The pandemic has boosted the shift to automation, especially for some industries. The increasing progress in robotics, AI, and robotic process automation has put the world at the core of a new age of automation.

The need for digital transformation has been intensified by the new trend of remote work and by the lockdowns. This is why, nowadays, digitization plays a significant role.

Basically, automation can build higher-skilled workers and drive increased performance, productivity, and creativity.

Based on what we’ve experienced in 2020, in this article, we will talk about the main industries where the need for automation is highest.

Healthcare

In the health care sector, automation will play a vital role.

The need for automation and AI technologies to simplify hospital business processes and decrease clinical burnout has been increased by insufficient clinical resources and equipment.

First, with virtual assistants and telemedicine, automation can fix routine administrative activities, therefore enhancing healthcare processes and patient experience. It can also boost diagnostic accuracy and management of chronic treatment to improve the lives of patients.

Automation, nevertheless, is still in its development phase in the healthcare sector, and medical leaders are seeking to increase the potential of AI in healthcare. But before, they must clearly understand their processes to achieve the full potential of automation. A successful transition of any sort must understand the end-to-end process and how the various parts connect and impact each other.

Here are some ways automation is can help organizations to improve their practice.

• automated patient check-in systems
• automated patient data management
• collecting data with virtual doctors
• increasing the effectiveness of treatments
• reduce operating costs
• allowing staff to excel in their roles
• reduce paper waste

Retail

The shopping experience can be improved by automation.

Automation can bring significant changes to the retail industry, from inventory management, demand forecasting, and retail auditing to user behavior analysis and customer support.

In reality, many retail companies spend more on robotic process automation (RPA) to minimize operating costs, improve the productivity of staff, and simplify business processes. By offering specific recommendations powered by AI and raising their business in a highly competitive environment, automation can enable retailers to improve their service interactions.

However, retailers must tackle automation challenges and respond to changes to maximize growth opportunities.

Brands can use automation to fuel growth.

The benefits of retail automation:

Retail automation can allow the company to reduce labor costs, to become more efficient in workforce management, to improve the customer experience, to drive sales – because more customer satisfaction will lead to more sales, and at the end to fuel growth – automating workflows will allow you to focus on optimizing operations for growth instead of having to build new ones.

Supply chain and logistics

The supply chain and logistics industry was affected by the pandemic, which contributed to the rise in robot deliveries. For instance, many big vendors such as Walmart capitalized on automation started to distribute food and products to customers and overcome last-mile distribution challenges. Drone delivery initiatives from large tech firms, such as Amazon, Walmart, and Ericsson, have also been growing.

This shift towards automation would allow businesses to better manage their supply chains.

In general, 3 types of automation are possible for the supply chain:

• back-office automation – time-consuming manual supply chain management operations (documents such as delivery orders, etc) could be avoided by using AI and automation.
• transportation automation – autonomous trucks and drones can be used to transport supply in the network
• warehouse automation that would involve: robots to work collaboratively with humans, supply planning and inventory automation, automated guided vehicles.

Customer service

2020 brought massive changes to the business world and impacted customer service and operations across the board.

Automation plays a significant part in the customer service industry in assisting customer service representatives to accomplish routine, manual activities, streamline business processes, and empower clients.

AI-powered machine learning and natural language processing (NLP) chatbots can provide connectivity at the human level and train agents for elevated conversations.

Here are the emerging trends that are expected to shape customer experience this year :

• Leveraging AI will help companies truly understand clients and offer better CX, leading to increased conversions and reduced abandonment of carts.
• Chat-bots are helpful to better deliver on customer needs and improving the pace at which business can help consumers.
• Virtual assistants allow users to interact with spoken language (Hey Siri! Hey Google!) and help to alleviate pressure on support staff by enabling interactive in-app support for users.
• Predictive analytics can help retailers to increase their profits. Businesses are becoming increasingly aware of the power of customer data in driving business outcomes and ROI.
• With customers expecting personalized, in-the-moment online experiences, the importance of real-time data insights is crucial.
• Personalization will be the key to success!

To conclude

Automation is inevitable in every industry. The pandemic and economic downturn intensified the implementation of automation, causing companies to evaluate their strategies across different industries.

The current market pressure and uncertain climate have forced businesses to create a robust backup plan and upskill their workers, which will keep them ahead of their market and remain competitive in future years to any other innovative changes.

Read more here: How Covid-19 Has Accelerated The Adoption Of Automation and find out what are the IT Trends and Predictions for 2021