Why IT automation is key to digital transformation

February 2020: remember the date because this was when the world finally agreed that the only way to survive was by adopting technology wholeheartedly. Collaboration for designing and delivering the vaccine needed to quell COVID19, or for family time, or to ensure your business was sustainable. Welcome to the 4th Humanity Revolution with technology as the engine and attitude and behavior changes as drivers of the innovation culture. In this article, I will explain the actions you can do today to get started and the benefits of using technology to automate your IT services.

Every poll taken shows that digital transformation is imperative of every organization, regardless of size and scope. But what does the phrase “digital transformation” mean? 

• Digital: Relating to or being a device that can generate, record, process, receive, transmit, or display information represented in discrete numerical form over devices connected to the internet.

• Transformation: A marked change, as in appearance, behavior, character, or way of achieving something, usually for the better.

Digital Transformation is the alterations you make to how you work, collaborate, obtain and build products or services and improve them continuously. It is fast, experimentative, and needs the focus of leaders, staff, and vendor-partners working together to keep the business in business. It is mostly based on an integrated set of technology tools: cloud, data storage, mining, engagement, recording, problem-solving, measurement and report, and governance. It implies that you have changed the way you work such that the result is better than whatever you were doing beforehand.

Moved your staff to Zoom or your applications to the cloud? Fantastic! But neither of these are digital transformations unless you can prove that the impact is a better and safer way of working while also satisfying customers.

What is IT automation?

If you've been googling “what is IT automation,” then you're likely looking for a solution to automate your organization's IT infrastructure. IT automation involves the use of software to execute repetitive IT processes, significantly reducing the likelihood of human error. This approach streamlines processes from start to finish, effectively removing the need for manual intervention in routine tasks. For instance, instead of depending on an IT helpdesk worker to manually assign tickets, IT automation can efficiently direct these tickets to the appropriate employee. This not only enhances the workload of IT staff, allowing them to focus on more complex projects, but also optimizes the overall IT infrastructure management.

The implementation of IT automation can lead to considerable savings, while also improving speed and security within an organization. IT teams, liberated from the burden of monotonous tasks, can redirect their focus towards more strategic projects. Automation enables the scaling of business operations through cloud automation, transforming processes that previously took hours or days into tasks that are completed in seconds. This shift not only boosts productivity but also enhances the agility of the business in responding to changing needs and opportunities.

What are the benefits of IT automation?

There are numerous benefits of IT automation software. Keep reading to see how your business’s IT landscape can improve the orchestration of your team based on specific use cases.

Reducing errors

One of the primary benefits of IT automation (sometimes referred to as business process automation outside of the IT landscape) is the significant reduction in errors. By eliminating the human element in repetitive tasks, both your team and customers are less likely to encounter mistakes. For example, manual data entry is susceptible to mistakes, which can lead to serious issues for your organization. IT automation mitigates this risk, ensuring accuracy and reliability in your operations.

Enhancing processing speed

IT automation greatly increases processing speeds, whether it's in ticket delivery or shortening application deployment timelines. Traditionally, deploying applications is a time-consuming process, but with IT automation, these processing times are reduced drastically. This acceleration not only improves service delivery but also enhances overall operational efficiency.

Boosting efficiency

Your IT team is an invaluable asset, but their skills may be underutilized if they are bogged down with manual, repetitive tasks. IT automation alleviates this burden, allowing them to concentrate on larger, more strategic projects. This shift not only optimizes the use of your IT team's expertise but also streamlines your entire IT operation, making it more agile and responsive to changing needs.

Increasing security and cost savings

Automation leads to enhanced security, as it reduces the number of IT managers needing access to sensitive data and passwords (typically stored in a secure data center). With fewer individuals involved, the risk of security breaches decreases. Automation can also integrate security measures into processes, standardizing them and ensuring the deployment of appropriate controls. Additionally, IT automation brings about cost savings by streamlining tasks and projects. This efficiency reduces the need for labor-intensive work, saving money for your organization. Moreover, by preventing common mistakes associated with human error, IT automation helps avoid potentially costly issues.

