Daily Archives: April 5, 2017

ATLANTA, GA, Apr 05, 2017 (Marketwired via COMTEX) -- Report finds accountants globally are optimistic about the future of accounting in the face of rising automation

ATLANTA, GA--(Marketwired - Apr 5, 2017) -

38% reveal one of their biggest business frustrations is time spent number-crunching

32% of those surveyed use manual methods as part of their record keeping for clients; 25% Excel and 7% handwritten notes

86% say they would be happy for technology to make the admin elements of their job invisible, so they can focus more on their clients and building their practice

23% would take time off with the extra time they save with automation

Sage, a market leader in cloud accounting software, today announced the results of a new global survey of 700 accountants which shows that attitudes towards automation within the accounting profession are changing as the benefits become clear -- signaling a new era for the accounting practice.

The 'Practice of Now' report, conducted for Sage by independent research company Viga, reveals that 96% of those surveyed are confident about the future of accountancy and their role in it, despite 68% seeing their role changing through automation in the future.

"Technological change can be divisive -- some are quick to adopt while others are more hesitant. This research shows that the majority of accountants see the empowering opportunity that automation can create and how it will free up more of their time so they can focus on their practice and their clients," said Jennifer Warawa, EVP Product Marketing, Sage. "As artificial intelligence and bots become progressively more intuitive, there is even greater potential for a future of invisible admin to help accountants focus on more strategic areas of their business. The industry must come together to support these changes and help eliminate any barriers or fears that can hold accountants back from the benefits of the increased efficiency that automation will afford them."

U.S. Specific Data The report also showed that 89% of U.S. accountants view automating data entry and reporting as a way to create more value add service for clients. Currently 77% use a cloud-based practice management solution to help serve their clients, while the majority stated that the most important service accounting software provides is automation that frees up time for clients and empowers staff to spend less time crunching numbers and do more analysis, which leads to greater job satisfaction. In an industry moving towards automation, 99% of U.S. accountants surveyed voiced confidence about the future of accountancy and their role in it, while 58% see their role becoming more strategic, allowing them to provide more financial advice to customers.

Further Global Findings from the Practice of Now Include:

Cloud Adoption: With cloud now seen as table stakes in most organizations, cloud-based solutions among accountants are proving popular:

57% say their firm invests in the best technology available, including cloud technology, to help offer the best services to their clients

67% have adopted a cloud-based practice management solution

Security is seen as the biggest barrier to adopting cloud technology (37%), while 14% say it's client concerns

Admin & Automation: Many accountants surveyed find admin tasks such as time spent number-crunching frustrating and can see great benefits in automation such as it freeing their time to serve more clients and creating more services for their clients. However, some still worry about how technology will impact their role:

An overwhelming 86% agree that by automating data entry and reporting, they would be free to create services that add value for their clients

Accountants are on the fence as to whether admin is enjoyable or a frustration with 35% saying it's the most enjoyable part of their role while 38% say time spent number-crunching is their biggest frustration; regardless, they are in agreement that it takes up a lot of their time

38% believe the biggest threat to the accountancy profession is new emerging technology that can do some of the jobs they currently do

23% would take time off with the extra time they save with automation

Future Gazing - Optimism Prevails: Despite fears and frustrations, accountants have an optimistic view of the future of their profession:

96% of those surveyed are confident about the future of accountancy and their role in it; 47% are very confident & 49% moderately confident

68% see their role changing through automation in the future; 43% believe it will change through automated admin and 25% see some of their work becoming automated but still applying that information under their control

Over half accountants surveyed (53%) see their roles becoming more strategic and being able to provide more financial and business advice to their customers

When asked what the biggest threats to the accountancy profession are, 36% believe it to be self-service accounting solutions, with 25% saying it's customers not understanding the full benefit of working with an accountant

Methodology: The State of Accounting research was conducted by research & data collection agency Viga, on behalf of Sage, between the 13th and 27th February 2017. 700 accountants, from entry level to C-suite, were surveyed online across seven markets, including the UK, USA, Australia, Canada, France, Spain and Ireland.

About Sage

Sage is the market and technology leader for integrated accounting, payroll and payment systems, supporting the ambition of entrepreneurs and business builders.

Today, business builders measure success in strong relationships, partnerships, and communities. It's why Sage helps drive today's business builders with the most intelligent and flexible cloud-enabled software, support and advice to manage everything from money to people.

Daily, more than 13,000 Sage colleagues in 23 countries work with a thriving global community of over 3 million entrepreneurs, business owners, tradespeople, accountants, partners and developers to champion the success of business builders everywhere. And as a FTSE 100 business, we are passionate about doing business the right way, supporting our local communities through the Sage Foundation.

