Department of Management public lecture

Service Automation: robots and the future of

work
Professor Mary Lacity Professor Leslie Willcocks
Curators Professor of Information Systems, Professor of Technology Work and
University of Missouri, St Louis Globalisation, LSE

Dr Edgar Whitley
Chair, LSE

Hashtag for Twitter users: #LSErobots

 Leslie Willcocks and Mary Lacity

Department of Management

London School of Economics and Political Science

May 9, 2016

Copyright Lacity and Willcocks 2016

There is plenty of fear and hype in the popular
media about service automation

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 How are
businesses using
service
automation?

What are the

implications for
global employment
rates and the
future of work?

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 We studied the automation of business services,
services performed by organizations, either back office
support services or customer-facing services.

Surveys:
148 delegates at OWS in 2015
198 delegates at OWS in 2016

Interviews:
16 client adoption stories
6 service automation providers
5 advisors

Training and demos

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Realm of RPA Realm of CA
Structured Data Unstructured Data
Rules-based Processes Inference-based Processes
Deterministic Probabilistic

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 RPA Adoption
(n = 188 responses)

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 CI Adoption
(n = 198 responses)

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SHAREHOLDER CUSTOMER EMPLOYEE
VALUE VALUE VALUE

FTE savings resulting in high ROI

Better service quality
Faster deployment of new services
Higher compliance
Increased scalability
More flexible workforce
Happier, more productive
employees

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 # RPA # robots # RPA
processes Adoption 2015 transactions ROI
automated Year per month
35% of
back office 650% to
2010 >160 500,000
(15 core 800% 3-YR
processes)

35% of
2005/2008 300 1 million 200% 1-YR
back office

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 22 action principles

Launch: e.g., standardise/stabilise

7 practices processes first

Change
Strategy:
Management:
5 practices
4 practices

e.g., cultural adoption e.g., Bring IT on

by C-suite Mature board early
Enterprise
Capability:
6 practices

e.g., centre of excellence

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Myth 1: RPA is only used to replace humans with technology, leading to layoffs

Myth 2: Business operations staff feels threatened by RPA

Myth 3: Summary of what we did not

RPA will bring back many jobs from offshore

Myth 4: find
RPA is driven only by cost savings

Myth 5: RPA replaces an entire persons job

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Will job types and numbers change dramatically?

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 It is unworthy of excellent men to lose hours
like slaves in the labour of calculation which
could safely be relegated to anyone else if
machines were used.
Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz: mathematician,
philosopher, and inventor, 1685

High technology-caused unemployment

due to our discovery of means
of economising the use of labour
outrunning the pace at which we can find
new uses for labour
John Maynard Keynes, Economist, 1933
Technology is a useful servant but a
dangerous master
Christian Louis Lange; Nobel Peace
Prize, 1921

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 Agrarian Economy

Industrial Economy

Service Economy

Digital Economy

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 OPPORTUNITIES:
New data
New services
New combinations
More human work

THREATS:
cybersecurity risks
Less human work
integration risks
New Technology
compliance risks
social risks

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 The Great Automaton
Giorgio De Chirico 1925

Sign of the times?

Book can be obtained from sales@stevebrookes.com

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Department of Management public lecture

Service Automation: robots and the future of

work
Professor Mary Lacity Professor Leslie Willcocks
Curators Professor of Information Systems, Professor of Technology Work and
University of Missouri, St Louis Globalisation, LSE

Dr Edgar Whitley
Chair, LSE

Hashtag for Twitter users: #LSErobots