Optimized ticket management

One of the key benefits of IT automation in issue resolution is its ability to manage ticket workload efficiently. By automatically assigning tickets based on current workloads and expertise, IT automation ensures that no single team member is overwhelmed and that each issue is addressed by the most suitable staff. This balanced distribution of tasks helps in resolving tickets within optimal timeframes, contributing to overall operational efficiency.

Transparency and real-time tracking

IT staff benefit from a transparent view of ticket times and statuses at all times, thanks to IT automation. This visibility allows for real-time tracking of issues, enabling staff to respond proactively to changes or escalations in ticket status. Such transparency not only aids in internal management but also enhances accountability and responsiveness.

Challenges of IT automation to consider

While IT automation offers numerous benefits, it also presents certain challenges that organizations need to navigate:

• Upfront costs: Implementing IT automation requires a significant initial investment. It's crucial to carefully plan your automation strategy to align with your company's needs and objectives. A well-thought-out approach will justify the investment and pave the way for a favorable return on investment (ROI).

• Automated errors: While IT automation significantly reduces human errors, it's not immune to errors of its own, especially if the automation tools are not set up correctly from the outset. To mitigate this risk, it's important to conduct thorough reviews and testing of the tools to ensure their accuracy and effectiveness.

• Challenges in scaling: Scaling IT automation can be a complex task, particularly if there is a shortage of skilled personnel or a lack of expertise in your organization. In such cases, it may be necessary to seek external experts who can assist in scaling your IT automation at a pace that aligns with your company's growth and needs.

What are the best practices of IT automation?

When introducing IT automation into your company, it's important to approach the rollout with care. Here are some best practices to ensure a smooth transition:

Effective communication with staff

Ensuring everyone is on board and understands the change is crucial when implementing IT automation. Engage managers in the process so they can effectively communicate the rollout to their teams. Staff may initially be reluctant to embrace change, so it's important to clearly articulate the benefits of IT automation and how it will positively impact them in both the short and long term. Allocate time for addressing questions and consider one-on-one meetings if necessary. Appoint a project leader to oversee this transition, field questions, ensure adherence to best practices, and track goals and progress.

Focusing on long-term goals

While IT automation has the potential to streamline complex processes, it's advisable to start with automating simpler, less complex tasks before tackling larger ones. Keep the bigger picture in mind and plan how IT automation will fit into your long-term strategy.

Selecting the right tasks for automation

Choose processes for automation with care, focusing on repetitive, time-consuming tasks within your IT department. Tasks prone to errors or those requiring frequent fixes are also good candidates. However, tasks that need significant human intervention or customization may not be suitable for automation. Aim to automate tasks that will contribute to your company's success and support its long-term objectives.

Highlighting key features of IT automation

Before rolling out IT automation, ensure that leaders, stakeholders, and employees understand its positive aspects. Discuss how IT automation aligns with specific business goals. Develop a manageable rollout schedule to avoid intimidation and follow up post-implementation with opportunities for feedback, suggestions for process improvement, and addressing any concerns.

Why should you consider using IT automation?

IT automation is a game-changer for managing repetitive tasks that often consume a significant portion of your IT team's time. These tasks, while necessary, typically require minimal critical thinking and can lead to a sense of monotony and dissatisfaction among your IT professionals. By automating these routine activities, IT automation frees your team from the tedium, allowing them to focus on more complex, fulfilling projects that demand their expertise and creative problem-solving skills.

One of the key strengths of IT automation lies in its use of AI. AI-driven automation can intelligently handle processes, learning, and adapting over time to optimize performance. This not only increases efficiency but also reduces the likelihood of errors that can occur with manual processing. AI in IT automation can anticipate needs, predict potential issues, and provide solutions, thereby enhancing the overall effectiveness of your IT operations.

