Category Archives: Automation

Hotel management has reacted positively toward the improved capabilities of robots suitable for their industry. A recent confab of the hospitality industry highlighted the new automation becoming available to perform more challenging tasks.

Robot bellhops are already in use in some Marriott hotels and elsewhere.

One of the machines in the pipeline is a robot maid, which would be very attractive technology for hotels because of their need for cleaning staff. A May 2015 Bureau of Labor Statistics report on Maids and Housekeeping Cleaners found 926,240 persons employed in that category, many in hotels.

The Maidbot looks like an industrial strength Roomba in the following video, but advances are sure to be developed. In the meantime, a human maid can clean the bathroom counter and collect the towels while the robot vacuum does the floors, thereby speeding up the process. So fewer human maids will be needed.

Sadly, the government seems oblivious to the approaching automation juggernaut and how it will decimate Americas employment universe in the not so distant future. The only bright light in Washington has been the Senate bill limiting total immigration from Senators Cotton and Purdue.

However, the senators RAISE Act would merely cut legal immigration in half, which is not nearly enough, given tech experts projections for a jobless future. Oxford researchers forecast in 2013 that nearly half of American jobs were vulnerable to machine or software replacement within 20 years. Rice University computer scientist Moshe Vardi warns of a dystopian future in 30 years when humans become largely obsolete and world joblessness stands at 50 percent. The Gartner tech advising company believes that one-third of jobs will be done by machines by 2025. Forrester Research Inc. has a more optimistic view, that there will be a net job loss of 7 percent by 2025 from automation but thats still a serious deficit when more jobs are needed as population increases.

Given a future of mass unemployment that would make the Great Depression look like a hiccup, immigration needs to be retired as an obsolete government policy, along with homesteading.

Robots the talk of tech innovations at hospitality summit , Travel Weekly, February 02, 2017

LOS ANGELES Hotel robots that perform tasks like delivering amenities to guests or cleaning rooms will be the norm within the next five years, panelists at the Americas Lodging Investment Summit (ALIS) held here last week predicted.

The anticipated growth in hotel robots was largely attributed to falling technology costs and guests becoming more accustomed to the concept.

Early hotel adopters say devices such as Saviokes Relay robot and Maidbot are gaining favor because they are efficient at both delivering items such as toiletries and bottled water to guests and cleaning rooms. They are also a novelty among family travelers.

Executives with both larger hotel owners like Host Hotels and smaller counterparts like Southern California-based Seaview Investors both expressed satisfaction on the ALIS panels with their early trials of the robots.

We feel that it pays for itself, more from a guest-satisfaction standpoint than from labor savings, said ALIS panelist moderator and Seaview Investors president Robert Alter. Seaview has used a Relay robot at his companys Residence Inn Los Angeles LAX for the past 18 months.

Host Hotels managing director Michael Lentz, said, Were testing Maidbots for cleaning rooms. You have to think in years ahead that there are opportunities to reduce our operating costs.

Front and center at the conference was Saviokes Relay robotic butler, which debuted as Botlr at select properties under then-Starwood Hotels Aloft brand in 2014.

Panelist and Savioke chief robot whisperer Tessa Lau said hotels typically lease a Relay for about $2,000 a month (the company does not sell the robots) and the device, on average, performs a front-desk-to-room delivery of smaller products like toothpaste or bottled water in less than four minutes. Lau, too, alluded to the novelty factor, noting that many families with kids take robot selfies.

Robotics was among the most topical subjects at the conference, where much of the on-stage discussions focused on technology and the concept of the hotel of the future. With amenities such as free WiFi having long been made essential and services such as keyless entry via mobile device expected to accelerate across the industry during the next few years, service robots, along with amenities like virtual reality tours of hotel properties, were discussed as the next wave of hospitality technology.

Meanwhile, Marriott International used the conference to illustrate how it has taken the torch from acknowledged technology innovator Starwood Hotels (which Marriott acquired last September) by building its Innovation Lab at the conference to show off the latest developments under its Aloft and Element select-service brands.

The use of such technology is considered more and more essential for effectively serving guests. This week, software giant Oracle will release a study undertaken by Phocuswright (a sister company to Travel Weekly) outlining how guests want hotel operators to deploy technology. Of the 2,700 U.S. and European travelers polled, almost half said hotels should use technology to perform services such as enabling guests to select a specific room location or providing in-destination activity choices. About a third said technology should be used to facilitate service requests for in-room items such as coffee, pillows or toiletries. Still, just where the line falls between effective and invasive or even creepy remains to be seen.

