Analysts face challenges categorizing technologies, such as automation platforms, which converge RPA, BPM, IDP, and ML, including NLP. This happens when the law of diminishing returns affects individual categories. For example, an RPA solution may hit limits due to process complexity and scope, driving the need for more powerful solutions with broader functionality.

The fourteenth annual Sarbanes-Oxley Compliance Survey finds that 74% of organizations seek opportunities to further enable automation, while 58% reported increased hours spent on compliance in the last year. Companies are prioritizing investments in automation and broader enabling technologies, such as artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) to support SOX compliance activities. These technologies help counteract pressure from the PCAOB and external auditors to increase scope and procedures. The SEC’s recently adopted rules related to cybersecurity disclosures and highly anticipated climate disclosure rules only increase the potential for expanded scope.

While most organizations continue to spend more hours on their SOX compliance activities year-over-year, digital leaders have reported experiencing a lesser impact of increasing hours, which suggests they are gaining advantages through greater use of technology (including automation) in the SOX compliance process. 51% of survey respondents utilized technology tools in the testing of controls for their fiscal year, marking a yearly increase of 5%.

Forrester predicts that employment protection initiatives instituted during the pandemic will diminish incentives and further delay CIOs’ plans for automation across Europe. This is despite the fact that 76% of European organizations are already underprepared for automation compared to 65% in Asia Pacific and 73% in North America.

The evolution towards an autonomous supply chain has already begun, and this transformation coincides and is driven by members of Generation Z (Gen Z), that have just started to enter the workforce, according to Gartner, Inc. Today’s supply chain leaders expect them to be innovators that accelerate supply chain digitalization and pave the way towards hyperautomation.

The pandemic-fueled digitization of global marketing and sales and an increasing number of marketing channels targeting niche audiences will contribute to the growth of the marketing automation sector over the next five years. The market is forecast to increase from $2.9 billion in 2020 to $6.6 billion in 2026.

Smart automation technologies such as robotic process automation, conversational interfaces, and cognitive automation can enable typical IT organizations to improve productivity by up to 23% while helping them reduce costs, improve effectiveness, and enhance customer experience, according to new world-class IT research from The Hackett Group, Inc.

Intelligent automation will transform workplace outsourcing according to Gartner, Inc. Sourcing and vendor management leaders must prepare to restructure these services and renegotiate contracts to leverage intelligent automation, Gartner noted Nov. 13.