Category Archives: Automation

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by Shannon K. O'Neil March 7, 2017

While politicians have focused primarily on the effects of trade, automation is rapidly transforming the nature of work. A recent McKinsey report estimates that half of the labor done today can be turned over to machines, fundamentally changing the nature of manufacturing, retail, food services, and data processing among other sectors. They predict that China, India, the United States, and Japan will see the largest and fastest shifts as a combination of easy capital, aging populations, and falling productivity speeds the transition away from a human workforce. By their calculations, nearly 400 million Chinese and 235 million Indian workers compete with robots today. In the United States and Japan, some 60 percent of jobs are susceptible to change. Although positions may not disappear altogether, the work people do will change, as roughly a third of todays repetitive tasks could be taken over by machines.

Latin America will also see significant change with roughly half of the current labor mix in Mexico, Brazil, and Argentina vulnerable to automation, a higher percentage than the United States. Sales of robots already top $2 billion a year, showing that the shift is already underway.

Brazil looks the most vulnerable to change, as its mix of stagnant productivity, an aging population, and the infamous Brazil cost make labor expensive. In manufacturing, retail, transportation, and agriculture more than half the work done by 32 million employees could be automated.

Though Argentinas economy is slightly less susceptible to automation, its aging population combined with a decade long lack of investment could lead companies to step up capital spending on robotics under the more market friendly Macri government. Slowing the process down are strong unions and unreliable electricity. But over half of its agricultural and manufacturing jobs are vulnerable.

Structurally, Mexico has the highest potential to automate, as almost two-thirds of the work done in advanced manufacturing plastic, auto, and aerospace sectors could be phased out, affecting some five million workers. Yet the process in Mexico will likely be slower, cushioned by its younger population and lower wages.

The global question is what comes afterward. The majority techno-optimists believe new jobs will emerge for these displaced workers, following the industrial and agricultural revolutions before. They point to car mechanics, coal miners, engineers and more recently app developers as previously unimaginable gigs that have appeared. The pessimists see this time as indeed different, as with the rise of artificial intelligence making machines viable substitutes for people.

Leaning optimistic, McKinseys advice for advanced nations rings just as true for Latin America. Governments need to expand social safety nets to protect those most vulnerable to these coming labor upheavals. They also need to transform schools and educational curriculums to train a twenty-first century workforce that complements rather competes with robots, encouraging creativity, flexibility, and entrepreneurship. And governments need to support basic research and innovation, helping them shape the ongoing revolution. For Latin America especially, it means promoting these types of investments, as even though they disrupt todays status quo they will help ensure the region isnt left behind in these global shifts.

CFR seeks to foster civil and informed discussion of foreign policy issues. Opinions expressed on CFR blogs are solely those of the author or commenter, not of CFR, which takes no institutional positions. All comments must abide by CFR's guidelines and will be moderated prior to posting.

Latin Americas Moment looks at economic, political, and social issues and trends throughout the Western Hemisphere.

While politicians have focused primarily on the effects of trade, automation is rapidly transforming the nature of work. A recent

This morning, I had the privilege of testifying before the U.S. Senate Committee on Foreign Relations at a hearing titled

View article in Spanish, originally published in El Financiero. Mexicos presidential elections for decades have been a one shot deal.

A wave of corruption scandals has roiled Latin America in recent years, from Chiles campaign finance affairs, through Mexicos Casa

Last week while in Mexico I had the chance to talk to Alejandro Domnguez, Reporter for Milenio TV about U.S.-Mexico

In The Hacked World Order, CFR Senior Fellow Adam Segal shows how governments use the web to wage war and spy on, coerce, and damage each other. More

Red Team provides an in-depth investigation into the work of red teams, revealing the best practices, most common pitfalls, and most effective applications of these modern-day devil's advocates. More

Through insightful analysis and engaging graphics, How America Stacks Up explores how the United States can keep pace with global economic competition. More

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Williams argues that the status quo for peace operations in untenable and that greater U.S. involvement is necessary to enhance the quality and success of peacekeeping missions.