We feel like people are suffering from digital overload, said Niki Leondakis, CEO of hotels and resorts for Two Roads Hospitality, which oversees Destination Hotels and the Thompson Hotels and Joie de Vivre groups.

We want to get back to hospitality, back to the human touch.

We wouldnt necessarily see robots replacing team members, because were in the business of hospitality, added panelist and Hilton Worldwides chief marketing officer, Geraldine Calpin.

Still, while even a technology-oriented person such as Lau acknowledged that the cornerstone of hotel service will continue to be based on human interaction, she added that hotels risk obsolescence by ignoring advances in areas such as robotics, data tracking and communications.

I would love to talk to a person when it matters, Lau said. But a lot of the hospitality service parts are more amenable to automation.

More here:

Hospitality Industry Welcomes Helpful Automation - VDARE.com

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi speaks at the opening ceremony of 'Make in India Week' in Mumbai on Feb. 13, 2016. PUNIT PARANJPE/AFP/Getty Images

Automation and the new U.S. administration were the big unknowns at the Indian tech sector's annual shindig this week, with machines threatening to take away thousands of jobs and concerns over possible visa rule changes in the key American market.

But senior executives from the $150 billion industry, which rose to prominence at the turn of the century by helping Western firms solve the "Y2K" bug, said companies with skilled English-speaking staff and low costs could not be written off yet.

The sector, led by Tata Consultancy Services, Infosys, and Wipro, is lobbying hard as the new U.S. administration under President Donald Trump considers putting in place visa restrictions.

The administration may also raise salaries paid to H1-B visa holders, a move that could significantly increase costs for IT companies that are already facing pressure on margins.

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The longer-term challenge and opportunity for the sector was automation, executives said, as global corporations from plane-makers to consumer firms bet on the use of machines to further cut costs and boost efficiency.

That threatens lower-end software services and outsourcing jobs in a sector which employs more than 3.5 million people.

Summing up the mood at the three-day NASSCOM leadership event in Mumbai ending on Friday, Malcolm Frank, Chief Strategy Officer at Cognizant which has most of its operations in India, spoke of "fear and optimism."

Even top IT executives were "fearing the machines," he said.

Some Indian executives, including Infosys' Chief Operating Officer Pravin Rao, said that greater automation was expected to help engineers and developers shed repetitive jobs for more creative roles.

"Some part of the work we'll be automating 100 percent, you don't require people to do that kind of work," Rao told Reuters. "But there are always newer things, where we will be able to re-purpose employees who are released from those areas."

Moving Up Food Chain

With rapidly changing technology, Indian IT firms are emphasizing the need for retraining their workforce, in many cases setting up experience centers and learning zones on their sprawling campuses.

Some companies are partnering with universities to design and fund education programs, while staff members spoke of employers laying on training and webinars to help develop skills in automation and cloud computing.

"The threat from automation killing jobs is more than Trump's anticipated visa rule changes," a general manager-level employee at a top Indian IT firm said.

NASSCOM chairman and Tech Mahindra CEO C.P. Gurnani said technology would create new roles where "man will manage machines," even if a fourth of Indian IT jobs were to be replaced by machines over the next four years.

Indias Coal Consumption Problem

Hiring patterns may also change, with unconventional, high-value graduates likely to be more attractive, to the possible detriment of hiring from India's engineering colleges.

Infosys, which traditionally recruited only engineering graduates, is considering hiring people educated in liberal arts to add creative skills to its workforce, COO Rao said.

In a first, NASSCOM (National Association of Software and Services Companies), the leading Indian IT lobby group, delayed its initial growth forecast for fiscal 2017/18, citing market uncertainty.

Indian IT Sector Warns Against U.S. Visa Bill

NASSCOM officials said it had deferred its predictions by three months to give it time to gauge policy announcements in the United States which could make immigration rules tougher.

The industry body aims to announce a firmer growth forecast after the quarter to March when IT companies report annual earnings and give guidance for the next fiscal year.

"A certain level of ... uncertainty will continue over the medium-term," said NASSCOM President R. Chandrashekhar. "And businesses therefore have to take essential decisions on new technology in the face of a certain degree of uncertainty."

