- While launching a robotic operating center
in Poland earlier this year, I was lucky enough
to hear how one of my clients has approached going big
with intelligent automation.
They used a concept that really stuck
with me and is something I share
with executive audiences the world over,
and I've included it as an exercise file for you.
This client's firm realized early on that
if each individual project or paving stone on the path
to a fully-digital operation had to stand alone
and have its own compelling return on investment
that many of the projects would have been rejected,
unfunded, and ignored.
So, instead, they embraced a concept
called return on portfolio.
They treat each project as part of an overall portfolio,
whose collective purpose is to achieve
the integrated digital operation they're shooting for.
This is sensible for many reasons.
Often digital operations projects are additive,
building upon one another in ways
that sometimes are not immediately clear.
For instance, RPA digitizes transactional work,
but one challenge of late is a wave of disillusionment
as firms feel they haven't gotten the miraculous savings
they were promised would quickly manifest.
Whether or not savings are quick to present themselves,
what each RPA project achieves is increasing levels
of digitized and reliable data.
Clean data is the food
that machine-learning algorithms depend on.
When you approach it this way,
you realize that the early-stage digitization projects
are so much more than simply discrete, stand-alone efforts.
They are a critical first step
to that integrated, digital operations reality,
that one office we spoke about.
So be sure to evaluate candidate projects
with a portfolio mindset.
It will serve you well in the future.
I guarantee it.