Automation trends in Latam

 

 

Everis Trends:

According to a study by the technology consultancy Everis, 64% of companies are testing automation tools in Latin America. The report considered this system as one of the most relevant topics within the current field of digital transformation in the region, specifically in the countries of Mexico, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Peru and Argentina.

Despite the difficulties of implementation, most of the large companies in Latin America are betting on Digital Transformation and automation. In this sense, 64% of the firms are in the process of testing some type of automation tool, while 52% already have automated systems in operation.

The proposal to face the challenges of automation was structured based on the concept of Hybrid Operations: a natural and fluid collaboration between human and technological capabilities, leveraging efficiencies and generating value in the business.

The Latin America report was born out of the need to better understand the challenges that companies in the region must deal with, specifically in the area of??automation, and was conducted through a round of conversations and interviews with just over 50 companies from sectors such as telecommunications, technology, insurance, banking and retail.

During the conversations for the preparation of the study, the perception of business leaders about their progress and experience in automation initiatives was collected. The conversation and the conclusions generated were structured around 4 axes that make up the Hybrid Operations concept: Strategic vision of automation; Organizational and talent alignment; Technical and operational capabilities; and Deployment experience.

Regarding the first, the strategic vision, 90% of the business leaders interviewed established efficiency as the main objective associated with automation efforts, while providing a better customer experience was ranked by 60% of the managers interviewed as one of the main reasons for implementing this type of initiative and only 9% of the leaders interviewed said they have automation initiatives underway within the processes of the Customer Service areas.

 

Gartner Trends:

Likewise, according to the Gartner Hype Cycle for I&O Automation 2020 report, automation will not stop this year and businesses must prepare for the adoption of new technology. These are some predictions of this year's IT processes automation:

 

IT automation predictions for the next few years

To help IT automation professionals in 2021 here are the most relevant predictions for the IT automation space. Some interesting points stand out:

• Digital transformations are expected to be over budget and delayed

• Hyper-automation is reintroduced as a superior technology combined with AI / ML

• Gartner Introduces New Term, Hybrid Digital Infrastructure Management (HDIM)

• By 2021, more than 75% of medium and large organizations will have adopted a hybrid or multi-cloud IT strategy.

• By 2022, public cloud services will be essential for 90% of business innovations.

• By 2023, 75% of all databases will be on a cloud platform, reducing the DBMS vendor landscape and increasing complexity for data integration and governance.

• Until 2023, there will be five times more computational resources used for AI compared to 2018. Therefore AI will be the main force driving infrastructure decisions and workloads.

• By 2023, at least 35% of midsize and large companies will use a hybrid cloud-based model for at least one IoT project.

• By 2022, more than 50% of the data generated by the company will be created and processed outside the data center or the cloud, up from 10% in 2019.

• By 2024, at least 50% of business applications in production will be IoT-enabled.

• By 2024, 75% of large companies will use at least four low-code development tools for IT application development and citizen development initiatives.

• By 2023, there will be a 30% increase in the use of RPA for front-office functions (sales and customer experience).

The general trend is continued growth in IT environments. As more data is collected, data management practices will improve and more resources will be required to process the information for AI. As a result, artificial intelligence will put more pressure on the organization's workflow capabilities, pushing the company towards more advanced automated systems and workload management solutions.

As online services continue to advance, these workloads will continue to migrate to public and private clouds, databases will be deployed from on-premises to hybrid (multi-cloud) environments. But there will not only be data and workloads in the cloud: the Internet of things will complicate everything. Computing and data resources will be pushed to the limit. As the internet of things advances, the speed of this distribution will accelerate.

On the other hand, organizations will use multiple open source platforms (LCAPs) and will see an increase in robotic process automation use cases, which will involve adding decentralized scripts, applications and bots in an already complicated digital environment.

 

Vision of the Inter-American Development Bank ("BID").

 

According to the BID, Digitization, robotics and artificial intelligence have transformed the world of work as we knew it. The role of technology has grown exponentially in all sectors of the economy, generating new occupations and changing the tasks that human beings perform and the skills we need to make our way in the labor market.

When we talk about automation, it is also necessary to take into account the indirect effects that occur in other economies that have commercial relations with the countries that automate their production.

To investigate this issue, the IDB study analyzes the indirect impact of the incorporation of robots in the United States in three Latin American economies, Brazil, Colombia and Mexico, using administrative information for the period 2011-2016. In line with global trends in automation, which is causing job losses in most countries in the world, the research shows a negative effect on employment and wages in Brazil and Colombia. This impact could be explained because the use of robots would have encouraged domestic production in the United States compared to the alternative of producing in countries with lower labor costs such as Brazil and Colombia. However, in Mexico, whose economy is more closely linked to the United States, the impact of the use of robots in the United States is positive (Mexico allocates 75% of its exports to its northern neighbor, and imports 53% from this country, which makes it the most interdependent economy with the United States). Thus, with the case of Mexico, we see that it is possible that automation increases the productivity of US production, increasing the demand for intermediate inputs produced by our countries. The effect of automation in the United States on the region will then depend on several factors, including how close the trade relationship is between the United States and each country in Latin America and the Caribbean.

 

 

 

 

 

On the other hand, according to a survey of 80 companies by the Deloitte company, Central American companies in countries such as El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, Costa Rica and the Dominican Republic plan to provide new tools and training to their collaborators so that their organizations can transform themselves. and are better prepared to bet on the recovery after the pandemic.

According to the Learning, Recruitment and Performance companies are the talent processes that have been modified the most. 46% of these changes have been in order to digitize and automate processes and bring them to totally virtual environments.

58% of organizations plan to develop an upskilling strategy for their workforce to work more agilely in a virtual world and 32% intend to provide new reskilling knowledge for their workforce to assume expanded or different roles. 70% of the surveyed organizations are developing changes in their organizational design, 38% are committed to flatter and more agile structures.

 

Brazil:

The development and maintenance of systems is increasingly prominent in Brazil. More than half of the companies' budget for IT innovations is spent in this area, which has become essential for the growth of companies, according to research by the Information Services Group (ISG), a research and technology company, distributed by TGT Consult in Brazil.

The report “ISG Provider Lens Next-gen Application Development & Maintenance (ADM) Services 2020” for Brazil points out that, despite the adversities caused by the Covid-19 pandemic, companies have managed to adapt and continue production. According to the study, executives worried about their teams' ability to work from home, but this soon proved not to be a problem. Several companies reported growth, even though the market slowed in 2020.

According to the research, the practice of DevOps has also grown, as the need to automate continuous testing of the software has grown. However, the report says that tools that cover all aspects of continuous integration are not yet available, it is up to service providers to help companies find the best combination of software and techniques for that purpose.

Mexico

With the entry of the T-MEC, the global economic slowdown and trade tensions between the US and China, supply chains in Mexico have had to adapt to the environment through technological solutions that allow them to respond to change and play an important role in meeting market demands.

In 2021, both nationally and internationally, automation in different areas of industrial production will play an important role in business development. Therefore, CFOs in our country should focus on building skills for the future and accelerate companies' automation plans.

During the last few years, and especially due to the COVID-19 pandemic, automation in Mexico has grown significantly. Some industries such as automotive, food and beverage, mining, oil and gas, and pharmaceuticals among others have accelerated automation, upgrading their existing production lines to make them more flexible and allow them to introduce new products to the market.