Read more:

Both Trump and Automation Are Challenging India's IT Industry - Fortune

President Trump has made a huge deal of his attempts to bring back blue-collar manufacturing jobs that have gone overseas and to shame companies into building plants here rather than in other countries. Both of which I think are fine.

But Trump would probably get greater value for working-class Americans and for American consumers by spending some of his time leaning on companies to preserve a huge, threatened class of blue-collar jobs: cashiers. Yes, cashiers.

Speaking up for cashiers, which the Bureau of Labor Statistics says is the second-largest occupation in the country, wouldnt be as glamorous or tweet-able as berating Ford or General Motors or Carrier for the loss of American jobs.

[Why bodyslamming big companies is good for America]

But it would be a great way for him to get back to playing offense and showing he cares about the working class. Supporting the nations 3.5 million cashiers could help preserve the livelihoods of hundreds of thousands of low-paid people who are in entry-level jobs or rehabilitating-themselves jobs or trying-to-feed-their-family jobs.

Whats more, theres even an example, not far from Trump Tower in New York, of how preserving cashier-type jobs could be done, at minimal (or perhaps no) cost to consumers. Its in my home state of New Jersey, which has saved thousands of such jobs those of gas station attendants.

Its the unintended but welcome outgrowth of the states 1949 ban on the self-pumping of gasoline, which many out-of-staters ridicule. Even so, it is so popular that Jersey residents have resisted repeated attempts to end it.

Now, lets step back a bit.

The number of cashier jobs No. 2 only to retail sales clerks, according to the BLS was almost exactly the same in 2015 (the most recent year for which statistics are available) as in 2005, even though total U.S. employment was up by 7.6 million.

Still, its obvious that these jobs are threatened as never before.

[How to save good jobs]

Go into any large, reasonably modern supermarket, drug store or retail store, and you see more and more self-checkout lines and fewer and fewer manned cashier lines.

McDonalds is using self-checkout in some locations. Even Costco a big company that seems to care about employing people is experimenting with it.

And heres the crowning blow. Amazon, which has upended Americas retail business (and whose chief executive, Jeff Bezos, owns The Washington Post), is building physical stores that have no cashiers. If Amazons initiative succeeds, can cashier-less days at mainstream operations be far behind?

Look, Im not proposing that the United States turn into a modern-day version of old-style Russia, where it took half a dozen people to check you out of a store. And Im not proposing to return to pre-bar code days, when checkout lines were slower and there was more work for cashiers.

But I just look at the gas stations in New Jersey and compare them with the large, modern retail outlets in Atlantas northern suburbs, where my wife and I recently spent considerable time.

Georgia customers using the self-checkout line got no savings whatever in return for doing the stores work. Late at night, at least some big stores had so few cashiers on duty that self-checkout became the norm.

By contrast, at New Jersey gas stations, someone pumps my gas. Thats a boon to those of us, like me, who have arthritic wrists that dont react well to pumping my own gas, which I did in Georgia. And the Jersey gas lines moved more quickly.

[What to expect at work in 2017]

Sal Risalvato, executive director of the New Jersey trade group that represents gas stations and convenience stores, estimates there are about 9,000 gas-pumping jobs in the state. (The BLS once tracked Jersey gas-pumping jobs but no longer does.) Risalvato, who wants the self-pumping ban repealed, estimates that having attendants increases the price of gas by about 10 cents a gallon. To put that in context: The state increased gas taxes by 23 cents a gallon in November, and the recent average cost of gas ranged from $2.32 a gallon for regular to $2.79 for premium, according to GasBuddy.

Robert Scott III, a professor at New Jerseys Monmouth University who in 2007 published a scholarly article about the self-pumping ban, thinks it adds little or nothing to gas prices. A major reason, he says, is that insurance costs for Jersey gas stations are lower than they would be if customers pumped their own gas.

To be sure, you dont see the plight of cashiers portrayed nightly on cable news, and theres no big public fuss made when cashier jobs quietly slip away. But if Trump can dig out of his current problems and get back to playing offense, he could do a lot of good for cashiers and himself by publicly leaning on retail chains to preserve those jobs or even add to them.

And who can say? Just as we Jerseyites appreciate having gas pumped for us, store customers across the country would probably come to appreciate cashier-based checkout. Wed keep cashiers working instead of having to live in poverty or go on welfare or file for disability. Wed all win. And so would Trump.

