July 5, 2023
The power of the Autonomous Enterprise
One of the key topics of PegaWorld iNspire 2023 was the concept of the autonomous enterprise — a vision that promises to revolutionize the way businesses operate and thrive in an increasingly dynamic and complex world. In this blog, Arjan Wiegman will explore the concept of the autonomous enterprise and how Pega can support your organization in this.
The rise of the autonomous enterprise
The concept of the autonomous enterprise centers around empowering organizations towards self-learning or even self-optimizing. A self-driving car is an effective analogy for the autonomous enterprise. It is not about giving up control, but rather utilizing technologies to support in any way possible. The goal of the driver is not to drive the car, but rather to travel towards your destination. Even though the car is self-driving, the driver decides what the destination should be and what the constraints of the ride should be (avoid busy roads, make a stop somewhere, etc.). The autonomous enterprise operates under the same principle: people are still in control of deciding where to go, while technology maximizes support in determining how to reach the destination.
Consider the autonomous enterprise as a paradigm shift in how businesses can leverage emerging technologies to achieve agility, efficiency, and innovation. This can be achieved in four stages of maturity:
- Human-focused: where people make the vast majority of decisions across all functions within the enterprise.
- Automated: IT is introduced to handle most routine work within the enterprise.
- Self-learning/AI-guided: IT provides real-time insights and provides suggestions to people to support decision-making.
- Self-optimizing: IT drives change autonomously while people focus on innovating.
Pega traditionally provides all the building blocks needed to move the enterprise to the automated level of maturity. The most notable functionalities are the case management building blocks in the Pega platform, App Studio for low-code developments, and integration capabilities to achieve the required level of automation. But how can Pega support organizations on their journey toward autonomous enterprise maturity? Personally, I think that the key aspects to mature as an autonomous enterprise are:
- Intelligent automation
- Data-driven decision-making
- Adaptive processes
- Customer-centricity
Intelligent automation
PegaWorld 2023 shed light on the critical role of intelligent automation in realizing the autonomous enterprise. By integrating established functionalities such as Robotic Process Automation (RPA) and Pega decisioning with the transformative potential of generative AI (GenAI), organizations can achieve an unprecedented level of automation within their enterprise.
Data-Driven Decision-Making
Data emerges as the lifeblood of the autonomous enterprise. PegaWorld 2023 emphasized the importance of leveraging data and analytics to extract actionable insights and make informed decisions. Pega’s AI-driven analytics platform equips businesses with the tools to process and interpret vast amounts of data in real-time, uncovering patterns, trends, and customer preferences. Armed with these insights, organizations can drive personalized experiences and optimize operations.
Adaptive Processes
The ability to adapt swiftly to changing circumstances lies at the core of the autonomous enterprise. Pega already offered functionality like next-best action to guide users to take the rights actions tailored to their specific circumstances based on AI. Once the AI proves itself and the organization has enough trust in the application, the NBA should be replaced by automated decisions. Thus maturing the autonomous enterprise by becoming self-optimizing.
Additionally, PegaWorld 2023 showcased Pega’s process mining capabilities, which enables the organization to continuously identify improvements to the processes. This serves as a great example of the self-learning/AI-guided autonomous enterprise. Read the blog of Richard van Tol for more information on the new Pega process mining capabilities.
Customer-centricity
PegaWorld 2023 emphasized the importance of customer-centricity in the autonomous enterprise. By considering each interaction with each customer as a unique event, an organization can take the best action for each of these events. By harnessing Pega’s decisioning solutions, businesses can create a holistic view of their customers, enabling personalized and contextualized experiences across processes and channels.
Is the autonomous enterprise for you?
The autonomous enterprise is not just a buzzword or a distant utopian future—it is happening right before our eyes. Enterprises that can balance the need to control costs (do more with less), with the urgency to accelerate innovation and adapt quickly to change have the greatest potential for success. The time to embrace the autonomous enterprise is now, as it offers the best path forward to maximize the value your business can achieve with Pega. Thankfully, it is not an all-or-nothing concept, which makes it easier to implement it one step at a time. It challenges us to ask ourselves whether we fully use all the available Pega capabilities that deliver the highest value. Moreover, whether we are taking steps to increase the self-learning capabilities within our organization.
Curious about what the first (or next) steps is towards the autonomous enterprise for your organization? Contact us to learn what is possible for your organization.