TechCentralTechCentral
    Facebook Twitter YouTube LinkedIn
    Facebook Twitter LinkedIn YouTube
    TechCentral TechCentral
    NEWSLETTER
    • News

      The great crypto crash: the fallout, and what happens next

      22 June 2022

      Winter 1, Eskom 0

      22 June 2022

      What it will take to bring the Guptas to justice

      22 June 2022

      Inflation in South Africa spikes higher

      22 June 2022

      Eskom announces massive escalation in load shedding

      22 June 2022
    • World

      Tether to launch a stablecoin tied to the British pound

      22 June 2022

      Tech giants form metaverse standards body, without Apple

      22 June 2022

      There are still unresolved matters in Twitter deal, Musk says

      21 June 2022

      5G subscriptions to top one billion in 2022: Ericsson

      21 June 2022

      Crypto lenders face a DeFi drubbing

      21 June 2022
    • In-depth

      Goodbye, Internet Explorer – you really won’t be missed

      19 June 2022

      Oracle’s database dominance threatened by rise of cloud-first rivals

      13 June 2022

      Everything Apple announced at WWDC – in less than 500 words

      7 June 2022

      Sheryl Sandberg’s ad empire leaves a complicated legacy

      2 June 2022

      Tulipmania meets the real economy at WhatsApp speed

      30 May 2022
    • Podcasts

      How your organisation can triage its information security risk

      22 June 2022

      Everything PC S01E06 – ‘Apple Silicon’

      15 June 2022

      The youth might just save us

      15 June 2022

      Everything PC S01E05 – ‘Nvidia: The Green Goblin’

      8 June 2022

      Everything PC S01E04 – ‘The story of Intel – part 2’

      1 June 2022
    • Opinion

      Has South Africa’s advertising industry lost its way?

      21 June 2022

      Rob Lith: What Icasa’s spectrum auction means for SA companies

      13 June 2022

      A proposed solution to crypto’s stablecoin problem

      19 May 2022

      From spectrum to roads, why fixing SA’s problems is an uphill battle

      19 April 2022

      How AI is being deployed in the fight against cybercriminals

      8 April 2022
    • Company Hubs
      • 1-grid
      • Altron Document Solutions
      • Amplitude
      • Atvance Intellect
      • Axiz
      • BOATech
      • CallMiner
      • Digital Generation
      • E4
      • ESET
      • Euphoria Telecom
      • IBM
      • Kyocera Document Solutions
      • Microsoft
      • Nutanix
      • One Trust
      • Pinnacle
      • Skybox Security
      • SkyWire
      • Tarsus on Demand
      • Videri Digital
      • Zendesk
    • Sections
      • Banking
      • Broadcasting and Media
      • Cloud computing
      • Consumer electronics
      • Cryptocurrencies
      • Education and skills
      • Energy
      • Fintech
      • Information security
      • Internet and connectivity
      • Internet of Things
      • Investment
      • IT services
      • Motoring and transport
      • Public sector
      • Science
      • Social media
      • Talent and leadership
      • Telecoms
    • Advertise
    TechCentralTechCentral
    Home»Promoted Content»A tough economy and job loss fears stall IT automation

    A tough economy and job loss fears stall IT automation

    Promoted Content By Micro Focus3 March 2020
    Facebook Twitter LinkedIn WhatsApp Telegram Email

    The sad reality is that many South Africans don’t have the aptitude to re-train for jobs in the digital economy and this is hindering companies on the path to automation.

    CIOs recognise the benefits of automating their data centre processes, but the political and social fallout it will generate is making companies wary of moving too far or too fast.

    The degree to which IT decisions are influenced by social circumstances emerged clearly at a TechCentral CIO Perspectives Roundtable, sponsored by Micro Focus, to discuss “Automation Everywhere”.

    While many participants said their companies had already automated some processes, it’s clear that nobody is in a hurry.

    Data centres lie at the heart of business operations but generally still rely on manual processes with the potential for human error. Often, they’re surrounded by disjointed IT solutions built up over years, creating a complex environment where it’s hard to identify and resolve any faults. Technologies like robotic process automation (RPA) can reduce human errors, accelerate digital transformation and unlock the value of existing IT investments, but they’re not being enthusiastically embraced in South Africa. CIOs cite labour issues as the elephant in the room.

    Effective automation in a factory can put 100 low-skilled people out of work, for example, and only create a handful of new jobs requiring higher skills. The collateral damage is enormous, because the people being fired are not the same as those being hired – and few companies have the appetite to go there.

    Kelebogile Mosiane, second from left

    Airports Company South Africa (Acsa) is holding back on automation partly because of the initial cost and partly because of the human fallout. It would reduce costs in the long run, but at the expense of its people, said CTO Kelebogile Mosiane.