The authors argue that the United States has responded inadequately to the rise of Chinese power and recommend placing less strategic emphasis on the goal of integrating China into the international system and more on balancing China's rise.

Campbell evaluates the implications of the Boko Haram insurgency and recommends that the United States support Nigerian efforts to address the drivers of Boko Haram, such as poverty and corruption, and to foster stronger ties with Nigerian civil society.

Complete list of Council Special Reports

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Latin America's Moment - Council on Foreign Relations (blog)

Posted Mar. 7, 2017 at 10:00 a.m.

Published: 2017-03-07 10:00:11 Updated: 2017-03-07 10:00:11

By STACI BARFIELD, Children's Flight of Hope

Editor's note: Children's Flight of Hope is proving that investing in technological infrastructure has exponentially magnified our organization's ability to execute our mission, says CEO Staci Barfield.

MORRISVILLE - In the not-for-profit sector, technology is often an afterthought. It is not uncommon, even with todays advances, for nonprofit staff to utilize donated computer equipment and software deemed obsolete by their for-profit cohorts. In trying to keep down the costs of what has traditionally been referred to as overhead, investments in technology are often viewed by nonprofits as unnecessary, expensive, and/or frivolous.

At Childrens Flight of Hope (CFOH), however, we have proven that investing in technological infrastructure has exponentially magnified our organizations ability to execute our mission. CFOH is a 501(c)(3) organization that provides air transportation for children to access specialized medical care. We work to ensure all children have equal access to the health care they need, providing flights to and from medical treatment that can save, prolong or improve their quality of life.The process consists of four key steps:

Many CFOH clients have diagnoses that require long-term care and multiple rounds of treatment. Once accepted into our program, CFOH commits to the child, which means we will fly them for as long and as often as their treatment plan dictates. As such, the process above can be repeated many times for each child.

While seemingly straightforward, many stakeholders are involved in executing CFOHs mission. These include clients, family members and travel companions, healthcare professionals, charter service operators, corporate flight providers, commercial airlines, donors, volunteers, and resource partners.

Until a few years ago, requests for CFOH services were submitted by phone or email and stakeholder information was predominantly paper-based. In 2013 we initiated a review of internal processes, with the goal of eliminating redundant and non-value-add activities.

Believing technology could transform our organization, we embarked on a wholesale infrastructure change. To support anticipated growth and geographic dispersion, we implemented cloud-based solutions Salesforce, Office 365, and Adobe Creative Cloud that allow data and functionality to be accessible from any location. To facilitate staff productivity, we standardized on Lenovo laptops, added secondary monitors, upgraded software to the most current versions, and provided technical training opportunities.

Working with RTP-based Cloud Giants, we designed and implemented a custom mission management application that allows for online request submission, single-entry data collection, automated workflow, and the elimination of paper. As a result, the client process was reduced from five-and-a-half hours per request to slightly over an hour. This has allowed CFOH to grow from providing 69 flights (in 2012) to 510 flights (in 2016) with the same manpower, while simultaneously decreasing per flight cost by 87 percent.

Leveraging existing (and often free) applications available on the Salesforce platform, we support fundraising, volunteer management, operations, and communications activities. Having a consolidated view of donors, partners, and volunteers allows for real-time data analysis, which has been a major factor in CFOHs 300 percent revenue growth over the last four years.

I offer the following advice for nonprofits considering an investment in technology:

About the author: Staci Barfield has served as the President and CEO of Childrens Flight of Hope for the last four years, during which time she has led the organization in its transformation from a regional to international operation. For more information about Childrens Flight of Hope, visitwww.childrensflightofhope.org.

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How automation, new tech helps one nonprofit increase revenue by 300% - WRAL Tech Wire

DUBLIN--(BUSINESS WIRE)--

Research and Markets has announced the addition of the "Factory Automation Market - Forecasts from 2016 to 2021" report to their offering.

Factory Automation market is projected to witness CAGR of 5.34% over the forecast period to reach US$231.110 billion by 2021, increasing from US$178.160 billion in 2016.

