Darshan Jain - Choosing Technologies

Summary

In the video, the speaker discusses the challenges organizations face in selecting technologies amidst a rapidly evolving technological landscape. The focus is on how companies historically relied on ERP systems like those from IBM, which are now dominated by Oracle and SAP. Today's technological landscape is much more complex, with a plethora of options like process mining, cloud services, AI, and automation. This abundance of choice can be overwhelming for operations managers, leading many companies to seek the help of consulting firms. The speaker highlights the trend towards automation and AI as the new standard in operations, emphasizing the difficulty companies face in keeping up with technological advancements.

Highlights

• Choosing technologies is akin to navigating a vast, complex menu in a restaurant 🍜.
• ERP systems laid the foundation, with IBM playing a massive role in the past 🗂️.
• Modern tech options are vast, from AI to automation, presenting a challenge to ops managers ⚙️.
• Robotic and AI automation are becoming industry standards, even in mundane tasks 🤖.
• Organizations often lean on consulting firms for guidance in tech adoption 🧑‍💼.

Key Takeaways

• Navigating the tech landscape is like choosing from a gigantic menu at a restaurant 🍽️.
• ERP systems started with IBM and now are ruled by Oracle and SAP 🖥️.
• The technology landscape is expansive and can be overwhelming for decision-makers 🌐.
• Automation and AI are becoming the new norms in various industries 🤖.
• Consulting firms play a crucial role in aiding companies through these tech transitions 🧠.

Overview

Remember when we felt overwhelmed choosing items off a massive restaurant menu? That's basically how organizations feel today when picking technologies. The complexity is real and navigating it is no piece of cake! But hey, some companies choose consulting firms to make this less daunting.

ERP systems were once the big cheeses of the tech world, ruled by giants like IBM. Fast forward to today, and you'll find Oracle and SAP leading the pack. However, the tech landscape has expanded far beyond those systems to include everything from AI to robotic automation. Keep your seatbelt fastened, folks, because it’s a wild ride!

As we cruise through 2020 and beyond, automation is girding its loins to become a staple. We're talking about robots in car factories and AI keeping tabs on inventory. It’s all quite futuristic and exciting! But, the more advanced tech gets, the more organizations need savvy decision-makers to steer them through these endless possibilities.

Chapters

• 00:00 - 00:30: Introduction to Technology Selection The chapter discusses the abundance of technologies available for organizations today, likening it to a large menu at a restaurant where decisions must be made. It raises the question of how organizations manage the selection and application of these technologies.
• 00:30 - 01:30: Historical Overview of ERP Systems The chapter explores the historical development of ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) systems, beginning with the dominance of IBM in the late 80s and early 90s. It highlights how companies used IBM's green terminals, laying the groundwork for modern ERP systems. The chapter provides insights into the evolution of technology investments over time.
• 01:30 - 03:00: The Evolution of Technology in Operations This chapter discusses the evolution of technology in operations, focusing on the rise and integration of enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems. Initially, few understood the meaning of ERP, but it eventually became a fundamental part of large, integrated companies. Companies like IBM developed ERP to manage various logistics and resource management aspects, from supply chain management to inventory and production logistics, exemplified by practices such as Toyota's just-in-time manufacturing method. The chapter highlights how ERP systems marked the start of highly coordinated operational frameworks, showcasing the technological advancements that have shaped modern business operations.
• 03:00 - 04:30: Current Technology Landscape The technological landscape has evolved significantly over the decades. Before the 1970s, operations relied heavily on paper. IBM made strides in the 70s and 80s, shaping the technology in operations. Today, Oracle and SAP dominate the field, holding a substantial share in large companies' operations.
• 04:30 - 06:00: Challenges in Selecting Technologies The chapter titled 'Challenges in Selecting Technologies' discusses the overwhelming number of ancillary technologies available in addition to ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) systems. The speaker highlights the complexity and vastness of the technology options that can be daunting for companies seeking to integrate additional tools into their workflow. A visual representation is shared to illustrate the multitude of technologies that the speaker's company deals with, showcasing the challenges in navigating and selecting the right technologies in the market.
• 06:00 - 07:30: Role of Consulting Firms in Technology Selection The chapter discusses the various technologies in the automation space that consulting firms help businesses select and integrate. Key technologies mentioned include process mining, optical character recognition, and intelligent document processing. The role of cloud services, such as Google Cloud and Amazon Cloud, in automation is highlighted. Additionally, the importance of cyber security, natural language processing, and digital assistants such as chatbots, particularly in call centers, is discussed as crucial elements in technology selection. Consulting firms aid in navigating and implementing these technologies to enhance business processes.
• 07:30 - 10:00: Adoption of Automation and AI The chapter "Adoption of Automation and AI" discusses how companies, such as Oracle and SAP, are leveraging technologies like CRM, business process management, robotic automation, data analytics, dashboarding, machine learning, and AI. It delves into the need for companies to evaluate and make decisions about adopting these technologies, highlighting the initial confusion and discussions surrounding their utility and implementation.
• 10:00 - 11:30: Future Trends in Operations Technology In the chapter titled 'Future Trends in Operations Technology,' the transcript discusses the complexity of choosing business project management technologies. It points out the abundance of companies offering process mining solutions, each claiming superiority. While this competition fosters innovation and is overall beneficial, it can be challenging to decide which product to select.

