Cognitive Solutions in Business Efficiency and Performance

5 min readNov 20, 2020

In this age of technology, business leaders should bring in cognitive solutions that will bring efficiency and employees will improve their performance.

Big Data, Artificial Intelligence, Intelligent Automation, and Cognitive AI are buzzwords that business leaders cannot afford to ignore. In today’s digital era, enterprises must draw out a crystal clear stratagem where leaders and employees at all levels embrace the new-fangled wave of technology.

In this blog post, we explain important aspects of cognitive solutions that business leaders should know about. Read on to find out what cognitive solutions are, why they are important, and how enterprises can benefit from leveraging these futuristic technologies.

What are Cognitive Solutions?

Cognitive solutions, also known as cognitive technology solutions, are a subset of the broader field of artificial intelligence. They facilitate self-learning by leveraging algorithmic capabilities in artificial intelligence, machine learning, and deep learning, extending the IT’s power to tasks conventionally completed by humans. Cognitive automation imitates human thinking — like natural language processing, image processing and contextual analysis.

One distinguished innovation that has become symbolic of cognitive technology is IBM Watson, which hit the headlines by winning the US quiz show Jeopardy. The supercomputer is said to have a processing rate of 80 teraflops that it utilizes to ‘think’ as well as — or better than — a human brain. Netflix is another famous company that’s applying cognitive AI to predict which movies a user will like, a feature that has greatly contributed to the streaming media service’s success.

Why are Cognitive Solutions Important?

Cognitive IT solutions are among the algorithmic technologies that are ushering in a new exciting era of intelligence across many sectors, including insurance, healthcare, financial services, and manufacturing. The important question here is — why are they important?

With their ability to take up significant amounts of data, cognitive solutions create unprecedented possibilities across every enterprise domain. The following are the reasons why business leaders should seriously consider leveraging cognitive solutions:

1. It Boosts Operational Efficiency

With a capacious amount of unstructured data growing exponentially, from emails and documents to images and videos, organizations are now looking to make data-driven decisions more than ever. The sad reality is that keeping pace with the escalating flow of unstructured data is a real hassle.

For organizations with large datasets requiring collecting and synchronizing data from disparate sources, cognitive technology solutions are god-sent. With a cognitive solution, organizations can automate complex workloads, removing repetitive and burdensome data-intensive work. Ultimately, automation boosts employee productivity, leading to better operational efficiency.

Besides automating data-intensive processes, cognitive solutions are valuable in assisting cybersecurity professionals in discovering and thwarting security threats. The technology has also become a handy tool for marketing agencies, as it supplies them with valuable insights about the demographics they are targeting.

Other organizations that are taking advantage of cognitive technology solutions are call centers. With the help of cognitive AI, call centers can handle numerous inquiries automatically.

2. It Minimizes Human Errors

Everyday life is swamped with human errors, and as we always say as a justification — to err is human. According to The Mirror, the average person is estimated to make 773,618 decisions in their lifetime and will come to lament over 143,000 of them. Considering that most humans spend at least 40 hours per work week at their workplace, it is right to say that a good portion of the many regretted decisions are work-related.

Research indicates that the majority of accidents during the production process occur as a result of human error. Several factors that contribute to human error, including lack of enterprise training, employee’s own physical and psychological factors, lack of adequate social environment, and defective management systems.

In the digital age, enterprises can rely on an algorithm to reduce the risk of human error in their interactions with complex systems. Once implemented, cognitive technology solutions can help enterprises minimize the following types of human errors:

● Procedural-related errors

These types of human errors are linked to poorly-implemented procedures, deficient instructions, and employee’s choice not to follow them. Cognitive AI applications leverage procedural knowledge, which is often represented as a fractional or complete finite-state computer program. The implementation of cognitive solutions, therefore, helps to eliminate procedural-errors.

● Cognitive errors

Fatigue, stress, and illnesses are problems that tend to impede employee’s concentration, memory, and decision-making process. When employees are ill, fatigued, or stressed, they are highly likely to make costly cognitive errors. One way to make these types of human errors, a thing of the past is to implement a cognitive solution. Since cognitive solutions automate a huge percentage of the tasks, human errors can be eliminated altogether.

A good example of how cognitive artificial intelligence helps minimize errors is reflected in this case study. It involves the manufacturing department of a Consumer Packaged Goods company that requires regular risk assessments to ensure concerns are addressed in time. Using Robotic Process Automation enabled the company to see an 80 percent reduction in manual processing. The company also gained a steadier, improved risk-control environment.

3. It Reduces Labor Hours

Regrettably, many employees waste their precious time working on unnecessary and futile administrative tasks. This often leads to the replication of efforts. Lack of efficiency at the workplace makes simple data-entry tasks take unnecessarily longer than they should.

With cognitive solutions, tedious and highly repeatable tasks can be automated. It can handle most of the laborious and time-consuming tasks that often strain productivity, such as automating certain production management elements and solving user tech issues. The automation of monotonous tasks enables employees to reserve their precious working hours and spend them on more important projects.

In due course, cognitive AI can boost productivity to the point where working hours can be reasonably reduced. With AI technology, 40 percent of jobs could be automated, potentially saving employees up to 18 hours out of the 40 hours they work per week. That leaves a lot of wiggle room for a condensed work week.

4. It Minimizes Operating Costs

As the famous adage goes, wasted time is money lost. It has been established that many employees spend a lot of time on manual, monotonous tasks. Having competent employees spending a significant amount of their valuable time on time-wasting tasks rather than on critical activities is not only a waste of time, but it’s also a complete waste of money.

One of the noteworthy benefits is that cognitive automation can help organizations to minimize operating costs. With a cognitive solution, tedious and highly repetitive tasks can now be automated, allowing employees to reserve their precious working hours for more critical and value-adding projects. Cognitive automation can help companies save up half of their total spending on Full-Time Equivalent (FTE) and other related operational costs.

Hire Roots Automation and Enjoy Cognitive Benefits

In the age of cognitive AI, the old saying “work smarter, not harder” gets a new meaning. If you are looking to enlarge your automation horizon and automate various repetitive and time-wasting tasks, you should seriously consider working with a reliable Cognitive Process Automation service provider. In this case, Roots Automation is your best bet.