Intelligent Automation: An Alchemy of Technology and Human Intelligence

Namratha Rao, Jagdish Bhandarkar
Namratha Rao and Jagdish Bhandarkar outline the concept of intelligent auto­mation using AI, ML, and RPA. A case study from the financial sector highlights the benefits gained through RPA. The authors explain how an intelligent bot can be trained and deployed over a period of a few months, and they emphasize establishing a roadmap, applying the right security measures, and setting up robust governance as three key tenets for scaling automation.

The Intelligent Enterprise Defines the Future of Business

Joseph Byrum
Joseph Byrum describes an intelligent enterprise as one that embraces AI to guide all its functions and decisions, small or large. However, this business is not run by the all-knowing, utopian artificial general intelligence (AGI) that science fiction writers and some commentators envision, which is a distant dream. Rather, it is an enterprise run by augmented intelligence — humans using AI and decision support tools that are enriched to the extent that is currently realistic and feasible. Byrum discusses the advantages of enterprises embracing augmented intelligence but cautions that making the entire enterprise “intelligent” requires concerted effort.

The Intelligent Enterprise Defines the Future of Business

Joseph Byrum
Joseph Byrum describes an intelligent enterprise as one that embraces AI to guide all its functions and decisions, small or large. However, this business is not run by the all-knowing, utopian artificial general intelligence (AGI) that science fiction writers and some commentators envision, which is a distant dream. Rather, it is an enterprise run by augmented intelligence — humans using AI and decision support tools that are enriched to the extent that is currently realistic and feasible. Byrum discusses the advantages of enterprises embracing augmented intelligence but cautions that making the entire enterprise “intelligent” requires concerted effort.

Beyond Automation: AI, ML & RPA — Opening Statement

San Murugesan
We present in this issue of CBTJ a set of five articles that provide actionable insights on topics of current interest to professionals and executives. We hope the articles inspire and encourage you to harness advanced automation in your domain of interest.

Beyond Automation: AI, ML & RPA — Opening Statement

San Murugesan
We present in this issue of CBTJ a set of five articles that provide actionable insights on topics of current interest to professionals and executives. We hope the articles inspire and encourage you to harness advanced automation in your domain of interest.

Weighing the Risks in Adopting BaaS

Timothy Virtue
Although many organizations’ IT departments have begun to focus on quickly adopting emerging technol­ogies, many of those organizations struggle to balance the need to deploy new technology with speed and agility while maintaining compliance with their organization’s traditional risk management frameworks. This struggle is why organizations adopting BaaS must shift from letter of the law (“box-checking compliance”) to spirit of the law (principles-based compliance) risk management (i.e., to risk-based methodologies whose foundational risk mitigation principles align with desired business outcomes).

Weighing the Risks in Adopting BaaS

Timothy Virtue
Although many organizations’ IT departments have begun to focus on quickly adopting emerging technol­ogies, many of those organizations struggle to balance the need to deploy new technology with speed and agility while maintaining compliance with their organization’s traditional risk management frameworks. This struggle is why organizations adopting BaaS must shift from letter of the law (“box-checking compliance”) to spirit of the law (principles-based compliance) risk management (i.e., to risk-based methodologies whose foundational risk mitigation principles align with desired business outcomes).

Does Agile Need Disrupting? by Whom? and How? 

Hillel Glazer
Hillel Glazer leads a Cutter Consortium Members-only Q&A on the Agile experience in your organizations — What’s been good? What’s been difficult? What workarounds and solutions have you’ve created? What does the future hold for Agile in your organization on the team level? On the enterprise level? What kinds of disruptions might be good for Agile in general?

Strategic Moves for Future Transformation: A Look at the Energy Sector

Kurt Baes, Florence Carlot, Andrea Romboli, Loic Vervaeke
In this Executive Update, we put a spotlight on the energy industry and offer a view of the challenges energy retailers face. We also examine various strategic moves companies should consider to reinvent themselves and stay relevant.

Preparing for the Post-Corona Era: Tips for the Oil & Gas Industry

Rodolfo Guzman, Daniel Monzon
This on-demand webinar offers digital strategies and technologies that support oil & gas industry transformations, identifies possible scenarios for the industry in the post-COVID-19 world, and offer insight into two key areas companies need to focus on for the best chance to weather the COVID-19 storm.

Communication with a Purpose

Matt Ganis, Michael Ackerbauer, Nicholas Cariello
Increased communication among team members leads to a culture of transparency. Transparency is about making shared assumptions explicit. The more transparent teams and stakeholders are with one another, the more the organization understands priorities, and the sooner critical feedback loops get closed.

