| | February 201619CIOReviewJULY - 202119An evolving Digital EcosystemOperations 101In the past, operations were decentralised, paper-based activities with variable inputs, processing and outputs, limited specialisation, and high local labour costs. From these beginnings, operations have evolved. This began with the adoption of a series of best practices, including centralisation, specialisation, and LEAN & Six Sigma. These practices reduced cost, facilitated scale and reduced operational risk. Digital fundamentals followed including Private Networks, Imaging and Workflow, which greatly increased the portability of the fulfilment of services. The outcome was geographically distributed, shared service centres which targeted savings through labour arbitrage, higher volumes and specialised workforces where operational expertise was a core competency. Robotics Process Automation (RPA)Over the past decade, Robotics Process Automation has provided the opportunity to leverage these digital, structured, high volume activities and move to a combined human-digital workforce. In this model, the robots do the repetitive, low complexity tasks, and people move up the value chain to higher complexity tasks, including exception handling, QA, managing multiple service lines or working on entirely new CXO INSIGHTSJonathan Kidd, Head of Digital Operations & Robotics, Bank of Ireland
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