IT automation is particularly beneficial regardless of your organization's sector, be it healthcare, education, or any other industry with a large network infrastructure. In environments like hospitals or schools, where IT systems are critical for day-to-day operations, automating repetitive tasks ensures that your IT team can dedicate their time and skills to more impactful areas. This shift not only improves the productivity of your IT team but also contributes significantly to the smoother running of your entire organization.

Moreover, IT automation can play a pivotal role in scaling your IT infrastructure to meet growing demands. As your organization expands, the ability to efficiently manage increased workloads without proportionally increasing the IT staff becomes essential. Automation provides a scalable solution, enabling your IT infrastructure to adapt and grow seamlessly with your organization.

Types of IT automation

IT automation can revolutionize a wide array of processes within your organization, streamlining operations and enhancing efficiency. Here are some key examples of how IT automation can be effectively utilized:

• Streamlined offboarding: When an employee leaves, IT automation can handle the revocation of their access to various groups or accounts, ensuring security protocols are maintained.

• Cloud automation: Automating cloud operations can significantly improve efficiency, from managing cloud resources to optimizing cloud services for cost and performance.

• Enterprise chatbots for employee queries: Chatbots can answer simple questions from employees, providing immediate assistance and freeing up IT staff for more complex issues.

• Escalation of high-priority tickets: Automations in ITSM ticketing systems can identify and escalate high-priority tickets to the relevant stakeholders, ensuring urgent issues receive prompt attention.

• New hire equipment and software setup: Automation ensures that new hires receive all necessary devices, pre-configured with the required software, streamlining the onboarding process.

• Application usage tracking: By tracking which apps employees use most frequently, IT automation can help identify and eliminate unnecessary spend on underutilized software and subscriptions.

• Access level management: IT automation can assign appropriate access levels to employees for various applications, enhancing security and compliance.

• Network management: Automated network management includes monitoring network performance, managing bandwidth, and ensuring network security.

How to automate IT

The first step is for leadership to take a holistic view of what they want to achieve, why they want to accomplish this, how they will know, and what has to occur to make the vision happen. Every process within the organization is mapped as a chain of tasks, with each action reviewed for effort, time, quality, and value outcome. 

This amount of data requires IT automation tools (technology) to derive the possible options and enable employees to begin to work differently. The cloud can help by acting as your inexpensive sandpit to try various tools and process changes to affirm the desired results. 

Opportunities for IT automation:

• Removal manual and repetitive tasks

• Convert manual tasks into end-to-end workflow automation

• Create an IT environment that reflects the needs of the team

• Increase functionality and capacity of the team

• Gathering intelligence on customer issues and demand

• Monitor time and quality of work along the value chain

• Alert on issues to allow teams to swarm solutions 

• Obtain feedback and deliver this information to teams to support decisions on products and services: new, pivot, or stop

• Escalation to leadership for direction and support

Leaving IT process automation in IT delivers little value. Only when business processes are improved by technology can you wholly derive the transformation required to perform digitally. For example, service desks are typically reactive, which annoys customers who can move to a new service with a couple of clicks.  What if the Service Desk could send a message informing the customer of possible weather-related delays or requested their input on proposed changes to services by adding them to the design sandpit? Now the Service Desk is viewed as the face of that business that encourages customer attraction and retention. This would be impossible if the processes were not linked and automated. 

What actions do you need to take to begin automating IT processes?

We suggest asking the following questions to create automated systems for your IT tasks:

• How do we do things today? 

• What problems do we see, or what areas have we not yet provided a reasonable solution?

• What data do you need, where is it generated, what resources are required, time of actions, continuity needs, security, and compliance?  

• How long does each action take and what do we have to ensure that it is of quality?

• Do we need Robotic Process Automation (or RPA) to use chatbots or other software bots to do repetitive tasks through templates, algorithms, automation technologies, and more?

