Tuesday 23rd Jan, 2018
By Racel Duk. IBM is continuing to invest heavily in Watson, and as this iconic gentleman of the cognitive computing scene approaches his second decade, he’s embarking on something of an image makeover. In short: Watson’s getting serious. By IBM’s own admission Watson was created under pressure; the firm wanted to showcase its technological prowess to the world. And while Watson certainly dazzled—winning the quiz show ‘Jeopardy!’ in 2011 against human competitors—at his core was a man of far less substance than the Watson we see today. Watson is still out to cause a stir, but his realm has moved beyond the desktop and he is now making waves across diverse fields—including retail, aviation and even oncology.
Wednesday 22nd Nov, 2017
By Fiona Czerniawska.
Interviewed recently by the BBC on the impact automation is likely to have on the professional services sector, I was asked whether I thought that all the work done by professional service firms could be done by computers. The answer, to me at least, is clearly no.
Imagine the future of consulting—as we have in our report on the potential impact of robotic process automation and artificial intelligence—on the industry, as a partial eclipse. The sun is the work that conventional human consultants do today. It, and the rays emerging from it, represent different aspects of the consulting process: discover; predict; advise; decide; design; implement; run and report. Technology is the moon. But, even as the moon moves across the face of the sun it won’t entirely obscure the latter’s light: Around the edge, a corona of human activity will continue to shine.
Tuesday 12th Sep, 2017
By Fiona Czerniawska.
There are two ways to answer this question.
In the first place, it’s highly likely that the current surge of interest in robotic process automation will generate demand for consulting support–indeed, most firms are already seeing this. Eighty-one percent of clients say they’ll need consulting support in this area, far higher than for more conventional consulting services. And the reasons are obvious: this is a new field, packed to the gills with different technology options. Coming up with a sensible strategy will depend on being able to tap into the world’s small number of genuine experts, most of whom have already been snapped up by prescient consulting firms.
But all this starts to look like small beer if we take a step back.
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