Rising adoption of automated technologies coupled with the growing internet and information technology in order to reduce manufacturing cycle time and increase the efficiency of the production process is the key driver of global factory automation market.

Stringent regulations regarding workers' safety in hazardous working areas is another major factor that is spurring the demand for factory automation by various end-use industries. As the labor costs are escalating, the need to reduce the amount of direct labor and decrease operational costs will propel the growth of global factory automation market in the forthcoming years.

By product, the MES (Manufacturing Execution System) is projected to grow at the highest CAGR during the forecast period due to increased focus on reduction in operational costs, better utilization of production assets across the supply chain, and improvement in operation. Automated products based on sensor technology are also poised to grow at a significant rate owing to declining prices of sensors worldwide.

Geographically, North America holds the largest share of global factory automation market owing to a booming automotive industry which heavily relies on robotic systems and automation equipment to perform multiple tasks rapidly. Europe will also witness a significant growth due to increasing labor costs along with the presence of key factory automation market players, such as Schneider Electric and ABB, in the region. However, APAC region is anticipated to witness the fastest market growth during the forecast period.

This growth is attributed to growing industrial sectors in China, Japan, India, and South Korea. Furthermore, offshore assembling for major MNCs by contract manufacturing companies in the emerging economies will boost the regional growth in the coming years. Restraints such as high initial investment and operational costs coupled with a lack of skilled personnel will hinder the growth of global factory automation market during the forecast period.

Key industry players profiled as part of this section are Bosch, Schneider Electric, Honeywell International, Siemens AG, and General Electric Co among others.

Key Topics Covered:

1. Introduction

2. Research Methodology

3. Executive Summary

4. Market Dynamics

5. Factory Automation Market Forecast by Type (US$ billion)

6. Factory Automation Market Forecast by Industry Verticals (US$ billion)

7. Factory Automation Market Forecast by Geography (US$ billion)

8. Competitive Intelligence

9. Company Profiles

For more information about this report visit http://www.researchandmarkets.com/research/hf7hm5/factory

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Global $231.11 Billion Factory Automation Market 2017- Forecasts ... - Yahoo Finance

Utopia, a book by English statesman, lawyer and clergyman Thomas More (1487-1535), turned 500 years old last year. A fictional rendering of social philosophy, the book describes an exemplary society on an imaginary island in an unknown place faraway across the seas. Coined by More from the Greek ou-topos, meaning no place, or nowhere, the word utopia has become adopted in the English language to mean a place where everything is ideal or perfect.

In celebrating Utopias 500th birthday, the Ecotopia 2121 project, of which I am the coordinator, is harnessing Thomas Mores spirit to predict the futures of 100 real cities around the world if they somehow managed to become super eco-friendly.

Of course, modern utopias need to be eco-friendly to overcome the global environmental crisis. Given that cities may be home to 80 per cent of humanity by the end of the century, they can only be sustainable if environmentalism is one of their core features.

The cities of Ecotopia 2121 are presented in the form of scenario art, which involves a review of both global and local environmental challenges as well as their unique histories and cultures. This allows for a diversity of future scenarios rather than one common vision of the future city.

What you will see below are a series of artworks, but this is not an art project. We use art as a means of analysis and communication.

With that in mind, here are six ecotopian cities of my own creation that emerged from the project, one from each inhabited continent.

Accra, the capital of Ghana, is exposed to disastrous floods every year. This has been made worse by climate change, as well as unregulated construction and dumping in and around its waterways.

In our imagined future, locals seek to procure housing above the floodline, by building low-cost tree cabins in the nearby forest.

Accra 2121. Image: Alan Marshall/author provided.

Ghana has one of the highest deforestation rates in the world, but by 2121, the forest has become a home for some of its citizens.

Accras new residents would protect the forest ecosystem from those who would destroy it, such as the logging, mining and oil companies.

In the summer of 2121, during an economic downturn, 100,000 pensioners take to the streets of London, the British capital, to protest cuts in pensions and education, shutting down the entire city.

They bring along their grandchildren to give them something interesting to do as they mind them. By summers end, the protesters despair at the governments poor response, so they take matters into their own hands, staging a permanent occupation.

