Robotic Process and Cognitive Automation: The Next Phase

This book examines real-world implementations of service automation technologies using Robotic Process Automation and Cognitive Automation tools. This newest, detailed research finds that RPA adoptions are accelerating, maturing, and scaling in global enterprise. The research covers multiple industries, applications, and shared services, and uses case studies to establish action principles and how to mitigate automation risks. The book also examines the first enterprise-worthy cognitive automation tools that use machine-learning algorithms to process big data, often in natural language form, and analyses three major detailed cases and the conditions for effective implementation. The book includes interviews with major clients, providers and analysts, and a detailed analysis of the automation and future of work debate. The book provides a compelling and incisive, evidence-based perspective on the direction and management of service automation, taking trends through to 2025. Automation technologies like RPA, CA, and the newest Blockchain technologies are found to transform and elevate human work rather than eliminate it.

DR MARY LACITY is Curators' Distinguished Professor of Information Systems and an International Business Fellow at the University of Missouri-St. Louis. She has held visiting positions at the London School of Economics, Washington University, and Oxford University. She has given keynote speeches and executive seminars world-wide and has served as an expert witness for the US Congress. Dr Lacity has published 25 books and over 200 articles which have appeared in the Harvard Business Review, Sloan Management Review, MIS Quarterly, MIS Quarterly Executive, IEEE Computer, Communications of the ACM, and other academic and practitioner articles. Email: mary.lacity@umsl.edu. DR LESLIE WILLCOCKS has an international reputation for his work on global management, outsourcing, digital business, information management, strategic IT and organizational change. He is Professor in Technology Work and Globalization at the Department of Management at London School of Economics and Political Science. Dr Willcocks also heads the LSE's Outsourcing Unit research centre. For the last 25 years he has been Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Information Technology. He is co-author of 54 books and has published over 240 refereed papers in journals such as Harvard Business Review, Sloan Management Review, California Management Review, MIS Quarterly and MISQ Executive. Email: l.p.willcocks@lse.ac.uk.