Process Reengineering with Machine Algorithms

Dateline: March 11, 2016

Welcome to our Friday WRAP – one thought-provoking idea to think about over the weekend.    Optimizing business processes, or reengineering. as it was called back in the early 1990s when it was made famous by my former colleague Dr. Michael Hammer, is back in vogue again, but with a twist.   In a Harvard Business Review article, Companies are Reimagining Business Processes with Algorithms,  Accenture researchers H. James Wilson, Allan Alter and Prashant Shukla share the results of a study they did of early-adopter companies who used machine-learning algorithms that adapted from experiences and data.  While they noted that machine-learning algorithms were most often used to optimize five kinds of processes: customer service, risk and compliance, finance, capability development and management, and most commonly, marketing and sales, they found,

Machine-reengineering not only creates new workflows, but a wholly new model for thinking about work and processes. It has the potential to augment our thinking beyond cause and effect and allow us to understand, and then improve operations that are too complex for the human mind to manage, in some ways making the previously invisible visible. It will make processes far more agile, efficient and productive. If the early adopters are any indication, machine-engineering is a leap forward in the evolution of business processes.

Where would machine-reengineering work in your organization?  What processes do you have that need an overhaul?

That’s a WRAP!  Have a nice weekend!

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