London 2121. Image: Alan Marshall/author provided.

The pensioners convert some 20km of London into a large eco-village, transforming unoccupied offices into homes, sowing garden lots on street corners, and setting up eco-businesses to trade products and services.

In the process, all the children get free education from their experienced elders in these various green arts and crafts.

The southern Californian city of Los Angeles once had a great network of tramways, but this was systematically bought up and then closed down by a group of conspiring auto-manufacturing companies.

Los Angeles 2121. Image: Alan Marshall/author provided.

As the worlds oil is depleted by the end of this century, cars will become useless and trams could make a comeback in Los Angeles. The unused freeways could then be redeveloped into vegetated greenways. Such greenways are suited for pedestrians and cyclists, but they could also act as ecological corridors, connecting populations of wild plants and animals around the city that would otherwise be isolated.

Retired cars could then serve as part of the fabric of high-density buildings, creating an architectural style whereby people live and work in smaller structures and within tighter-knit communities. This would mean cities such as Los Angeles would not need to sprawl further into the countryside and wild lands.

Known in English as the Chatham Islands, Rkohu is an archipelago in the Pacific Ocean, 680km southeast of New Zealand. Its the ancestral home of the pacifist Moriori people, who came to wear the feathers of the native albatross in their hair to symbolise peace during the 500 years they lived on the archipelago.

In the 19th century, British sealers and Maori warriors from New Zealand discovered the islands. The sealers decimated the colonies of the animals and introduced devastating diseases to which the Moriori had no immunity. Then the Maori staged a violent takeover of the islands, slaughtering or enslaving the remaining Moriori.

Rkohu 2121. Image: Alan Marshall/author provided.

The Moriori refused to give up their pacifist ideals to fight against the invaders. While this history suggests pacifism is only going to get you killed or enslaved, the Moriori who survive today believe otherwise. They maintain that their pacifism meant that they lived in a peaceful society for five centuries.

By 2121, their small capital city on the lagoon is home to a peace school that expounds the virtues of pacifism to the rest of the world.

The Guair Falls along the border of Paraguay and Brazil were once a natural wonder. The cacophonous roar of their seven columns could be heard many kilometres away and, for many years, the falls were a major attraction. They were also the economic lifeblood of the nearby Paraguayan city of Salto del Guair, which thrived on tourism.

In 1982, however, the Brazilian military government blew away the rocks over which the water fell, to create a reservoir for a dam. Many Paraguayans mourned the passing of their much-loved falls.

Salto del Guair 2121. Image: Alan Marshall/author provided.

By 2121, though, both the falls and the city have re-emerged in splendid style. The dam has collapsed through neglect and local people have regained control of their land. They set about rehabilitating the falls as best they can, turning their home into a scenic eco-city that attracts tourists once again.

After a nuclear meltdown just out of town, a vast radioactive cloud sweeps over future Tokyo. Everyone must be evacuated. A few hardy nuclear families tough it out in moonbase homes, which are impervious to radiation.

Everything these families eat and drink must be produced and recycled within these homes. When they step outside, they must don protective clothing or moonsuits.

Tokyo 2121. Image: Alan Marshall/author provided.

But because Tokyo is suddenly depopulated, its not nearly as noisy and stressful as before. If hell is other people, as French philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre suggested, then Tokyo 2121 is utopia.

Wildlife also rebounds, albeit in a mutated manner.

These six scenarios are but a small sample of the 100 that were produced within the Ecotopia 2121 project. Some readers will be delighted and others confused by the method of the project and its results.

Part of the point of utopianism is to be provocative. If you like your future riddled with self-driving cars and the magic of nuclear energy, then maybe these scenarios are not for you. And youre likely to dismiss them as fantasy anyway.

But to study utopias and formulate alternative scenarios to how we now live on this planet is not an escape into fantasy. It is an active response to the many technological fantasies cast about with extravagance and excess into our lives right now.

These fantasies bind us to an unsustainable and unlivable future. If Ecotopia 2121 is but a collection of fantasies, at least they would do less harm to the planet we live on.

