First, I would like to warn you to read the following text! It may contain traces of personal opinion, emotions, enthusiasm, and fantasies. So, please don’t complain afterwards 😉

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In a moderately complex business process, employees spend about 60% of their time on activities that actually add value to the process. Organizing and conducting that process eats up the other 40%.

This means that as the intelligent and creative individuals they are, with a university degree, they spend a lot of their time doing what exactly? Forwarding emails, copy&pasting data between Excel files and asking where that requested information is from a week ago?

For all the work they do, they use digital tools for support, but it is still them conducting that process, spending 40% of their time!

In case you’re wondering where these numbers come from, they are real numbers from real studies with real clients.

This needs to change! Let’s get into Digital Transformation!

Digital Transformation

You might think that Digital Transformation is all about computers, software, cloud, bots, and AI. Well … not really! We already have all of this fantastic technology set up, and the technology itself is not the limiting factor anymore. But we still insist on conducting the processes ourselves. And this is what we need to change.

In short, Digital Transformation is not any more about inventing new technology, but about a more clever way of using the existing!

And this is where it gets interesting. If it’s really about the way we use technology, digital transformation goes from being a technical challenge to a challenge for people and organizations.

The Change

In short, associates in operational departments will become more makers than users, and software developers will do more consulting than coding.

Business makers might be a mix of subject-matter experts, business analysts, requirement engineers, change managers and project managers. They pick up any change or development in business processes and prepare them for automation.

And our software consultants can become a mix of software architects and engineers, process & change consultants and designers. They support and advise business makers on how to make a business process fit for its software life.

Finally, we need a software platform that really understands business processes. Low-code, or AI or RPA alone will not do it. We need low-code to implement our processes easily and fast. We need AI to understand things and make clever decisions. And we need RPA as a bridge to inaccessible systems.

My Personal Persuasion

This is what makes Appian the platform of choice! For me!

It is not just about coding and pushing bytes left and right. I need to get a deep understanding of my client’s needs and motivations. This process that determines so much of their daily work, thinking and acting. And then, together, we can turn that into a piece of software driving that process.

I want to free people from mindless activities! And what do you want?