The trend toward automation predates the COVID-19 pandemic but has accelerated in recent months as enterprises looked for ways to limit in-person professional interactions, improve processes with work-at-home mandates, and increase efficiency to face the economic crisis.

Given the proven potential of automation to improve business outcomes, it is likely to continue to expand and establish itself as a must-have boardroom conversation, according to Irving L. Dennis (pictured, left), retired Ernst & Young Global Ltd. partner and former chief financial officer of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.

“The way I think of it from a board’s conversation is if a company doesn’t think of itself as a technology company in all aspects, no matter what you do, you are a technology company or you need to be,” he said. “And if you’re not thinking along that way, you’re going to lose market share and you’re going to start falling behind your competitors.”

Dennis and James Matcher (pictured, right), consulting principal, Americas intelligent automation leader, at EY, spoke with Dave Vellante and Lisa Martin, co-host of theCUBE, SiliconANGLE Media’s livestreaming studio, during UiPath’s Forward IV conference. They discussed how automation has become a major enabler for business to achieve their strategic ambitions, why it is important to make intelligent automation a board-level narrative, and the beneficial impact of board-level support. (* Disclosure below.)

Inside a risk management approach

While gaining the attention of companies, automation itself is undergoing a transformation. It has evolved from generation one, which was a very robotic process automation-centric type of automation, to generation two, which is the combined integration of multiple technologies targeting internal process, according to Matcher. Now, it’s reached generation three, where the technology has started to spread through the organization.

“The ability to be able to look at processes more deeply to automate them in an end-to-end process, collectively, and use these different technologies in a synergistic manner truly becomes powerful, because it shifts the narrative from a micro process agenda into more systemic area,” Matcher explained.

How organizations keep pace with this evolution varies widely by industry. While the private sector is between generations two and three, governments are behind in this process by about three or four years, according to Dennis.

Even within the private sector, there’s plenty of room to drive innovation, which is why it’s important to make intelligent automation a board-level narrative.

“I would personally put it in enterprise risk management from a standpoint that if you’re not focused on it, it’s going to be a risk to the enterprise,” Dennis concluded.

Watch the complete video interview below, and be sure to check out more of SiliconANGLE’s and theCUBE’s coverage of UiPath’s Forward IV conference. (* Disclosure: TheCUBE is a paid media partner for the UiPath’s Forward IV conference. Neither UiPath Inc., the sponsor for theCUBE’s event coverage, nor other sponsors have editorial control over content on theCUBE or SiliconANGLE.)

Photo: SiliconANGLE