• And our favorite question: What if? What if we used artificial intelligence to sort through the data and, based on criteria, allow the process to occur without human intervention?

Outcomes

Digital transformation has engaged your employees to change their practices as required to ensure normal operations are efficient. But what about future growth? Can your organization take the feedback gathered by IT automation and use it to change the business model quickly? For example, customers want to order pizzas not from a menu but a list of ingredients, or if you have a warehouse, what data do you use to keep inventory (costs) at the right level? Think about how the Post Office is digitizing stamps. Plus, online signatures are now legal, reducing the time of contract handling. Businesses dream of new services that capture customers globally or help their communities daily by automating processes and moving them to the digital economy. 

You know you are on your way to digital transformation when processes align across the organization, and you can scale decisions based on data.

You have to be able to take the business to the customer. For example, a UK online bank works closely with customers to design the future: new ways of lending money or paying for services or obtaining insurance are current examples of future thinking with minimum human interaction.

IT process automation is aiding adaptivity by humans and for humans. So the people that used to perform manual chores are now upskilled to create and service digital services. Some IT automation can reduce the employee cost factor, but most organizations discover that the knowledge lost is not always worth the financial gain. Your people know what happens, so digital leaders allow them to use the process automation or machine learning practices to their benefit.

A personal example is to consider that your car is software. You start and warm up your vehicle while finishing your coffee inside your house. Your vehicle syncs to your calendar, trip directions, fuel requirements, provides warnings due to route congestion, perhaps even sends a message to the next appointment. All you need to do is drive! The list of possibilities is almost endless.

The future of IT automation

The future of IT automation promises to significantly transform employee workflows, leading to numerous enhancements in organizational efficiency and effectiveness. Some anticipated improvements include:

Reduced reliance on IT teams using an automation platform

With advancements in IT automation, employees will increasingly use tools like chatbots for routine inquiries and tasks such as password resets. This shift towards self-service solutions empowers employees to resolve simple issues independently, reducing their reliance on IT support teams. As a result, IT professionals can focus on more complex and strategic projects, alleviating stress and improving overall productivity.

Streamlining the onboarding process and alleviate devops of provisioning

The onboarding process is set to become smoother and more efficient with IT automation. New employees will expect a streamlined experience, from receiving their devices to accessing necessary applications promptly. While this raises the bar for organizational performance, it also paves the way for higher job satisfaction and employee engagement. Automated workflows ensure that new hires have everything they need from day one, contributing to a positive start in the organization.

Enhanced customer service

IT automation will also play a crucial role in improving customer experiences. Automated support systems can provide quicker and more accurate responses to customer inquiries, reducing wait times and frustration. This enhanced support not only improves customer satisfaction but also reduces labor costs associated with customer service. Furthermore, predictive analytics and AI-driven tools can personalize customer interactions, making them more effective and enjoyable.

7 Tips for automating IT processes

1. Use value stream mapping to visualize your processes

2. Automate manual and repetitive tasks

3. Use automation to break down the organizational silos by building new engagement practices

4. Benefit from your vendor’s experience

5. Use the cloud as your ultimate playground and technology destination

6. Make sure that whatever business process you automate does not compromise continuity, compliance, security, or safety

7. Upskill everyone: technical, cognitive, problem-solving, tools in use

Final thoughts on IT service automation

The World Economic Forum feels that by 2022 60% of global GDP will be digitized, and the new value will only occur when enabled by digital platforms.

Digital transformation is not a fancy use of tools but processes intelligently automated to create outcomes for staff, customers, and the communities you serve. 

CIOs and senior IT stakeholders must change from “We want technology, so now go make it happen” management to “We understand how technology can help us, and we need your help to achieve our vision.” IT process automation will enable any value chain, but it can also make a business obsolete in a matter of minutes if introduced incorrectly. Look at the news stories of data leaks or service outages that have outraged customers. You do not want to be one of these stories! Work with your vendors to upskill your business with the knowledge required to be a digital business.