The UK has a new Primę Minister - allegedly a charismatic, left-leaning one. He is looking to change things - lots of things. He claims to be supportive of business but we will have to wait and see. What I want are policy and actions that will support businesses in increasing their productivity - support for
Automation has long been championed as a driver of higher productivity in the manufacturing sector. It has been very successful in some areas - most often in high volume manufacturing operations such as automotive and computing. We are all used to seeing robots carrying out activities such as welding car parts. However in lower
Are you enjoying the period of hot weather we are in the middle of (in the UK)? Some people don't but most seem to like it. Of course it may depend on your work situation. If you can work from home in your tee shirt and shorts, you might think the hot weather
Most western democracies are going through turbulent economic times. Of course, recently we have had the various troubles relating, at least in part , to Donald Trump - tariffs that seem to change on a whim - and wars and unrest that seem to pop up with increasing speed. But Western woes predate the current
In most organisations, outputs come not from the work of individuals but from the work of teams. In our new AI-powered and supported world, how do we build teams that include chatbots or robots. To be honest, I don't know - and I suspect that very few others do. Like people involved in ream-building I
Lots of people, and organisations, are looking to AI to give them a productivity boost. Of course it might do so by improving the speed, accuracy or value of specific processes or transactions. However, those of you who read this blog regularly will know that I often warn about using any technology to speed up
The exhortation above is not meant for my 'normal' readers (assuming some of you are normal) but for the politicians who face some big choices and decisions over the next few years. We have heard a lot over the last 20 years about the threat of automation to jobs (especially manual jobs). Now we have the
Over the last several decades society - and work - have become more complex, more complicated - with vast increases in rules, regulations and associated bureaucracy. This has created entire layers of employment focused on managing this complexity. In both the public and private sectors, millions are primarily engaged in navigating rules sand ensuring compliance.
There seems to be two major views about the impact of the increasing use of AI on the productivity of organisations. One school of thought suggests that AI can streamline processes and systems, enhance knowledge and skills and generally have a positive impact on productivity. . The other ays that AI will simply reduce costs
We all know that productivity growth has slowed over the last decade. There have been numerous shocks to the global economy and trading system - the biggest being the financial crisis and the COVID epidemic - and catalysts such as advancing technology have lost their impetus as dramatic change (in the technology) has slowed. Of