies will overturn the established order in the services industry. Long-standing and successful ways of working based around labor-intensive shared services and large-scale resource outsourcing may cease to be relevant for many processes. This change could happen within a few years. For example, if an RPA tool can replace and improve fiddly and inefficient manual data checking and processing tasks for a new business team in a matter of months, why will this work still be done by humans in five years? If a contact center can use automated software with artificial intelligence to talk with clients, what parts of the process will customers demand be delivered by humans? As the roster of use cases extends from a handful into dozens and more, initial questions are turning from ‘why automate?’ to ‘why not’?
Projecting this initial promise forward across the economy, there are some pretty startling future scenarios, ranging from a world in which RPA and AI quickly become widespread in organizations of all kinds, to a more extreme robotic takeover in which vast swathes of the workforce are displaced by a tireless, error-free and unregulated electronic workforce. But we are getting ahead of ourselves. Even the near future is far from clear. Most of the chewy questions remain as yet unanswered – what does ‘smart automation’ mean for businesses? How far will it go? Can it be scaled up significantly? What does it mean for established ways of working such as outsourcing and shared services? Who are the key players? What does a good RPA/AI strategy look like? What are the commercial models? What about my current contracts? How will the different technologies interact? Who will make the tea?
Real artificial intelligence may or may not be near. Most importantly, no-one yet knows all of the answers – outsourcing service providers, automation software vendors, consultants and their clients are all looking to make sense of these new trends, and anyone telling you that the future is manifestly clear is lying or deluded or both.
BPO
The rise of robots could lead to unemployment rates greater than 50 per cent, according to Professor Moshe Verdi. Read more ““We are approaching a time when robots will be able to outperform humans at almost any task” says Professor Moshe Verdi”
BPO
BPO
For most of us who don’t seem to follow business success stories, here’s the first short story we probably haven’t heard of. Mark McRae is one of the Sunshine Coast entrepreneurs in Australia. Read more “Outsourcing: a success story you maybe haven’t heard of”