The RPA vendors have taken considerable interest in IPA. Over the past year, many have been adding (to varying degrees) AI technologies — particularly ML, NLP, smartbots, and advanced imaging — to their platforms to provide intelligent capabilities necessary to automate more complex processes and tasks that are beyond the scope of what is possible using only conventional RPA tools. This, in effect, has allowed the RPA providers to try and position their products as a familiar platform for organizations to segue AI into their operations.

Even as digital tools recast the entire healthcare industry model, old problems remain, especially in the centralized and technologically inefficient modes of data management. That’s where good data software testing and quality assurance come into play in the form of test automation. As automation becomes the software development standard for revenue-minded companies, regular testing is required to make sure productivity and security activities are above board.

Being capable to react to change with agility is a key requirement for all companies onboarding digital business models or digital products and processes. And when it comes to competing and staying relevant, agility is becoming a necessity. Large companies, however, appear to face a plethora of challenges with balancing agility and stability. Here in Part II of this two-part Advisor, we answer the question of how to learn and adapt after the pilot launch of an end-to-end Agile process and provide concrete examples of how large corporations have overcome imminent obstacles.

The COVID-19 pandemic has posed unprecedented challenges to businesses across all sectors and throughout the world. Risk management systems and contingency measures have been put to the test, and as is so often seen in moments of crisis, many have been found wanting. The result? A real need now exists to determine what is meant by business resilience and how to apply it to organizations’ different operating models.

In his on-demand webinar, “EA in the Face of Digital Disruption,” Cutter Consortium Senior Consultant Roger Evernden explored some of the issues enterprise architects are facing with digital disruption. He tackled how organizations and entire industries must rethink value — creating and capturing it ­— to meet the challenges that digital brings to our lives. In this Advisor, we share some of the questions addressed in the Q&A portion of the webinar.

Applying a simplistic algorithm to inadequate data fails to deliver expected exam grades as the pandemic exposes flawed thinking and underlying bias in the education system.

Applying a simplistic algorithm to inadequate data fails to deliver expected exam grades as the pandemic exposes flawed thinking and underlying bias in the education system.

A big cause of failure for large organizations is the attempt to apply one of the many off-the-shelf Agile models. These typically work well for small companies, but not so much in large corporate settings. In Part I of this two-part Advisor, we explore the first half of a four-part framework to scale and customize a tailored Agile approach that caters to an organization’s specific requirements, beginning with assessing your needs in the understand phase. We then describe how picking building blocks from the many Agile concepts available will shape a working model according to the needs of your enterprise.

In a recent webinar, Cutter Senior Consultant Rodolfo Guzmán and Daniel Monzón offered insight into what O&G companies need to focus on for the best chance to weather the COVID-19 storm. They also answered questions from participants about digital strategies and technologies that will support such transformations in their organizations.

A recent survey by Arthur D. Little and Blockchain in Transport Alliance confirms that blockchain users within the transport industry believe that the technology facilitates greater transparency and efficiency, resolving key challenges around inefficiency and information asymmetry among supply chain players.

Robin F. Goldsmith discusses the application of proactive risk management techniques in software testing and development. He observes that many of the risks encountered in software are largely predictable and explores why busi­nesses still manage to fall foul of them and how the real processes employed in our organizations can differ starkly from how we presume them to be. Goldsmith goes on to discuss how a more proactive approach to risk identification at the early stages of a project often saves time and money later.

Enterprises need access to data-driven insights faster than ever before. Analytics use cases have evolved from traditional, precanned reports to self-service and guided analytics. Enterprises exploring solutions to these challenges are steadily embracing the cloud data warehouse. These platforms provide agility, scalability, and simplicity that enable the enterprise to focus on data solutions rather than spending valuable effort on peripheral overheads.

The edition of The Cutter Edge explores how agile budgeting can create value as a revenue stream generator, why communication is so essential in a digital shift, how to improve software system design, and more.

The edition of The Cutter Edge explores how agile budgeting can create value as a revenue stream generator, why communication is so essential in a digital shift, how to improve software system design, and more.

The team is the fundamental unit of organizational work, not the individual. But the ways we manage our teams — and thus our talent — often set us up for systemic gaps and increasing challenges (versus continuous improvement) over time. Today’s executives face two ongoing complex problems: business strategy and people leadership. The invisible nature of these talent issues makes solving them a strategic need through HR capacity building over time.

The number of Internet of Things (IoT) devices — ranging from connected consumer products like smart speakers, TVs, refrigerators, and stoves to sensor-enabled industrial machinery and business equipment — continues to proliferate, but many of these devices lack strong built-in security features. This Advisor considers the application of AI and blockchain technologies for strengthening the cybersecurity capabilities of IoT devices and networking environments as well as future developments in this area.

The COVID-19 pandemic has posed unprecedented challenges to businesses across all sectors and throughout the world. Risk management systems and contingency measures have been put to the test, and as is so often seen in moments of crisis, many have been found wanting. The result? A real need now exists to determine what is meant by business resilience and how to apply it to organizations’ different operating models.

Cutter Consortium Senior Consultant Barry M. O’Reilly introduces the concept of residuality theory and its application to the complex relationships that exist between different risks in the modern business environment. Expanding on the issues of complexity versus complication in the world of enterprise software, O’Reilly shows how the principle of residuality enables organizations to anticipate the impact of chains of interconnected risks.

Cutter Consortium Senior Consultant Barry M. O’Reilly introduces the concept of residuality theory and its application to the complex relationships that exist between different risks in the modern business environment. Expanding on the issues of complexity versus complication in the world of enterprise software, O’Reilly shows how the principle of residuality enables organizations to anticipate the impact of chains of interconnected risks.

Noah Barsky explores some key shifts in mindset that effective risk management will require, such as making risk management the responsibility of all, avoiding silos, looking at issues that are important but not urgent, and building a culture that can ask, “Why?” Barsky focuses on the need to not only connect the dots between different risk areas, but also between risk management and other corporate planning and monitoring activities.

Payson Hall explores the general con­text of risk management, noting the conflict between efficiency and resilience in organizations employing Lean practices to reduce their costs at the expense of robust risk management. Such approaches may beat the odds in the short term but lead to dangerous exposure when times are hard, as has been observed during the current global pandemic. Hall discusses ways in which a modest investment can provide vital hedging against catastrophe.

Cutter Consortium Fellow Bob Charette explores the current state of risk management in a world of repeated failures to adopt the lessons of the past, examining several of the most common ways in which risk management is failing and the reasons why. In his analysis, different areas of risk form a broader “risk ecology,” in which risks interact in complex ways, and isolated analysis and manage­ment of each area has the potential to increase risk in unforeseen ways.

In the second installment of their webinar series, “Using AI/Machine Learning to Manage Risk,” Cutter Senior Consultants Michael Eiden, Craig Wylie, and Tom Teixeira answered some questions about new risk models that utilize artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) to understand and respond to the changing business landscape.

In the second installment of their webinar series, “Using AI/Machine Learning to Manage Risk,” Cutter Senior Consultants Michael Eiden, Craig Wylie, and Tom Teixeira answered some questions about new risk models that utilize artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) to understand and respond to the changing business landscape.

To tackle the high and unpredictable demand volatility, lean production is not enough. Instead, manufacturing companies must improve responsiveness or, in other words, become Agile. In this Advisor, we focus on the production unit.