Ian Barkin

The promise of enterprise AI—and particularly generative AI (GenAI)—has reached
an inflection point. While demand for this technology has skyrocketed in the last
few years, the applications for and value of GenAI as a standalone technology may
have plateaued. Large language models (LLMs) can be useful for content creation
but are limited in their ability to provide actionable intelligence to workers,
integrate with other business applications and systems, and ensure… Show more

The promise of enterprise AI—and particularly generative AI (GenAI)—has reached
an inflection point. While demand for this technology has skyrocketed in the last
few years, the applications for and value of GenAI as a standalone technology may
have plateaued. Large language models (LLMs) can be useful for content creation
but are limited in their ability to provide actionable intelligence to workers,
integrate with other business applications and systems, and ensure governance,
security, and trust. These complications make it clear that while AI is rapidly
changing businesses, it needs further evolution to create meaningful impact.
Enter the agentic era, where AI agents, automation, and people combine to
perform more complex autonomous business workflows. But how will this new
age of AI transform the enterprise? And are IT and business workforces prepared? Show less

Supercharge your organization's capacity for innovation

The greatest untapped asset in an enterprise today is the ingenuity of its people. Dive into a future of work where technology empowers everyone to be a creator and builder with All Hands on Tech: The Citizen Revolution in Business Technology. This pivotal book offers a comprehensive look into the role of citizen developers―business domain experts who are driving IT-enabled innovation using technology previously reserved for… Show more

Supercharge your organization's capacity for innovation

The greatest untapped asset in an enterprise today is the ingenuity of its people. Dive into a future of work where technology empowers everyone to be a creator and builder with All Hands on Tech: The Citizen Revolution in Business Technology. This pivotal book offers a comprehensive look into the role of citizen developers―business domain experts who are driving IT-enabled innovation using technology previously reserved for professional technologists. Through case studies of citizens and citizen-enabled enterprises, the authors demonstrate how emerging technology bestows unprecedented power on these individuals and unprecedented value on the organizations that channel their efforts. They outline a transformative approach to citizen development that not only enhances companies' innovative capacity via the empowerment of domain experts, but also minimizes risk and liberates IT departments to pursue more strategic initiatives.

All Hands on Tech describes a revolution in work―powered by technology becoming more human and humans becoming more comfortable with technology. This convergence provides a clear pathway for enterprises to leverage the on-the-ground experience and insight of all employees. The authors provide diverse examples of companies that have aligned the work of their citizen developers with wider organizational goals across citizen data science, automation, and development projects. These examples demonstrate why and how to commit to the citizen revolution in your organization. Show less

Companies are increasingly embracing the idea of helping nontechnical staff members — those who have deep business-area expertise — learn to directly automate processes that give them headaches and eat up their time. For instance, human resources employees are uniquely qualified to identify the mundane and repetitive parts of their jobs, such as candidate-tracking tasks, and then, with some training, build automations that will relieve them of chores such as duplicative data entry and data… Show more

Companies are increasingly embracing the idea of helping nontechnical staff members — those who have deep business-area expertise — learn to directly automate processes that give them headaches and eat up their time. For instance, human resources employees are uniquely qualified to identify the mundane and repetitive parts of their jobs, such as candidate-tracking tasks, and then, with some training, build automations that will relieve them of chores such as duplicative data entry and data cleaning.

While the development of such applications by so-called citizens within organizations requires careful planning and governance to be effective, low-code and no-code technologies have become commonplace and made such ventures possible.1 Specifically, robotic process automation (RPA) and a broader intelligent automation (IA) suite that allows for the redesign and automation of workflows are now straightforward enough that functional experts can design, develop, and deploy IT applications and analytical models themselves. No longer do all projects require mediation by IT employees, who might not fully understand end users’ pain points. These tools of citizen-led automation are allowing less-technical people to build complex systems that improve their work experience, and they are already generating considerable value for many businesses.

In this article, we draw on interviews with six companies — AT&T, Dentsu, Johnson & Johnson (J&J), PwC, Voya Financial, and Wesco — to describe their efforts to join the citizen automation movement. We also detail how other organizations can best develop these capabilities and the benefits and challenges of doing so. Show less

Generative AI and other easy-to-use software tools can help employees with no coding background become adept programmers, or what the authors call citizen developers. By simply describing what they want in a prompt, citizen developers can collaborate with these tools to build entire applications—a process that until recently would have required advanced programming fluency.

