The demand for automation technologies has grown across industries to increase output and efficiency in the face of macroeconomic volatility. But there’s a problem. Existing technological architectures are stifling development, and 80% of businesses worry that embracing automation would just increase technical debt. However, a well-executed automation program may promote rapid expansion. This article explores how businesses can embark on their automation journeys the right way.
What comes to mind when you hear the term automation? Most likely, a group of robots efficiently executing human tasks. Another possibility is to see robotic arms building cars and computers on a factory floor. Sure, robots are a fantastic illustration of automation, but they aren’t the only ones. Today, automation is becoming the norm and permeates every aspect of our everyday lives, from automatically filling out forms to calendar synchronization.
In a survey commissioned by Salesforce, as many as 91% of CIOs and IT decision-makers said that in the past couple of years, their business teams’ need for automation had increased. Companies nowadays are conscious of what automation can do and value the benefits of embracing it. However, a question remains on top of the minds of decision-makers: How can they successfully employ automation for business growth?
“Enterprises need reliable automation solutions to securely address tasks and use cases across the entire business.â€Â
– Danny Major, senior V.P. of product, SS&C Blue Prism
Top Ways of Implementing Automation Correctly
“Organizations across every industry want to automate processes and customer experiences as quickly as possible. However, if they try to go fast with the wrong tools and techniques, they’ll actually impede true innovation,†said Matt McLarty, global field CTO & VP of the digital transformation office, MuleSoft. “It’s vital that organizations become more adaptable to technological change, enabling them to build automations and connect data and applications in a holistic manner. Without taking a more composable approach, organizations risk compounding rather than reducing their technical debt.â€Â
See More: Year 2022: Embracing the Wave of Automation
Effective automation drives efficient growth
Over half (44%) of businesses now use integration and API management capabilities to assist their business process automation initiatives. In this approach, they try to fully realize the promise of automation to support growth and provide efficient growth more quickly and with less disruption. There is a huge possibility to automate operations more effectively at scale and provide linked customer experiences fast, said 53% of CIOs and IT decision-makers whose businesses leveraged integration and API management capabilities to “some level.†As part of a hyper automation plan, more businesses should try to coordinate their usage of various technologies, tools, and platforms to automate business and IT activities.
Managing & automating hybrid environments
Futurium, in a recent study, citedOpens a new window that 79% of enterprises are “hitting a wall†using existing cloud tools and platforms.
CloudBolt’s CEO, Jeff Kukowski, believes that one of the biggest drains on budgets and productivity is having islands of automation throughout the enterprise. Multiple development teams adopt different tools and use them for their purposes without any alignment or coordination between them. That means devs must keep reinventing the wheel, with little to no re-use of existing resources.
What’s required is a centralized exchange where DevOps can access a curated library of reusable blueprints and automation and integration elements.
– Jeff Kukowski, CEO, CloudBolt
Once a tool has been integrated, any other team that wants to use that tool can simply re-use the integration, configuration, and policies that have already been created and vetted. Devs can view all available resource configurations in the common exchange and order what they need – with built-in guardrails and security policies – at the push of a button.
When you only have to automate once, then rinse and repeat, business accelerates and productivity soars.Â
See More: Cloud Orchestration Vs Cloud Automation: How Do They Benefit Your Business?
A compostable approach – with the right tools and capabilities
According to research from Salesforce, over the next 24 months, nearly 80% of enterprises will have hyper automation on their technological agenda. They must thus have the appropriate equipment and skills in order to create and adjust automation initiatives.
“Organizations should never just think that once a process is automated, the job is done,†says McLarty. “If we’ve learned anything through this volatile period, in fact, it is that we need a new mentality when it comes to business.â€Â
McLarty says that any organization can thrive with a new, more composable mentality.
“The organizations that thrive in the digital economy are the ones that adapt to changes the fastest. For established companies, that means focusing on three things: growth with efficiency and sustainability, agility with safety at scale, and continuous innovation.â€
– Matt McLarty, global field CTO & VP, digital transformation office, MuleSoft
Enhancing digital transformation with process mining and RPA
Continuing investments in the automation space have recently increased interest in process mining tools. But process mining is only genuinely beneficial when integrated with robotic process automation (RPA) despite the promise of the technology to modify processes to speed up digital transformation. This was demonstrated by Gartner’s CFO surveyOpens a new window , which revealed that more CFOs anticipate that these technologies will collaborate closely over the next few years to speed up the advancement of financial operations.
In fact, 80% of finance directors concur that by 2025, their organizations’ departments must considerably accelerate the use of digital technologies, such as RPA and AI to make the business more efficient and productive. And when putting RPA into practice, CFOs believe investing in process mining will be the key to generating great returns.
Source: GartnerOpens a new window
- Accelerate digital transformation: CFOs require a finance function that supports the company’s strategic goals if they intend to expedite digital transformation. Digitalization is a component of those goals for the majority of enterprises today. However, finance must also digitalize the finance function to support enterprise-wide digital efforts.
- Pay attention to finance technology optimization: When top finance leaders comprehend the technology required to modernize the firm, their business will undergo digital transformation twice as quickly. Successful finance executives carefully consider and invest in a portfolio to maximize valuation. They also understand that their decisions will influence the technological alternatives available in the future.
Use automation to manage vulnerabilities
According to Bernd Greifeneder, chief technology officer of Dynatrace, “organizations know that security must become a collective responsibility to manage risks in the cloud business successfully. The observability-security confluence is essential for giving development, operations, and security teams the backdrop to understand how their apps are interconnected, where the flaws are, and which ones need to be prioritized. This quickens incident response and risk management.
He believes that in order to be genuinely effective, businesses should search for solutions that enable AISecDevOps by having AI and automation capabilities at their heart. “These solutions enable their teams to swiftly discover and prioritize risks at runtime, stop attacks in real-time, and fix software faults before they can be attacked.†As a result, teams may stop squandering time in war rooms and running after false positives and possible vulnerabilities that will never be used in production. According to Greifeneder, they confidently offer better, more secure software quicker.
Conclusion
Businesses need reliable automation solutions that can securely handle various tasks and use cases. By adopting a uniform approach to automation, they will have a more stable, secure, and flexible footing to automate corporate activities in the long run. The aforementioned strategies might truly aid businesses in using automation as effectively as possible.
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