This issue of CBTJ will change the way we all think about crises and crisis management. The collection of articles stimulates creative thinking about how we manage our companies, ourselves, and our crises. It’s important to appreciate the crisis spectrum and especially those crises — like pandemics — that require reinvention.

In this issue of Cutter Business Technology Journal (CBTJ), we examine the emergence of the new face of automation and explore novel ways to address the various issues and challenges we encounter. As we start to implement smart technologies to automate enterprise processes and activities, we must look at automation with a new mindset, holis­tically, broadening our vision. The five articles in this issue present insightful perspectives and ideas on intelligent automation.

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.

It’s the year 2020. The popularized notion of “Agile development” has now been around for the better part of at least two decades. To no one’s surprise, the concept of Agile has sprung new trunks, branches, twigs, and leaves and is now an entire genus, sometimes making the proto-Agile ideas unrecognizable. These new flavors, colors, and shapes can be described as evolutions of the original concepts. Or can they?

While often neglected, initiatives aimed at improv­ing the employee experience can have an immediate and positive impact on customer satisfaction and, ultimately, the bottom line. Customer experiences do not just happen; they are the direct results of activ­ities by the employees with whom customers come in contact. The articles in this issue of CBTJ will challenge you to think differently about how you engage your employees.