Read more:

Trumps awful boast about paying no taxes

The whopping $1.2 trillion omission in Trumps tax reform plan

Why I cant (and wont) stop writing about Social Security

Originally posted here:

The working-class job that Trump could save from automation - Washington Post

Manufacturing jobs have been in decline since 2000. President Donald Trump claims the North American Free Trade Agreement and the entrance of China into the World Trade Organization have jointly sucked those jobs out of our country and deposited them in other countries.

A recent study by the Center for Business and Economic Research at Ball State University, however, indicates that he is probably wrong in indicting NAFTA and China for those job losses. The report found that 85 percent of those manufacturing job losses did not vanish because of either trade deficits or international trade imbalances but to machines that automated most of those jobs.

Manufacturing's adoption of advanced technologies has increased real output as well as productivity almost across the entire industrial spectrum. These advances have made many manufacturing workers redundant.

Happily, for their owners, these companies produce more with fewer employees.

Bringing manufacturing back from wherever it currently is will most probably lead to more automation and not more jobs. Technology improves at an increasingly fast pace.

In fact, Oxford University reported in 2013 that of 702 occupations,about 47 percent of total U.S. employment is (would be) at risk to computerization/automation by 2023.

Viewed from this perspective, tariffs on imports, or trade wars to force businesses to bring jobs back to the U.S., makes very little sense as those jobs most likely will be automated.

While it is tempting to blame trade deals for job losses, the real culprits are businesses that have machines doing twice the work with one-third the workers.

Read the original here:

Blame automation for loss of manufacturing jobs - LancasterOnline

(Reuters) Automation and the new U.S. administration were the big unknowns at the Indian tech sectors annual shindig this week, with machines threatening to take away thousands of jobs and concerns over possible visa rule changes in the key American market.

But senior executives from the $150 billion industry, which rose to prominence at the turn of the century by helping Western firms solve the Y2K bug, said companies with skilled English-speaking staff and low costs could not be written off yet.

The sector, led by Tata Consultancy Services, Infosys, and Wipro, is lobbying hard as the new U.S. administration under President Donald Trump considers putting in place visa restrictions.

The administration may also raise salaries paid to H1-B visa holders, a move that could significantly increase costs for IT companies that are already facing pressure on margins.

The longer-term challenge and opportunity for the sector was automation, executives said, as global corporations from plane-makers to consumer firms bet on the use of machines to further cut costs and boost efficiency.

That threatens lower-end software services and outsourcing jobs in a sector which employs more than 3.5 million people.

Summing up the mood at the three-day NASSCOM leadership event in Mumbai ending on Friday, Malcolm Frank, Chief Strategy Officer at Cognizant which has most of its operations in India, spoke of fear and optimism.

Even top IT executives were fearing the machines, he said.

Some Indian executives, including Infosys Chief Operating Officer Pravin Rao, said that greater automation was expected to help engineers and developers shed repetitive jobs for more creative roles.

Some part of the work well be automating 100 percent, you dont require people to do that kind of work, Rao told Reuters. But there are always newer things, where we will be able to re-purpose employees who are released from those areas.

With rapidly changing technology, Indian IT firms are emphasizing the need for retraining their workforce, in many cases setting up experience centers and learning zones on their sprawling campuses.

Some companies are partnering with universities to design and fund education programs, while staff members spoke of employers laying on training and webinars to help develop skills in automation and cloud computing.

The threat from automation killing jobs is more than Trumps anticipated visa rule changes, a general manager-level employee at a top Indian IT firm said.

NASSCOM chairman and Tech Mahindra CEO C.P. Gurnani said technology would create new roles where man will manage machines, even if a fourth of Indian IT jobs were to be replaced by machines over the next four years.

Hiring patterns may also change, with unconventional, high-value graduates likely to be more attractive, to the possible detriment of hiring from Indias engineering colleges.

Infosys, which traditionally recruited only engineering graduates, is considering hiring people educated in liberal arts to add creative skills to its workforce, COO Rao said.

In a first, NASSCOM (National Association of Software and Services Companies), the leading Indian IT lobby group, delayed its initial growth forecast for fiscal 2017/18, citing market uncertainty.

NASSCOM officials said it had deferred its predictions by three months to give it time to gauge policy announcements in the United States which could make immigration rules tougher.

The industry body aims to announce a firmer growth forecast after the quarter to March when IT companies report annual earnings and give guidance for the next fiscal year.