Information technology has historically involved builders (IT professionals) and users (all other employees), with… Show more

Generative AI and other easy-to-use software tools can help employees with no coding background become adept programmers, or what the authors call citizen developers. By simply describing what they want in a prompt, citizen developers can collaborate with these tools to build entire applications—a process that until recently would have required advanced programming fluency.

Information technology has historically involved builders (IT professionals) and users (all other employees), with users being relatively powerless operators of the technology. That way of working often means IT professionals struggle to meet demand in a timely fashion, and communication problems arise among technical experts, business leaders, and application users.

Citizen development raises a critical question about the ultimate fate of IT organizations. How will they facilitate and safeguard the process without placing too many obstacles in its path? To reject its benefits is impractical, but to manage it carelessly may be worse. In this article the authors share a road map for successfully introducing citizen development to your employees. Show less

This is the first reference book on Intelligent Automation (IA). Also called Hyperautomation, it is one of the most recent trends in the field of artificial intelligence. IA is a cutting-edge combination of methods and technologies, involving people, organizations, machine learning, low-code platforms, robotic process automation (RPA), and more.

This book is for everyone – whether you are an experienced practitioner, new to the topic, or simply interested in what the future holds for… Show more

This is the first reference book on Intelligent Automation (IA). Also called Hyperautomation, it is one of the most recent trends in the field of artificial intelligence. IA is a cutting-edge combination of methods and technologies, involving people, organizations, machine learning, low-code platforms, robotic process automation (RPA), and more.

This book is for everyone – whether you are an experienced practitioner, new to the topic, or simply interested in what the future holds for enterprises, work, life, and society as a whole.

Key content of the book:

What is Intelligent Automation (IA)? Why has the use of IA been expanding so rapidly? What are the benefits it unleashes for employees, companies, customers, and society?
How have leading organizations been able to harness the full potential of IA, at scale, and generate massive efficiency gains in the range of 20 to 60%?
How can IA save 10+ million lives per year, triple our global budget for education, eliminate hunger, help protect our planet, or increase the resilience of society to pandemics and crises?
What you will get from this book:

Get the lessons learned from 100+ IA transformation successes (and failures)
Benefit from the largest publicly available library of 500+ IA use cases by industry and by business function
Gain access to insights garnered from 200+ IA industry experts Show less

Robotic process automation—software-based robotics that emulate work that people do—is poised to change the way we work. Using this exciting technology, organizations can digitize and transform an array of business processes and functions. In this course, instructor Ian Barkin takes a deep dive into RPA, explaining what it is, what it's not, and what to keep in mind when adopting it in your organization. Here, Ian shares information that can help a variety of stakeholders—from executives to IT… Show more

Robotic process automation—software-based robotics that emulate work that people do—is poised to change the way we work. Using this exciting technology, organizations can digitize and transform an array of business processes and functions. In this course, instructor Ian Barkin takes a deep dive into RPA, explaining what it is, what it's not, and what to keep in mind when adopting it in your organization. Here, Ian shares information that can help a variety of stakeholders—from executives to IT professionals—grasp the key benefits of RPA, as well as best practices that can help their organization succeed at both the process and enterprise levels. Plus, he lends a real-world context to the concepts covered in this course by providing examples from global companies that are implementing RPA.

Learning Objectives:
What is robotic process automation (RPA)?
The RPA vendor landscape
Differences between RPA and other tools
Best practices at the process and enterprise levels
Identifying opportunities for automation
Prime opportunity areas for automation
Key stakeholders in your RPA journey
Tips for success from the front lines Show less

RPA presents a huge opportunity for the SS&O community. Just as business process outsourcers and shared service center providers have evolved to address high labor costs (via arbitrage), inefficient processes (via continuous improvement), and lack of a holistic system understanding (via analytics), they will deploy RPA to overcome process and technology constraints. If done properly, they will be able to deliver seamless process execution and great innovation that will propel a new and improved… Show more

RPA presents a huge opportunity for the SS&O community. Just as business process outsourcers and shared service center providers have evolved to address high labor costs (via arbitrage), inefficient processes (via continuous improvement), and lack of a holistic system understanding (via analytics), they will deploy RPA to overcome process and technology constraints. If done properly, they will be able to deliver seamless process execution and great innovation that will propel a new and improved generation of work. Show less