Press Contact: Victoria Borges PR Manager, North America Sage Office: 470-447-4086 Victoria.Borges@Sage.com

2017 Nasdaq, Inc. All rights reserved.

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Global Research Reveals Accountants Welcome Technology and Automation for Administrative Relief - MarketWatch

The latest report on the disruption that the automation wave may bring in its wake makes for no more cheery reading than its predecessors. It probably doesnt help that its produced by the International Bar Association. Lawyers are just one of the white collar professions that are going to find themselves at the sharpas in guillotine end of the automation revolution. Worlds smallest violin, I know.

The Guardian discusses the report here.

Some highlights:

The competitive advantage of poorer, emerging economies based on cheaper workforces will soon be eroded as robot production lines and intelligent computer systems undercut the cost of human endeavour, the study suggests.

While a German car worker costs more than 40 (34) an hour, a robot costs between only 5 and 8 per hour. A production robot is thus cheaper than a worker in China, the report notes. Nor does a robot become ill, have children or go on strike and [it] is not entitled to annual leave.

Thats not great news for China. The term premature deindustrialization is one worth keeping in mind when reading reports like this, and as for those emerging markets hoping to use cheap labor as their route to prosperity (or at least middle income status), well.

The Guardian:

Peering into the future, the authors suggest that governments will have to decide what jobs should be performed exclusively by humans for example, caring for babies. The state could introduce a kind of human quota in any sector, and decide whether it intends to introduce a made by humans label or tax the use of machines, the report says.

In January, I noted a report produced by the EUs parliament that included this recommendation (my emphasis added):

A new reporting structure for companies requiring them to report the contribution of robotics and AI to the economic results of a company for the purpose of taxation and social security contributions.

Back to The Guardian:

Even some lawyers risk becoming unemployed. An intelligent algorithm went through the European Court of Human Rights decisions and found patterns in the text, the report records. Having learned from these cases, the algorithm was able to predict the outcome of other cases with 79% accuracy According to a study conducted by [the auditing firm] Deloitte, 100,000 jobs in the English legal sector will be automated in the next 20 years.

Pushed by the necessity to adapt to an older, eventually smaller population (a change which wont always be easy, but in a post peak labor world will turn out, in the end, to be a happy accident) Japan, as so often, leads the way.

Robots may soon invade our home and leisure environments. In the Henn-na Hotel in Sasebo, Japan, actroids robots with a human likeness are deployed, the report says. In addition to receiving and serving the guests, they are responsible for cleaning the rooms, carrying the luggage and, since 2016, preparing the food.

The robots are able to respond to the needs of the guests in three languages. The hotels plan is to replace up to 90% of the employees by using robots in hotel operations with a few human employees monitoring CCTV cameras to see whether they need to intervene if problems arise.

Work in the hotel sector is, of course, allegedly one of those jobs that Americans wont do..

And education, that magic pill?

The surveysuggests that a third of graduate level jobs around the world may eventually be replaced by machines or software.

Oh.

Elite overproduction is not an ideal recipe for social peace. Mass unemployment is not so great either. History, of course, suggests that these things work out in the end, but what happens before they do?

Excerpt from:

Automation: Another Day Another Report - National Review

Credit: Voodoo Manufacturing

Automation is coming? No, its already here

While the current administration focuses on bringing jobs back to the United States from China and Mexico, the real threat to job loss already resides within our borders.

We've teamed up with Product Hunt to offer you the chance to win an all expense paid trip to TNW Conference 2017!

According to a study by two Ball State University professors, 87 percent of all manufacturing jobs lost from 2000 to 2010 werent due to globalization, butrobots.All told, some five million fewer manufacturing jobs exist todaythan in 2000, a problem government leaders are mostly ignoring.TNW alum Martin Bryant likened it to recklessly putting their heads in the sand when describing politicians views on automation.

Brooklyn-based Voodoo Manufacturing offersa peek into whatthis future could look like.

The 3D printing company consists of nine printers mounted on server racks, a track where a robotic arm harvests finished plates, and a plate hopper that feeds new, clean plates to the robot as needed. This is forward thinking, as 3D printing isnt laborious, per se, but it does require human intervention.

Unfortunately for most humans,these are exactly the types of menial jobs best handled by robots.

Whether you choose to embrace it is up to you, but theres no denying its coming. Humans simply cant match robots in outputat scale.

Today we have about a 30- to 40-percent utilization rate of our factory, explainedVoodoo Manufacturing CPO Jonathan Schwartz. Were hoping to push that to 90- to 95-percent over the next three-to-five years.