A certain level of uncertainty will continue over the medium-term, said NASSCOM President R. Chandrashekhar. And businesses therefore have to take essential decisions on new technology in the face of a certain degree of uncertainty.

(By Sankalp Phartiyal and Promit Mukherjee; Additional reporting by Devidutta Tripathy and Euan Rocha in Mumbai, Sayantani Ghosh and Aby Jose Koilparambil in Bengaluru; Editing by Mike Collett-White)

Read this article:

Trump and automation challenge India's IT industry - VentureBeat

If robots and automation are ultimately going to replace more and moreAmerican jobs, Bill Gates, for one, thinks we shouldnt also lose the income tax generated by human workers.

Tax the robots, the Microsoft co-founder saidin a new interview with Quartz.

Right now, if a human worker does, you know, $50,000 worth of work in a factory, that income is taxed, Gates said. If a robot comes in to do the same thing, youd think that wed tax the robot at a similar level.

Gatess thinking is that, as a society, we should be doing a better job of taking care of the elderly, reducing school classroom size and helping children with special needs. Weve got a jump on the robots in that regard because human empathy and understanding are very unique, Gates said.

The billionairephilanthropist said thereis an immense shortage of people to help out with those things he listed,so he suggests retrainingthe workforce that used to handle what automation has and will replace.

You cant just give up that income tax because thats part of how youve been funding that level of human workers, Gates said, before laughing and adding that he doesnt think the robot companies will be outraged that there might be a tax.

As a man who changed the worldwith what he accomplished at Microsoft, and continues to do so today in healthcare initiatives and more throughhis foundation, Gates is ever the optimist when it comes to future technologies.

It is really bad if people overall have more fear about what innovation is going to do than they have enthusiasm, he said. That means they wont shape it for the positive things it can do.

Read more aboutBill Gatess current views on the state of the world in GeekWires extensive new interview.

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Tax the robots! Bill Gates on why even automation should be held to this human requirement - GeekWire

Chinas spectacular growth in the past thirty years has begun to slow down in recent years. Emerging signs suggest that China is woefully unprepared for the fallout from exponentially rising automation of manufacturing jobs.

The former Supreme Leader Deng Xiaoping of the Peoples Republic of China (PRC) orchestrated the countrys economic miracle through a dramatic increase in exports to the rest of the world. For the next several decades, China reoriented the world economy, and many companies stationed their factories within China to take advantage of the cheap labor.

As wages rise and the population ages, the value of the original bargain is starting to erode. In absolute terms, China is leading the world in the number of robots used for production. Over the next decade, China will start to catch up to other advanced economies in terms of per capita robots. By 2019, China may even nearly double its number of robots. At the same time, robots will complete increasingly complex tasks, threatening an even wider range of jobs for humans.

Inevitably, this will cause many low-skilled workers in China (and around the world) to lose their jobs. And absent incredibly disruptive government intervention that would likely do more harm than good, these low-skilled jobs will never come back.

Young people in China are more educated than ever, and are increasingly less likely to want to pursue factory jobs anyway. Automation can help propel China toward a more innovative and service-based economy by freeing up labor for these higher value pursuits. In the meantime, though, college-educated Chinese are having difficulty finding jobs as Chinas economy readjusts.

Without a proper safety net in place, China risks facing social unrest as automation begins to accelerate. As it stands, Chinas main welfare program dibao is too bureaucratic and ineffective to handle the influx of unemployed individuals because of all of the conditions attached to the program.

When addressing automation, Chinas best solution may be to universalize the dibao to create a universal basic income. This would allow for a smooth transition away from Chinas reliance on human-led manufacturing.

China acts as a pillar for world economic growth. The basic income would not only stave off the most destabilizing aspects of the coming automation revolution in China, but it is also crucial for the stability of the international economy.

Tyler Prochazka has written 53 articles.

Read more:

China must be ready for automation - Basic Income News

Anusorn: Reaction to China dumping

SET-listed Delta Electronics Thailand, a maker and distributor of power management solutions and electronic components, will focus on Asean, India and Australia as markets for high-potential products, says executive director Anusorn Muttaraid.

The new products will include electronics for electric vehicles (EVs), electronic parts for power plants and components for industrial automation, Mr Anusorn said.

