A human resources department that manages a range of duties from strategic planning, employee welfare, and preserving employee branding is crucial for practically all firms throughout the world. The HR department is always working on a variety of projects that have to do with developing hiring strategies, employee training, payroll, employee welfare, and other things. However, it is challenging for HR professionals to keep up with the pace and manage all the tasks with the growing employee strength and strong attention to keeping the company's identity. In this situation, technology has become the HR department's saviour. There are excellent opportunities to considerably reduce the HR effort given the current need for AI and automation for recruiting and employee engagement activities.

Were you unable to attend Transform 2022? Check out all of the summit sessions in our on-demand library now! Unlocking greater performance gains in warehouses using artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) helps make supply chains more resilient and capable of bouncing back faster from disruptions. Unfortunately, the severity and frequency of supply chain disruptions are increasing, with McKinsey finding that, on average, companies experience a disruption of one to two months in duration every 3.7 years. Over a decade, the financial fallout of supply chain disruptions in the consumer goods sector can equal 30% of a year's earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization (EBITDA).

Business process management is now a mature discipline. It has formal approaches, methods, techniques and a rich set of concepts. It has also evolved to the point where it is applied to projects of all sizes and supports both business process improvement and business transformation. As BPM evolved, so did the enterprise's business processes. They became too large and complex to be managed without automated tool support.

But its introduction requires focus on governance, highlighted recently by the publication in the UK of the Office for Artificial Intelligence's (OIA) National AI Strategy. Although there is an increasing body of general guidance from the OIA there is little which explicitly relates to human resources – but HR professionals' insight should be embedded wherever the use of AI by the business impacts on people. HR professionals could consider specialising in AI in order to meaningfully advise on how AI affects the workforce in a variety of contexts. AI is a challenging and specialised field, which can be complicated by technical vocabulary. Specialist HR input is crucial to the success of an AI proposition.

Companies are under mounting pressure from regulators, investors, and consumers to progress toward more sustainable and socially responsible business operations -- and to demonstrate these measures in a robust and verifiable way. In fact, corporate responsibility and environmental sustainability risks tied as the third highest concerns for organizations, as ranked by large corporations in a 2021 Forrester report. However, the various types of data that companies need to understand and report on sustainability initiatives remains highly fragmented and difficult for all relevant parties to access. To help organizations respond to these challenges, IBM has acquired Envizi, a leading data and analytics software provider for environmental performance management. Envizi complements IBM's growing portfolio of AI-powered software -- including IBM Maximo asset management solutions, IBM Sterling supply chain solutions and IBM Environmental Intelligence Suite -- to help companies assess the impacts of the environment on business and of business on the environment.

Distribution centers provide a controlled environment that is ideal for testing and proving complex technologies like drones and robots. That's also one reason why DCs are experimenting heavily with Artificial Intelligence (AI). An independent research survey commissioned by Lucas Systems found that the majority of companies are already using AI in their warehouses and distribution/fulfillment operations. The survey also revealed that operators view cost, complexity, and lack of understanding of how to use AI as key impediments to further investments. In reality, AI will make it easier and less costly for DCs of all sizes to address warehouse optimization challenges like slotting and workforce planning.

Any unnecessary downtime can be expensive for pharmaceutical manufacturing operations. What's more, unplanned stoppages can delay the delivery of much-needed product, potentially causing damage to a company's reputation. David Leitham, senior vice president and general manager at industrial artificial intelligence (AI) technology firm AspenTech, recently spoke with Outsourcing-Pharma (OSP) about how AI can be put to use to help predict when maintenance is needed, and avoid unplanned or over-maintenance. OSP: Could you please share an'elevator presentation' description of AspenTech? DL: AspenTech develops software to help customers in capital-intensive industries (such as energy, chemicals, and pharmaceuticals), address their biggest challenges: delivering increased value to stakeholders, responding to an evolving global population, and reducing environmental impact and waste.

As we near the end of this year, it's time to watch out for emerging HR trends in 2020. According to Forrester, more than 47% of interviewed executives believe that by 2020, technology will have an impact on more than half of their sales as well as the future workplace trends. Organizations will focus on embracing HR technology to their advantage, strengthening workforce capabilities, ensuring data security, improving candidate and employee experiences, and more. In the year 2020, AI-driven solutions will provide immense innovation in industries including Banking, Finance, Manufacturing, Retail, Healthcare, Transportation, Social Media, etc. Organizations will adopt AI and use it in recruitment and hiring processes. AI-powered solutions will rule in the year ahead with the following advantages.

Execution and delivery - do not let projects get stuck, remove roadblocks from the team before they are reached, getting your hands dirty in the code by doing the pieces in the gaps that would cause too great a context switch for your team Proactive communication - engaging with the team's stakeholders to anticipate their needs, delivering on them, or transparently adjusting expectations People management - coaching, mentoring, and performance management are all critical traits of a people manager. The team needs to understand what is expected of them and more importantly, they need to want to put in the extra effort to ensure you and they are successful Productionalized machine learning knowledge - delivery of machine learning models into a high scale production environment. Worked with Analytics teams and Product teams and understands the differences. Proactive communication - engaging with the team's stakeholders to anticipate their needs, delivering on them, or transparently adjusting expectations People management - coaching, mentoring, and performance management are all critical traits of a people manager. Worked with Analytics teams and Product teams and understands the differences.

The A-level results drama last month has placed a lot of attention on how algorithms are used in decision-making. As the use of AI expands, Esther Langdon looks at how organisations can make sure they get the best out of AI while keeping its outcomes fair. Artificial intelligence and algorithms have been very much in the news recently, following the recent A-level results fiasco. Can an algorithm eradicate bias in decision making? Stories of young students whose hopes were dashed simply because the "computer says no" made headlines for several days.