This sort of efficiency before the automation age was unheard of. Now, itsnot only a possibility, its a near-certainty. And its hard to blame a company aiming to cut costswhile improving output. Business, after all, isnt charity, and global competition is making it harder to compete than ever. If robots offer an edge, businesses are likely to take it.

But maybe were focusing on the wrong things.

Once we let the cat out of the bag, which we assuredly did in the push toward automation, its not something we can undo. While we attempt to write off job loss to globalization a petty tactic used to distract, not inform maybe its time to recognize the true cause. And onceunderstand where our jobs are going, maybe then we can put our collective heads together to find out a solution for a newly unemployed workforce.

Its time to adapt, to create a future thats both cognizant of whats coming while impervious to the fear-based rhetoric that surrounds it. Automation is a good thing, or it will be at some point. There will be hurdles, and we will overcome them. But the conversation cant get underway, at least not in an impactful way, until we quit trying to shove the cat back into the bag.

As for the solution, I dont have one. But automation is coming, andits time we stop pretending we can stop it. Its time to leap, while at the same time figuring out what this new landing area looks like.

Bring on the robots.

Read next: Twitch's game store for streaming fans is now open

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The solution to automation-related job loss starts with admitting it's happening - TNW

Transform to a modern hybrid infrastructure with converged, hyperconverged, and composable infrastructure solutions from Hewlett Packard Enterprise.

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It's an exciting time to work in tech. With all of the advancements in areas like artificial intelligence and the Internet of Things, the world we live in is progressively becoming smarter. Even the things that seemed impossible and taken straight out of a science fiction movie (self-driving cars!) are now beginning to become a new normal.

With all these fantastic technology advancements, though, the management of new products and features can often become... a little complex. And this fact is no different in the IT infrastructure space. If you don't believe me, scroll through your Twitter feed and it wont be too long before you find one or two IT aficionado that you follow rallying around the cry of "Automate everything!"

Automation works to simplify typical tasks, so it's easy to imagine why IT teams seek out automation tools and products. After all, why spend three hours completing a mundane task when automation can save you the time and effort? Automation tools become especially important when used in a management capacity. There, they enable IT to drive more business value to the entire organization, meaning more services are delivered faster and without the strain on the administrators or the end users.

Just as the emergence of artificial intelligence and the Internet of Things has come with new products to manage devices leveraging these technologies, so too has the trend toward hybrid IT. Hybrid IT has resulted in new management and automation tools to further simplify and streamline the process across multiple technologies you are using both within and outside of your data center.

Perhaps there are no better examples of hybrid IT than hyperconverged and composable infrastructure. These solutions have transformed data centers and the IT teams who manage them from complexity connoisseurs into masters of simplicity. But even simple solutions can (and should) benefit from automation tools.

Take HPE OneView for example. HPE OneView is an infrastructure automation engine and an essential part of HPE's existing hyperconverged and composable infrastructure solutions. HPE OneView drives business value (the ultimate goal of any good IT solution, automation-related or otherwise) by allowing IT to deploy infrastructure faster, simplify operations, and increase productivity.

Template-based automation enables IT generalists to rapidly and reliably provision resources in response to applications requirements. This allows IT to deploy infrastructure faster with less human error. Agent-less monitoring, online firmware updates, and a new Global Dashboard deliver streamlined lifecycle operations at scale and simplify operations overall. And the unified API gives developers and ISVs the power to unify infrastructure automation with application and IT service delivery which increases their productivity.

While the world continues to get smarter and become more automated, the tools we use to manage new, innovative technologies have to evolve as well. By driving simplicity and decreasing time spent on management, automation tools are the key to the success of the future of IT.

To find out how you can take the next step in automating data center operations, watch this webinar detailing why and how to migrate to HPE OneView with ease.

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It's not science fiction, it's automation! - InfoWorld

Automation is most closely associated with DevOps teams, but it can be applied to any number of functions in a traditional data center or cloud environmentespecially those mundane, repetitive tasks that take up precious time and invite human error.

However, just dont automate for the sake of automating, said Joel Sprague, principal systems engineer for General Dynamics, during his Data World session, Automation: Not Just for DevOps.

If you automate a task that doesnt end up saving time and money, its better for it to remain a manual one. Thats best accomplished by focusing on repetitive tasks that require doing the same things multiple times in one sitting; tasks that involve doing the same thing every day, week or month; and those that call for applying the same action to a large amount of systems in a short period.

Tasks can range from developing scripts to checking for software updates to handling more complex matters such as rooting out security problems, including preventing potential risks that might have resulted from human error.

Automation can let one person accomplish the work of 20, added Sprague. When something needs to be done many times, very quickly, look to automation.