Delta will de-emphasise electronic parts for telecommunications and the mobile sector to avoid competing with cheaper products China is dumping on the markets.

"We will focus on India and Asean countries as these markets are likely to continue growing, with demand for electronics parts for industrial automation and the auto parts industry still expanding rapidly," he said.

China continues to dump cheap electronic components for telecom and mobile products on major markets including in the US, Brazil and EU, forcing Delta to switch its emphasis, said Mr Anusorn.

"The company will continue to cut operation costs for its EU manufacturing plans to maintain efficiency and price margins," he said.

The US market accounts for 25% of the company's total revenue, followed by India (15%), China (14%), Germany (12%) and other countries (34% collectively).

The company reported revenue of 47.65 billion baht last year, down 0.7% year-on-year, because of intensified competition in a global market that had not yet fully recovered.

This year Mr Anusorn expects flat revenue growth because of escalated competition, particularly continued dumping from China onto world markets.

He expects net profit to rise by 10% in 2017 because of higher value products earning a greater profit margin.

"Delta Electronics hopes the Indian market exceeds its target for the year, as that would help offset falls in other markets," said Mr Anusorn.

The company set a growth target of 50% in India, which generated US$200 million last year.

Delta Electronics wants to expand its investment in India to raise its production capacity.

The company set aside an investment budget of 1 billion baht for 2017, mostly for maintenance issues in both domestic and overseas markets.

Mr Anusorn said he has no concerns about the economic policies of US President Donald Trump, as they are not expected to affect the company's business.

DELTA shares closed yesterday on the Stock Exchange of Thailand at 90 baht, down one baht, in trade worth 196 million.

Excerpt from:

Delta veers to EV parts, automation - Bangkok Post

The traditional benefits of IT outsourcing to nearshore locations have included geographic proximity, time zone alignment, cultural affinity and shared language. The one area these adjacent providers have not been able to compete with their offshore counterparts on has been price.

[ Related: Building a business case for offshore robotic process automation ]

But that could change as robotic process automation (RPA) takes hold. The automation itself will begin to chip away at the offshore competitive advantage of labor arbitrage. But more importantly, argues Marcos Jimenez, CEO of Softtek North America, it will highlight areas in which nearshore providers excel: proximity, agility, and flexibility. A nearly 20-year veteran of the Mexico-headquartered company, Jimenez has doubled the profitability of Softteks U.S. and Canadian business since taking it over in 2011.

CIO.com talked to Jimenez about the potential impact of RPA on the global IT and business process outsourcing market, new demands from customers for outcome-based engagements, the role of digital labor management in the future of IT services, and best practices for RPA success.

CIO.com: Traditionally, what have been the key criteria for customers choosing between offshore and nearshore models?

Marcos Jimenez, CEO, Softtek North America: One traditional advantage of nearshore has been flexibility in accommodating requests outside the specific parameters of contractual obligations and statements of work. Lets say, for example, that a customer asks a member of an application development coding team to collaborate in real time to meet a deadline. Its typically easier for a nearshore provider to accommodate that request because we are working concurrently with clients and matching their work scheduleincluding the same holidays. Under the offshore model, meanwhile, the most experienced people work on different time schedules, since senior people in countries like India typically dont want to work night shifts.

So, when a U.S.-based client has an urgent request they need to either rely on a less experienced person or they need to wait. So under the offshore model, its more difficult to go outside the lines of defined roles and processes. And thats a problem as todays fast-paced digital world demands agility.

Theres also the obvious geographic advantage of proximity. For U.S.-based customers who have to regularly visit service provider operations, traveling to Mexico vs. Mumbai becomes a lot more convenient and productive.

In terms of staffing, the dramatic growth of offshoring has over the years contributed to high turnover rates, as staff constantly seek new opportunities. Nearshore providers tend to have lower turnover and more stability.

All of that said, by virtue of their ability to effectively leverage labor arbitrage, offshoring has clearly had the advantage when it comes to price. In that arena, the nearshore model has historically not been able to compete. And, of course, for many customers in many situations, price is the key factor in making a sourcing decision.

[ Related: 11 ways to address RPA and AI in IT outsourcing contracts ]

CIO.com: How have you seen that dynamic begin to shift?

Jimenez: At Softtek, weve been able to leverage RPA and other types of automation to shrink the traditional price gap between offshore and nearshore.

