- There's a brief story I wanna cover
before we get into the details of RPA.
It's the story of how technology
has historically upended society and work as we know it.
As a quick note,
this is overall a good news story,
but one that's predicated on change.
If you wanna get right into the meat of the course on RPA,
feel free to skip the next two lessons,
but if you want some cool stats and stories
that make you fun at cocktail parties, stick around.
I personally find this topic fascinating.
So, what was work like decades ago?
Obviously, if you rewind 100 years,
the workplace was quite a bit different than it is today.
No computers, no fax machines, no Internet,
and no software running every element of an organization.
Fast-forward from 100 years ago to 20 years ago,
and you'll find computers,
and those fax machines we talked about,
but only just the beginnings of the Internet,
email, and ethernet connecting everything everywhere.
Fast-forward to today,
and you find enterprises scrambling
to adapt to and adopt cloud hosting,
software as a service,
and the connection of almost everything.
As you can imagine,
this environment has been a very challenging one
to keep up with.
In fact, since the year 2000,
50% of the traditional companies on the Fortune 500
have disappeared.
Why?
Many failed to stay relevant and competitive
in the digital economy,
and were phased out.
You won't remain a successful company
if you can't scale and adapt.
More companies will likely cease to exist
or face increasing competition
as we move deeper into the era of digital disruption,
Or what the World Economic Forum refers to
as the Fourth Industrial Revolution.
So, what are the four revolutions?
The First Industrial Revolution
was marked by the use of steam engines,
which allowed for the mechanization
of textile and iron factories.
During that time, Europe saw a boom in growth
as people migrated away from a rural lifestyle
and moved to cities, where the jobs were.
The Second Revolution was powered by electricity
and supported by a boom
in manufacturing and production lines.
This led to the specialization of work,
as tasks could be split apart and optimized for costs.
The Third Industrial Revolution began around the 1980s,
and is known as the beginning of the Information Age,
in which we shifted from analog technologies
to digital ones.
That brings us to today.
We are now entering
the so-called Fourth Industrial Revolution.
This stage of industrial change
is predicated on a new range of technologies
that are driven by interconnectivity,
such as autonomous production,
artificial intelligence, analytics,
and the exciting world of Internet of Things.
More importantly, everything will produce data,
and data will mean everything.