Automation can go beyond rudimentary data center tasks. As recently as 10 years ago, it could take a company several weeks to deploy an additional server. IT would wait for the purchasing department to buy the new server and software licenses, then wait for the equipment, CDs and installation manuals to be shipped, then manually install the software, manually match the hardware, software, networking and access rights configurations with the existing implementation, and physically deploy the server onto the network.

Today, thanks to the automation of processes it is possible to fully provision an application server in under an hour.

Sprague recommended two free automation tools: VMwares vRealize Orchestrator and Microsoft Powershell.

More:

Automation: Not Just for DevOps - Data Center Knowledge

Blue Prism, which provides robotic process automation software, outlined a new alliance program that should give the company more distribution into the enterprise.

How to Automate the Enterprise

One of today's biggest opportunities for IT to make an impact is by automating business processes, manufacturing, repetitive tasks, and more. We delve into examples and best practices.

The company's technology alliance program, includes Appian, Captricity, Celaton, Expert System, IBM, and Minit. Of that group, IBM is clearly the largest.

For Blue Prism, the partnerships will enable it to automate more processes. Blue Prism specializes in creating a digital workforce for industries ranging from financial services to healthcare and insurance.

The goal for Blue Prism is to leverage its robotic process automation system as an operating system to automate work. Blue Prism sits at the intersection of artificial intelligence and cognitive computing.

Also: We must make the 'right choices' when designing algorithms: Tim O'Reilly | Robotic process automation: the latest promise to liberate back offices | How to supercharge robotic process automation | How to automate the enterprise: Your guide to getting started | How robots are filling worker shortages, replacing 'bad' jobs, and making work more rewarding |

With a bevy of partners in the fold, Blue Prism and its Operating System for the Digital Workforce will be in more digital transformation deployments. Companies are automating work with software that can analyze text, interpret unstructured data, and apply machine learning.

In recent weeks, Blue Prism has been building out its partner base with announcements with EY, Appian, and an ecosystem certification program.

Blue Prism is still a small company with revenue of 9.6 million for 2016, up 59 percent from a year ago. Blue Prism ended 2016 with 153 customers and plans to ramp that total with an indirect sales model.

Blue Prism CEO Alastair Bathgate on robotics process automation, the digital workforce:

Link:

Blue Prism lands more partners, including IBM, for robotics process automation - ZDNet

JPMorgan Chase is putting a priority on using technology to automate manual processes and save time, according to its investor letters published today.

In a letter by Matt Zames, the banks chief operating officer, JPMorgan Chase detailed some of its strategy in this area. Zames said the bank made automating development life cycles a priority in 2016. For instance, by using automated code scanning, the bank saved nearly 120,000 developer hours during the year. He added that the bank expects to be able to deliver more than 90% of its software through end-to-end automation over the next five years. In other words, much of the software code testing done by humans can be replicated by technology, making the process much quicker.

Zames, along with business leaders of JPMorgans various business lines, published their individual letters to shareholders on Tuesday afternoon, shortly after CEO Jamie Dimon issued his annual letter.

Like others, the firm is also looking to robotics and machine learning to automate basic tasks. The bank is looking to robotic process automation to handle 1.7 million administrative requests in 2017, Zames said.

Machine learning offers another exciting opportunity to drive new capabilities for the firm and our customers and clients, Zames wrote. As an example, we recently introduced COiN, a contract intelligence platform that uses unsupervised machine learning to analyze legal documents and to extract important data points and clauses.

In an initial implementation, the company extracted 150 relevant attributes from 12,000 annual commercial credit agreements in seconds. Zames said it would have taken as many as 360,000 hours a year to perform such a task manually.

This capability has far-reaching implications considering that approximately 80% of loan servicing errors today are due to contract interpretation errors, Zames wrote.

In general, cost savings were a common theme of several of the letters from the various leaders of JPMs business lines.

Zames noted that the bank has introduced innovative [data] storage offerings, decreasing the price of our lowest tier storage by 75%. We are driving additional efficiency by reducing waste and becoming smarter around technology consumption.

Gordon Smith, the CEO of consumer and community banking, said JPMorgan Chase remains fiercely devoted to expense discipline. He noted the firm has overseen $2.4 billion in structural expense reductions since 2014 and improved overhead ratio from 58% in 2014 to 55% in 2016.

Importantly, during that same time period, we continued to prudently invest in our core businesses to deliver value for the long term, Smith added. In particular, weve invested heavily in technology and marketing associated with new product launches, digital and payments innovation, and cybersecurity. Our investments have also improved our control environment, leading to more automated processes, better customer and employee experiences.

Originally posted here:

JPM's Zames touts automation, robotics in shareholder letter - American Banker