When I explore trends, I avoid looking at the obvious advancements we will experience in the next 12-24 months. Those are too easy to predict. But I also try to avoid the science fiction range of looking 10 years into the future. While the concepts may be fun to consider, they are meaningless to most organizations today because their potential value is not yet tangible and their likelihood of commercialization is limited. The sweet spot for impactful trend spotting is really in the 3-6 year range. You have enough time to plan and course correct, plus you can assess the realistic impact on the business with some certainty.
We’re now at a point where automation should be returning huge dividends to those that deploy it. But why it’s falling short isn’t due to a lack of trying or a lack of deployment speed. Instead, accelerated approaches, like hyperautomation, and even regular old automation itself, won’t reach their potential until organizations have the right ingredients in their approach to automation.