Alan Marshall is a lecturer in environmental social sciences at Mahidol University.

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.

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The robots are coming: How will automation affect London's economy? - CityMetric

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As more and more businesses find ways to eliminate employees, Wendys being the latest, its predicted by Yuval Noah Harari in his new book Homo Deus; A Brief History of Tomorrow that in the coming years by 2020 artificial intelligence will make it possible to eliminate much more than service and manufacturing jobs. How about doctors, teachers, soldiers, and truckers to name a few? Harrari tells the New York Posts Reed Tucker I think we should be worried and worried now

According to a report issued in 2015 by McKinsey Global Institute, a business think tank, 95 percent of jobs should be safe until 2020, then technology will change the landscape rapidly.

Self driving cars will wipe out the trucking industry. An Uber truck has already made its first driverless delivery taking 50,000 cans of beer 120 miles from Fort Collins to Colorado Springs. Amazon has already opened stores where sales people and cashiers are not needed. In the military, soldiers can be replaced by robots and drones that will always get it right and cannot be tortured.

What about the higher paying jobs like teachers and doctors? A recent experiment found that a computer algorithm correctly diagnosed 90 percent of the lung cancer cases presented to it. This could make the general practitioner obsolete as well as schools. Teachers could be replaced by AIs which can be tailored for the specific needs of the student and placed in a smart phone.

So whats a worker to do? That will be the big question facing the future leaders as not everyone will be able to get a job in these new fields, yet we all will need to be supported.

Harrari talks about people dealing with not being needed and what they will do with their time. Will they immerse themselves in video games? drugs? What will drugs be like in the coming years? Will less harmful ones be developed and legalized?

The only way I can see for us to stay ahead of this rapidly advancing curve is to learn to do as many things as you possibly can and be ready to change and adapt to new things at a moments notice. Is your job robot proof? Is there something else that you can do that isnt? You should think about it, just in case.

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Retailers Eye Machine Learning, Automation and the IoT to Evolve Shopping Experience WWD After years of investments to support omnichannel commerce, retailers and brands are now looking at automation, machine learning, cognitive computing and the Internet of Things (IoT) technologies to evolve the shopping experience as well as improve ... and more »

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Retailers Eye Machine Learning, Automation and the IoT to Evolve Shopping Experience - WWD

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CG Power sells automation business The Hindu CG Power and Industrial Solutions Ltd. (formerly Crompton Greaves Ltd.) of the Avantha Group, has announced the sale of its B2B automation business to Alfanar for an enterprise value of 120 million (more than 840 crore). The deal is effective March 6. Crompton up over 4% on close of stake sale in automation bizMoneycontrol.com CG announces sale of B2B automation business to AlfanarHindu Business Line Crompton Greaves closes automation biz sale to AlfanarDaily News & Analysis all 6 news articles »

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CG Power sells automation business - The Hindu

Brocade networking solutions help the worlds leading organizations turn their networks into platforms for business innovation as they transition to todays era of digital business.

IT professionals are singing the praises of automation. Its a transformative technology practice that allows IT to improve agility and the availability of services while liberating IT staff from time-consuming routine tasks. These are essential factors as organizations transition to digital business.

But IT leaders also preach prudence. Automation in IT must be approached with a clear strategy. It must be fully understood, skillfully deployed, and diligently monitored, tested, and optimized.

We reached out to influential IT leaders to learn what factors and best practices organizations should consider in order to realize the maximum benefits of automation in the data center. Heres what they said.

Dan Conde (@dconde_esg), cloud and network infrastructure analyst at Enterprise Strategy Group, summarizes some of the use cases of automation and its potential to influence enterprise IT:

Interest in automation has arisen for many reasons. Fundamentally, it is to assist in areas where there are skills shortages or issues related to scale. However, developments like the DevOps style of infrastructure management also contribute to its interest. One way to help is to treat infrastructure as code to help configure and provision systems using DevOps-style tools and scripts. Another important way is to use automation as a way to automate the workflow. This helps integration between different teams - and [Enterprise Strategy Group] research shows integration between network operations and other IT domains to be one of the biggest challenges facing the organizations networking teams.