Take a Human Approach to Growing Your Business

Masa Maeda
In this Advisor, I adapt the term “directional selection” to a business use to indicate the natural shift an organization goes through when one way of achieving a business goal has a better economic outcome, or directional selection, than any other alternative. Indeed, directional selection in complex, large organizations is the force behind the many changes required to increase an organization’s fitness. 

A Closer Look at COVID-19 Primary Data

Kaushik Dutta, Arindam Ray
There are two types of data involving COVID-19: primary data and secondary data. As we explore in this Advisor, primary data relates directly to the pandemic and measures outcomes.

Looking to the Future with a Logical Architecture

Adrian Jones
As data becomes an increasingly large factor in every¬day living — overcoming organizations with a tsunami of new information — how can we cope with all this data alongside our legacy transactional data and make sense of it all?

The Cutter Edge: Successful Ecosystems Require Solid Business Architectures, Enterprise Agility Use It or Lose It, more

Cutter Consortium
In this edition of The Cutter Edge, you'll discover practical exercises that will help your organization achieve enterprise agility, how to create a solid business architectures that underpin successful business ecosystems, and how to prepare for the post-Corona era in the oil & gas industry.

The Cutter Edge: Successful Ecosystems Require Solid Business Architectures, Enterprise Agility Use It or Lose It, more

Cutter Consortium
In this edition of The Cutter Edge, you'll discover practical exercises that will help your organization achieve enterprise agility, how to create a solid business architectures that underpin successful business ecosystems, and how to prepare for the post-Corona era in the oil & gas industry.

Facial Recognition Vendors Face Up to Reality

Curt Hall
In response to the coronavirus pandemic, facial recognition vendors are developing new algorithms and employing multiple biometric technologies to enable their products to identify people wearing masks.

Using Directional Selection to Move from Silo Thinking to Ecosystems Thinking

Masa Maeda
Showing the Agile Manifesto to teams, managers, and stakeholders and discussing it in a two-hour Agile introduction session serves no practical purpose. We need instead to center mindset-based actions on the human aspect in order to achieve sustainability and generate better, high-quality value with a positive economic outcome for customers and the business. That healthy balance comes naturally from directional selection, which merges mindset, the human aspect, collaboration frameworks, and methods together.

5 Keys to Enabling a Digital Shift

Fabian Sempf, Fabian Doemer, Volker Pfirsching
A digital company uses digitalization to increase its value. Achieving this requires a holistic approach, which covers the business model, processes and organization, digital enablers (e.g., data and technology), and employee skills and company culture. Finding out which initiatives add value and contribute to company goals is key to finding the digital equilibrium.

5 Keys to Enabling a Digital Shift

Fabian Sempf, Fabian Doemer, Volker Pfirsching
A digital company uses digitalization to increase its value. Achieving this requires a holistic approach, which covers the business model, processes and organization, digital enablers (e.g., data and technology), and employee skills and company culture. Finding out which initiatives add value and contribute to company goals is key to finding the digital equilibrium.

Trust: Is IT the Problem or the Solution? — An Introduction

Claude Baudoin
As we fight through current issues and eventually come out on the other side to whatever will be the “new normal,” a word has increasingly made its way into the daily discourse of business and technology leaders, as well as of politicians (at least those who know how to spell it): trustworthiness. Some things are noticed only when we miss them; trustworthiness is one of those. It is interesting to delve into how we got to this situation; the role that information technology has been playing in the erosion of trustworthiness; and how it, like many double-edged tools, might help solve the very problems it has helped create.

Capabilities Models for Business Advantage

John Murphy
In this Advisor, we consider two scenarios — investment planning and digital transformation — where using a capability model as a foundation for delivering information can be valuable.

Preparing for the Post-Corona Era: Tips for the Automotive Industry

Andreas Schlosser, Alan Martinovich, Philipp Seidel
The “new normal” for the automotive industry will look very different from that of the last decade. Players — manufacturers, dealers, distributors, OEMs, and the full supply chain — will need to make bold decisions right now to be ready. In this webinar on demand, Andreas Schlosser, Alan Martinovich, and Philipp Seidel divulge the actions carmakers should take now to set themselves up for the new normal and win in the post-corona era.

Data Architecture — Beyond the Lakehouse

Barry Devlin
In this last article of the data lakehouse series, the author polishes his crystal ball and shares his opinions on the likely direction of the data architecture considerations around warehouses, lakes, and any other forthcoming popular memes.

Trust Our Technology? Hmmm. Let’s Think.

Paul Clermont
Cutter Consortium Senior Consultant and frequent contributor Paul Clermont uses his well-known “straight talking” style to paint a clear picture of the “broad scope of threats” we are facing. He uses anthropological analogies to explain the “circles of trust” we use in deciding what to believe. Clermont doesn’t shy from the potential conflicts among information transparency, privacy, and intellectual property. He then looks at the proper role of governments in creating the frameworks and standards that can help improve trustworthiness.