For economist David Autor, the 2020 employment crisis will be further exaggerated by what he calls “automation forcing.”
In his view, social distancing requirements and stay-at-home orders may drive temporary labor shortages, forcing firms to leverage emerging technologies to get things done with fewer people.
One way out of the dystopian cycle of automation and job loss is if more organizations can harness technology to reimagine work — rather than merely replace it.
One of the best examples of a traditional organization leveraging technology to disrupt an adjacent market is Marcus by Goldman Sachs.
At a time when many banks are leveraging basic automation to cut their operating costs, Goldman approached the digital transformation challenge differently.
After speaking to more than 10,000 consumers, Talwar and his team identified that people had three big pain points with typical retail banks — a fragmented and confusing relationship with money, opaqueness around the borrowing process, and frustration at the lack of respect for their savings.
Goldman, which has expressed an ambition to create its own “Financial Cloud,” is now looking to extend its reach into other parts of the financial ecosystem by providing customers with APIs into its transaction banking and risk management platforms.
As Dargan at UBS puts it, “Banking is technology, but technology is people.”
One thing is sure: the successful firms of the future will be those that can leverage data, algorithms, and human talent to both sidestep industry boundaries and creatively meet customer needs.