Of course, the use of automation will be unique to every organization which is exactly why each company must make sure it is fully prepared before leaping in. This is a common theme among those that advocate for a deliberate approach.

Automating tasks and orchestrating processes is something that every IT organization should focus on when the time is right. However, before they do, the best thing that IT organizations can do is to ensure that everyone involved gets thoroughly educated on tools/systems that will be used for automation/orchestration as well as the business applications AND users that are involved. You cant automate what you dont understand and you cant automate properly unless you understand automation scripting and tools.

- David Davis (@DavidMDavis), Partner at ActualTechMedia.com

Businesses considering automation should first take the time to understand their technology processes thoroughly. That discovery process will inform their automation practice.

- Ethan Banks (@ecbanks), co-founder at Packet Pushers

While the opportunities to automate data center operations are becoming greater every day, IT professionals have to continue to strengthen their own skills to successfully select, implement, and utilize the right automation tools to meet their specific IT and business management needs.

-Jeffrey Kaplan (@thinkstrategies), managing director at THINKstrategies, Inc.

IT leaders understand how essential automation will be, but they stress the importance of maintaining a perpetual strategy focused on maximizing the business value that automation can deliver.

Always start by understanding user requirements and how this impacts the organization. Remember, automation is designed to make both IT and business processes easier. And, a major part of this digital transformation were experiencing is because of the digital user. In designing automation for the data center, leverage the technology as a direct tool to help improve overall processes; and, like any tool, make sure to review your automation settings for optimal performance.

- Bill Kleyman (@QuadStack), chief technical officer at MTM Technologies

Critical to any automation initiative is a reporting system that monitors the system for out-of-scope effects. Automation is critical in virtualized environments to maximize the use of invested assets by avoiding variable HR costs as a factor of total assets invested.

-Jon Freeman (@Wi_FiMAN), vice president WorldWide sales and cloud design

The best thing you can do when implementing and using automated systems in your business is to test and optimize. A broken system will not delight your customers, and an optimized system will create an enjoyable experience for your customer and deliver better results for your business.

- Robyn Kyberd (@RobynKyberd), digital marketing consultant at Optimise and Grow Online

Indeed, automation promises to shake things up. Many organizations that embrace this technology will reap the benefits of increased efficiency and improvements to their products and servicesas well as the customer experience they deliver.

But as this transformation takes hold, IT leaders must prepare their teams for a future business environment that may look entirely different than the one they were hired into. Developing and integrating the technologies that will form that future is a big responsibility, and riding it out will require some outside-the-box ideas.

Or, as Sarah Austin (@sarahaustin), a data scientist and technologist, puts it:

Companies must sharpen their skills in creative thinking. Automation will replace mundane tasks, which will open more opportunity for creative strategies.

Automation is one of the pivotal tools that will help IT leaders envision and invent the future digital landscape - but only if they approach it with precision and practice it with diligence.

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IT Professionals Weigh in on Enterprise Automation - Network World

Ever feel as though the joy has been sucked from your job? The once fun, creative aspects of your marketing role the things you signed up for in the first place are now handed off to data specialists, algorithms and machines. Technology is on its inevitable march and you are starting to feel as obsolete as the old fax machine in the corner of the office

This scenario may seem overly pessimistic, but it is one that more and more marketers are confronting as automation seeps into every facet of their jobs. In the space of a few years programmatic marketing has gone from a niche, hi-tech concept to a commonly understood practice that companies are scrambling to deploy to achieve better, more efficient targeting. Machine learning is advancing all the time and artificial intelligence (AI) is reshaping the way marketers do everything from data capture to campaign messaging.

So does this age of digital automation signal the end of human-generated creativity? A sweep of opinions across the marketing community shows divergent views on the future of creativity, but broad acceptance that the way ideas are taken to market is changing post-haste.

