When particular areas are automated then what is provided from automation becomes the competitive ante. The work and the activity will be to add more. This could mean creating more locations or finding ways to use more people to provide a better or more convenient experience. What businesses will need to understand is where will people be willing to pay for concierge service?
The concierge serves guests of an apartment building, hotel, cruise ship or office building. High-end concierges provide for the demanding needs of wealthy customers.
Whatever is automated will become the basic service and product level. People and companies will need to keep finding new ways to go beyond whatever the new basic level becomes.
Banks, ATMs and High-Levels of Service
There were a lot of automated teller machines (ATM) installed in the mid to late 1990s. There are now over 400,000 installed in the USA. There was a brief year dip in the number of employed tellers but the number of bank tellers increased.
Selling and Customer Relations
The average bank branch in an urban area used required about 21 tellers. ATM machines reduced the staff at each bank branch to 13 tellers. Bank branches were cheaper to operate, so banks increased the branches to compete for more customers.
Bank tellers shifted from cash handlers to become a marketing person. They were part of the customer relations team.
Mobile banking is projected to reduce the number of tellers by 8% over the next decade.
Bloomberg Video Shows Full Automation of a Smartphone Assembly Line
Bloomberg indicates how an 80 person smartphone assembly line was fully automated. There were about ten to twenty jobs. There was the one person per shift performing final inspection. There were the engineers designing, installing and maintaining the robots. There were also still people needed to modify the line to handle changes.
In terms of the future, South Korea has the highest number of robots per 10,000 manufacturing workers. They had 631 workers per 10,000 human manufacturing workers. South Korea has about 3.4% unemployment. South Korea has over three times the industrial robot density as the USA and about nine times the robot density of China.
Agriculture and Food Service Jobs
Agriculture used to involve 80-90% of the workforce. Different countries shifted from agricultural work at different times. Developed countries with low agriculture workforces also have about 10% of the workforce in food service. This is for a range of restaurants and for supermarkets. Higher quality meals with greater food preparation and service is offered.
Factory Produced Ramen Versus a Few People With Ramen Restaurants
Japan has many ramen restaurants. Those restaurants often have very few people working in them. People can buy factory produced ramen and some of the factory produced ramen can be very high quality.
Japan has many restaurants. Small restaurants tend to have no wait staff. They have counters and chefs deliver the meals directly to customers. People order their meals from automated ticketing machines.
The number of restaurants and the restaurant density is based upon the culture and lifestyle of a city. How much do people go out to eat.
Brian Wang is a Futurist Thought Leader and a popular Science blogger with 1 million readers per month. His blog Nextbigfuture.com is ranked #1 Science News Blog. It covers many disruptive technology and trends including Space, Robotics, Artificial Intelligence, Medicine, Anti-aging Biotechnology, and Nanotechnology.
Known for identifying cutting edge technologies, he is currently a Co-Founder of a startup and fundraiser for high potential early-stage companies. He is the Head of Research for Allocations for deep technology investments and an Angel Investor at Space Angels.
A frequent speaker at corporations, he has been a TEDx speaker, a Singularity University speaker and guest at numerous interviews for radio and podcasts. He is open to public speaking and advising engagements.