The robot in the gray flannel suit

What’s one of the major obstacles to a broader adoption of robotics — and the creation of a new digital workplace — across the oil and gas industry?

For many executives, it’s the word “robotics” itself, which conjures up images of shiny metallic androids rolling down the hallways, with lights blinking and sounds beeping.

That’s why I prefer the more accurate term “digital labor,” which is a great way to describe this rapidly growing technology. Digital labor is software that resides on your existing network and performs a broad range of repetitive, transactional tasks for functions such as accounting, finance, tax, human resources, supply chain management and more.

Digital labor isn’t a vision from the future. It’s here today, and it’s actually easy and inexpensive to deploy, with a return on investment that takes only weeks, not years.

Think of digital labor as a “virtual employee” — one who works around the clock and never needs a day off. It can work faster than its human counterparts, without making an error. It keeps a perfect audit trail and improves data security by limiting the number of people who have access to sensitive information and systems.

Because it’s always “on,” a virtual employee can be utilized by multiple functions in a single day; for example, uploading job description data and communicating onboarding information for HR during working hours, and collecting and formatting tax data when its human coworkers go home at night. Or, it can be redeployed from performing daily tasks and used to assist a department when workloads are heavy.

Perhaps most importantly, digital labor frees your existing workforce from tedious, time-consuming tasks and allows them to focus their attention on value-added or customer-facing activities. Employees supported by digital labor can spend more time building relationships, conducting analyses, making judgments, and managing change and improvement.

For oil and gas companies looking to enhance competitiveness in a lower-for-longer price environment, digital labor provides a wealth of benefits with minimal investment. To learn how EY can help your company move toward a digital workplace, visit: go.ey.com/2mfuHlB.

For more on digital in oil and gas, check out: ey.com/oilandgas/digital.

Share your thoughts on this issue by leaving a comment below or contact me to discuss further.