In the last year, were also seeing more interest in nearshore based on our managed services offerings, with fixed price annual cost rather than just labor arbitrage and rate per full time equivalent (FTE). Our clients are asking us for year-over-year annual cost or efficiency improvements with a strong focus on automation.

CIO.com: Can you share an example of what might have tipped the scales in favor of the nearshore approach for one of your customers?

Jimenez: Many of our customers are looking to agile development methodologies to drive innovation quickly and in a cost-effective manner. Agile requires close collaboration between different teams. So you can have a U.S.-based team at a client site working with remote teams in Monterrey and Latin America, which makes collaboration easier. If the teams are in the U.S., India and Europe, that works well for the follow the sun model where you have teams handing off development work at the end of each day, but it tends to be less effective for agile.

One specific example is a major U.S. airline customer of ours. After working for more than 10 years with large Indian providers, this customer consolidated all of their application services with Softtek. The airline had more than 500 FTEs in a labor arbitrage model and faced significant challenges accelerating response time and innovation. In addition to offering a competitive price, Softtek transformed the application management model from labor arbitrage to SLA-based, digitized governance, and lean sigma to drive innovation and continuous improvement.

CIO.com: Its clear how automation could erode the labor cost advantage of offshore providers. But how about the role of IT service provider in helping customers implement RPA internally?

Jimenez: The providers role is to work with the customer to assess the automation opportunity, define the processes and functions that will be automated, and implement the automation software. The actual software can be either a third partys, such as Blue Prism or IPsoft, or a home-grown solution. The provider also typically oversees the transition and change process and then manages the new environment on an ongoing basis.

The extent of the providers involvement can vary depending on the situation. In some cases, the tool developer will be directly involved in the implementation, while in others the tool will be licensed to the service provider. Indeed, as the market matures, the major automation tool providers are figuring out how they want to position themselves in terms of doing implementation work vs. simply licensing. That will certainly play a role in the competitive landscape going forward.

[ Related: Robotic process automation is killer app for cognitive computing ]

CIO.com: What threats and opportunities does RPA pose for offshore and nearshore providers?

Jimenez: At a high level the threats and opportunities are the same for offshore and nearshore providers. The basic threat is that RPA undermines established models of service delivery, while the basic opportunity lies in delivering more value to customers more efficiently.

For large offshore providers, the most pressing immediate threat is the cannibalization of their labor arbitrage-based BPO businesses. This threat will continue to extend to their IT services business. Theres also the issue of how to redefine their business models. There are lots of headlines about the large India heritage providers scaling back on hiring and how, rather than adding 10,000 new people, they are looking at cutting staff or redeploying large numbers of staff.

There is a big opportunity here for second tier traditional offshore providersas well as for nearshore playersto challenge the tier one with a more advanced portfolio of services that relies significantly on automation.

Read more here:

Robotic process automation makes nearshore outsourcing more ... - CIO

NEW DELHI: Contrary to popular belief, 89 per cent of people are positive about the role robots can play in helping them in the workplace, rather than taking away jobs, says an Adobe study.

According to the Adobe Digital Insights Future of Work Report, people are open to man and machine collaboration for work benefits.

"The Future of Work looks promising, as robotics and automation gear up to enable employees to be more productive and creative in their roles," said Abdul Jaleel, Vice President, People Resources India, Adobe.

Despite some concern around the impact of automation in the workplace, people are demonstrating positive commentary around how automation can undertake mundane tasks, and allow them to focus on creative and strategic responsibilities that matter most to them and their careers.

Robotics holds promise especially when it comes to the automation of traditionally mundane tasks.

Jaleel noted that automating document and signature processes, for example, could open up new possibilities for people as the tech revolution advances. Faster transportation and self-driving cars could revolutionise local travel.

"Moreover, the virtual office has big potential in the Future of Work. Work environments should continue to improve as employees demand more from their space, especially with automation ruling the minds of people," he said.

The findings are based on over three million Future of Work -- a phrase covering broad group of topics around what work would look like in the future -- related social mentions across several digital platforms including Twitter, news, blogs and forums, between January 2016 to January 2017.

The study's social analysis features regions including the US, UK, India and Australia.

The research is based on the analysis of select, anonymous and aggregated data from more than 5,000 companies worldwide that use the Adobe Digital Marketing Cloud to obtain real-time data and analysis of activity on websites, social media and advertising.

Link:

89% people want automation at workplace: Adobe - Economic Times