Darshan Jain - Choosing Technologies Transcription

• 00:00 - 00:30 okay uh there are lots of technologies that organizations can use today and it's like having for many i think it's like having a menu when you go into a restaurant that is very large where you have to make a decision on which technologies you are going to apply how do organizations deal with that how they how do they
• 00:30 - 01:00 decide which technologies they should invest in and you know what do you see as the most commonly used ones at the moment again take you down memory lane a little bit peter uh go back to the late 80s or early 90s when ibm was the only name really for large companies and operations so ibm had their green terminals and basically the early aspects of what today we call erp
• 01:00 - 01:30 enterprise resource planning systems in fact most people don't even know what erp stands for anymore it's just called erp that became the backbone of large integrated companies where you had companies like ibm write the code to manage whether it was supplies coming in whether it was toyota's just in time what was on the floor what was in the warehouse all of these things talking to each other that was really the beginning
• 01:30 - 02:00 of technology drastically improving uh the op space because until the 1970s or so on it was really all just lots and lots of paper and you know in the early days busy calp maybe some folks trying to do it there but really ibm started doing the stuff in the 70s 80s now today we have companies like oracle and sap those are the two biggest names for operations in large companies they basically own the vast majority of
• 02:00 - 02:30 the market the market share but aside from erp there are so many ancillary technologies that it's just mind-boggling i'm gonna just uh share my screen for a second and uh just sort of share with your audience what is out there these days and there you go if you can see my screen i'm just there yeah so this is just something you know what my company is involved in we have
• 02:30 - 03:00 uh in the automation space itself there are things like process mining um optical character recognition and now called intelligent document processing we've all heard of the cloud whether that's google cloud or amazon cloud there's cyber security um there is natural language processing digital assistance next time you call a call center you may be interacting with a chatbot
• 03:00 - 03:30 there's of course companies like oracle and sap doing all kinds of crm business process management robotic automation data analytics and dashboarding machine learning and ai you can just see and this is just a small footprint of my god what companies have to they have to figure out what it is that they're doing it's like should we get into this or this so first you have these discussions to say what the heck is this and then you can see
• 03:30 - 04:00 when you actually say okay i want to do business project management i think it's going to be great well then there's a whole bunch of players each with its own bent on that technology which one do you choose how do you choose it the good thing is look at all these companies in there all saying hey guys i have a great product it's very healthy to have good competition you have innovation all of these folks are trying to do process mining each of them claiming to be the best so that's fantastic but now
• 04:00 - 04:30 you're the poor ops manager having to choose between all of these how do you do that um do you go and attend a bunch of conferences do you read up on stuff now don't forget you have a day job you have a life after work how do you become the expert and so that's where again the asymptotic acceleration of technology is outpacing i think the average ops managers ability to comprehend just what
• 04:30 - 05:00 is out there and so what happens many companies are saying um um um i don't know what to do next so they slow down they're in fact now afraid of making decisions so i just want to share that with you to say that that's really now the the key challenge of companies is the technology landscape has exploded simply understanding what's out there is mind-boggling when you do say i want
• 05:00 - 05:30 to get into this or this or this then which company even if you write an rfp to say hey um we're exploring this how do you evaluate what's coming in and that's where companies whether they be similar to ours or the big four typical large strategy consulting firms like mckinsey or bain they're being used by large brands to say come and help us guys you know what we want an objective opinion number one we've already got the erp in ops but now should we look at
• 05:30 - 06:00 automation and and where give us use cases give us case studies where have other competitors industry leaders what have they done a lot of the stuff happens just by people you know if i see someone else doing it maybe i'm going to try that too and so sometimes if you're the first in the industry to move people kind of wait and see oh hey oh crap that worked okay quick let's do this too so it's a little bit of catch-up and then it becomes of course everybody knows it's an industry
• 06:00 - 06:30 standard so what i find is that technologies today right now in 2020 we're seeing again if erp was from the 90s it really cemented itself and it's still there the newer technologies that companies major operations are adopting are definitely automation automation both physical when was the last time you saw any footage of a major automotive assembly plant without robots like nobody is welding spot wells i mean
• 06:30 - 07:00 as if you if you found out as a consumer that the car was completely assembled by humans i don't think you'd buy it rolls royce aside where it's you just i wouldn't trust humans to put a car together because the quality of a robot is just you know 99.99 accurate so we are again as consumers now expecting that so you've got automation uh whether robotic or not you would now have i would say it's early days we
• 07:00 - 07:30 definitely have um ai coming in ai in all its forms cognitive um look imagine you could have a whole warehouse full of stuff what humans do they buy and they kind of scan the shelves yep i can see that i can see that i can see that or you can rely on an erp system which may have some shrinkage built in people are now using cameras mounted in warehouses just in people's eyes and they're counting the stuff instead of having to
• 07:30 - 08:00 watch the forklift you're just literally seeing what's in there and looking at the movement so computer vision as a part of ai is becoming really important in venture populations it's just going to be fascinating the next few years of what technology does in an ops environment just fascinating you