    Several examples of how companies in other countries have used automation, artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning to modernise their processes and create new jobs were given by Mohammed Arafat, the director of pre-sales for emerging markets with Micro Focus. Arafat said South Africa needs a cultural shift, because individuals in other countries embrace IT to help build their own entrepreneurial businesses, while glass-half-empty South Africans only fixate on how IT can put them out of business.

    Mohammed Arafat

    Veruschca Hunter, head of technology for Absa, said automation doesn’t replace people; it replaces roles and skills and opens up new opportunities. “In the past, we didn’t have coders to create chatbots, and now we need them,” she said. “From a strategy point of view, you have to look at reskilling and upskilling and keep people up to date with new technologies.” Since automation can reduce costs, reduce risks, and increase stability and resilience, both the IT department and the business units should support its implementation, she said.

    Verushca Hunter

    But Hercules Ragoleka, executive of network quality operations at Openserve, pointed out that every corporation is affected by the national agenda for education, and the country simply isn’t training enough youngsters with digital skills. As well as failing to equip the next generation with those skills, the country also lacks a social system able to support older workers who face redundancy. The fourth Industrial Revolution will require fewer people with different skills, and some people can’t be reskilled, he said.

    Hercules Ragoleka, right

    An extra word of warning came from Steve Jump, Telkom’s head of corporate information security governance. If a company has a list of human employees and a list of the robots it uses, “you need to make sure that list never comes out”, he said. “If people start seeing robots appearing on the SAP list, I don’t want to be in that room.”

    Steve Jump, left

    The panellists acknowledged that 50 years ago, Japan, South Korea and Singapore were no different, and now it’s South Africa’s turn to tackle the issue. That requires a growth mindset from the government and private sector business leaders with a vision that looks at least 20 to 30 years ahead. If that doesn’t happen, the negative long-term consequences of not adapting for a technology-led future will far outweigh the short-term pain of making the necessary moves now.

    Despite the reticence caused by the social impact, CIOs largely agree that automation is a necessary step. One of its benefits is the ability to instantly identify where a problem is occurring, such as a piece of malfunctioning code, an employee trying to access something they shouldn’t, or an attempted external attack. It can instantly triage the problem so the IT team sees where the problem lies and initiates a fix.

    Jump is a fan of RPA because it allows for far better oversight of what’s happening in the systems. He believes automation is unavoidable but sees massive problems behind its apparent simplicity if it just adds a “fluffy wrapper” around the underlying issues you want to get rid of.

    Changing the technology will still leave the same problems if you don’t update the core processes too, said Hunter. Many businesses still use ancient processes that are now irrelevant or adequate, but nobody has revisited them, she said.

    Eskom is introducing automation slowly, starting with some low hanging fruit, said chief IT adviser Thabo Mashegoane. One early win has been a self-service password reset project. “This facility has been fantastic to have and it’s a form of putting the power back to the end user. It’s very successful,” he said.

    Thabo Mashegoane

    However, if a company runs on legacy systems developed by people who have now retired, the systems may be too fragile to automate, Ragoleka warns. “The circumstances on the ground for every business dictate the strategy. Some systems you can’t automate because you don’t want to touch them. You can’t automate passwords on a system you are scared to even reboot, because if it doesn’t come back up nobody can help you.”

    Abdul Baba, centre

    Right now, automation isn’t on the agenda for most heads of IT because of the parlous state of the economy, said Abdul Baba, a non-executive director with Computer Aid International. “They realise they need to redesign their business architecture to get to the fourth Industrial Revolution. We need to look at what the priorities are, but the transformation journey is taking too long because of the economic problems.”

    • This promoted content was paid for by the party concerned
    Abdul Baba Hercules Ragoleka Kelebogile Mosiane Micro Focus Mohammed Arafat Steve Jump Thabo Mashegoane Verushca Hunter
    Share. Facebook Twitter LinkedIn WhatsApp Telegram Email
    Previous ArticleSouth Africa plunged back into recession in 2019
    Next Article Cosatu pressures government over Eskom debt, broadband spectrum

    Related Posts

    More than card machines – iKhokha diversifies to reach more SMEs

    22 June 2022

    What does it cost to be a student in 2022?

    22 June 2022

    Rugged PCs bring AI to the edge in industrial settings

    21 June 2022
    Add A Comment

    Comments are closed.

    Promoted

    More than card machines – iKhokha diversifies to reach more SMEs

    22 June 2022

    What does it cost to be a student in 2022?

    22 June 2022

    Rugged PCs bring AI to the edge in industrial settings

    21 June 2022
    Opinion

    Has South Africa’s advertising industry lost its way?

    21 June 2022

    Rob Lith: What Icasa’s spectrum auction means for SA companies

    13 June 2022

    A proposed solution to crypto’s stablecoin problem

    19 May 2022

    Subscribe to Updates

    Get the best South African technology news and analysis delivered to your e-mail inbox every morning.

    © 2009 - 2022 NewsCentral Media

    Type above and press Enter to search. Press Esc to cancel.