READ MORE:The future of creativity in an automated world

Former HSBC head of marketing Philip Mehl was unequivocal when he argued that marketing is a data challenge now and that the pursuit of true creativity in marketing is all but dead. On the other hand, YouTubes Richard Waterworth pointed to the grey area between the twin pillars of creativity and automation and the need for marketers to continue viewing certain aspects of their role as more of an art than a science. Human imagination remains vital to retaining brand magic, he argued.

In a sense both marketers are right. Given the plethora of consumer-facing technologies and media channels that exist, it is clear that brands are now competing first and foremost on how quickly and efficiently they can reach the right customers. In that context it is easy to see how creativity could become a secondary issue.

READ MORE:Rise of the machinesAre robots after your job?

Yet brands also need to hit their targets with the right messaging, and it is here that human empathy remains vitally important, even if AI technology one day achieves human-like emotional sophistication. Marketing is a holistic business function, not a zero-sum game of data, targets and messages, and it will always require people to think creatively about a brands larger place in the world and the strategy required to connect with human beings.

Of course, marketing departments and the skill sets within them need to adapt to the age of automation. But business leaders also need to ensure that as their companies automate processes, they allow their employees the space to think for themselves and express themselves creatively. The brands that succeed in getting the balance right will be those that thrive in the future.

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Brands must retain their empathy as automation accelerates - Marketing Week

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Peter Woollacott: analysts come on board to solve problems, the surgeon comes on board to cut, not to push the patient from the ward into the theatre and wash them down.

Cyber security is all about speed finding and dealing with a threat or vulnerability as quickly as possible. The damage that can be wrought in minutes, let alone days and weeks, could prove devastating to any business, no matter the size or industry.

However this need for speed is not being seen in practice, with many reports putting data breach discovery taking upwards of 200 days. However, Peter Woollacott, Huntsman Security CEO, has a cure for the lag in cyber security automation.

At the moment, Woollacott argues, analysts are weighed down with basic tasks, drowning under the weight of less-important tasks all the while the more serious threats go unresolved and are left free to wreak havoc.

If they are manually trying to manage all of this information that they are being bombarded with and reach conclusions, while all of the information is coming in at machine speed, they are always under water, the Huntsman CEO told CBR.

Some may be quick to argue that the solution is the hiring of more skilled staff to handle the massive amounts of data being thrown at analytics, a fact which Woollacott disregards, simply because there arent any more analysts out there.

Automation, argues the CEO, will leave the analysts free to do the important work, the work where they will make the most positive impact for the business. Using the analogy that analysts come on board to solve problems, the surgeon comes on board to cut, not to push the patient from the ward into the theatre and wash them down, the CEO argued that it is imperative that automation is deployed to cut the shackles of the most skilled staff.

More data is coming with IoT, so technologies that can close that decision loop are really going to help. You are not going to replace analysts, but it is really going to free up time for them to actually do some analytical work, and have machines do some of the lesser things, while they focus on the crown jewels type problems.

Hitting his point home, Woollacott conjured up two images one at the turn of the century, of a man building a Morgan car by hand, with the other a present day Toyota factory in Japan. The Toyota factory, with automation on side, was able to match the lifetime output of cars achieved by the turn of the century car builder in mere minutes.

We are up to the point of industrialising cybersecurity and thats really what automation is going to do. It is going to automate processes that are currently done by hand.

Showing confidence in the abilities of automation, Woollacott said: By introducing a level of automation to a process you are delivering a known, measured repeatable process. Once you are satisfied the automation works, you are going to have a much higher quality outcome.

To manage a group of people who are all doing things differently makes it difficult to know exactly what you are doing at any one point the CEO told CBR. Automation, Woollacott countered, would not only save analysts vital time and enable their skills to be utilised elsewhere, but it would eliminate human error, further improving efficiency.

Woollacotts sentiments highlight a little talked about topic in the much talked about Fourth Industrial Revolution that of cyber security. As is seen in other industries, the Fourth Industrial Revolution looks to transform cyber security processes through automation and smart tech like machine learning. We are, as Woollacott argues, on the cusp of the industrialisation of cyber security.

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Why automation is key for the future of cyber security - Computer Business Review