3 Steps to Deliver ROI and Business Value from IT Automation

In today’s business world, CIOs and IT organizations are juggling many projects. They have to keep track of several competing priorities at once, including keeping customer service top-of-mind while ensuring that the latest technological innovations meet customer requirements. At the same time, many of the most innovative solutions are being developed by businesses seeking to offer their customers the very latest user experience and technology. On the one hand, they must reduce costs and improve the reliability and security of their business-critical applications. On the other hand, they must drive efficiencies and improve the performance of those same systems. 

It might not be immediately evident, but CIOs are working tirelessly to help their respective organizations see  their fullest potential by bringing together technology and data in the hopes of helping their company benefit from having a better understanding of how things currently operate so that they may make constructive changes moving forward. Finding a balance between growth and increasing costs is key in achieving company goals. Increasing prices in a bid to bring in additional revenue and profits may seem like a tempting idea, but it does so at the cost of sales and lower client satisfaction levels.

IT Automation Improves Services While Reducing Costs

Progressive CIOs are using new technology that is changing the landscape of how IT professionals are working. This next generation of technology called low-code, visual paradigm scripting or process automation allows field staff to use a series of predefined configurations similar to a visual flowchart in order to accomplish customer requirement requests. Some automation opportunities examples include:

• Delivering IT-as-a-Service.  This requires new approaches to monitoring and analytics. Orchestrating AIOps-based self-healing capabilities that detect, investigate, and self-correct IT issues means engineers and support reps who are responsible for keeping the lights on need to be more proactive in their day-to-day activities.
• Provisioning infrastructure, adding VMs, and increasing systems resources.
• Automating incident response for resolving issues that are affecting end-user’s productivity.
• Accepting deliveries, welcoming new employees and setting up their workstations.
• Patched systems, hotfixes and upgrades of distributed applications
• Updating the CMDB with changes from Integration, Continuous integration, and other system automation tools.
• Upgrading the server, swap out switches and routers, and reset all user passwords.

Applying IT Automations to Improve Service Levels

Technology shifts, such as the one from on-premise to cloud computing, highlight two very important quotes: “slowly, slowly catch the Monkey” and “it’s never too late to become what you might have been.” This means that CIOs should learn from MSPs and Cloud Service Providers (CSPs) who have a long history of applying IT automation to improve service levels, expand their service offerings, and reduce costs. Automation tools are the backbone to scaling an IT infrastructure, and that idea can be scaled to other types of businesses as well. This is especially helpful for business owners or managers who might encounter similar challenges as there’s an opportunity to continue improving processes to get further ahead of their competition – all before they even have time to catch up!

“Automation is key.” We understand that sometimes processes at work can be slow. Such tasks or projects might seem easy to get done manually but in reality it’s not worth wasting a lot of time trying to do such jobs by yourself when there are automation tools out there that can help you save time and effort because time is money. CIOs have to be seen as business shapers and not operations or technology managers who can add value to their enterprises by bringing in an IT automation strategy that empowers all project teams and helps them work smarter, faster, better and safer.

Partner with Business Stakeholders to Define Success Criteria

We all know that the definition of “IT project” is an activity to develop a new information technology (IT) product or service that is delivered over time. When the CIO is trying to improve service levels, grow innovation capabilities, or reduce costs, there should be a way to measure success. 

Stakeholders are key elements to a well-rounded project, and CIOs should work with IT professionals or other members of the team – even outside the development process like marketing for example – to design solutions that maximize each party’s opportunities.

• Expanding businesses need attention to their infrastructures and facilities.
• Leaders in the grocery industry who invest in creating a remarkable customer experience for their customers by serving top quality food and drinks, require products with maximum system performance and reliable operations.
• Operating departments with large amounts of service desk tickets go to customer support that deal specifically with issues related to improving customer experiences.
• Human resources leaders who want to offer their employees the most comfortable and non-stressful sendoffs before they say goodbye.
• Field operations that require IT to diagnose and resolve laptop and mobile issues faster can be helped by the latest technology called inventory control software, for example.
• Constituents want to see an improvement in quality and budget – who doesn’t?
• Compliance and security experts who want to improve an organization’s risk profile.

These are all common areas of pain, and by engaging stakeholders, CIOs can help identify their areas of expertise based on where IT automation can be applied most effectively. CIOs should look for pain points within their organizations and develop ways to translate them into success criteria. Once you have developed your metric, you will be in a better position to gauge whether IT automation is improving the system and helping you meet those criteria.

Define an Agile Process to Deliver IT Automation

IT departments are just like armies in the sense that there needs to be a certain level of organization in order for everything to work as expected. Without this structure and organization, customers or clients will feel as if they are being left in the dark when trying to get an important answer or possibly even something done. 

In order to improve efficiency and effectiveness when it comes to IT automation, the CIO should look into applying agile methodologies and a scrum process to deliver solutions that enable workers in business functions. The product manager is the one who should make sure that your product meets customers’ expectations. He needs to make sure that what you’re creating satisfies their needs, and keeps them coming back for more without fail. Stakeholders have to participate in the sprint reviews, they need to see what their IT department is up to and celebrate important accomplishments when they happen. 

How Should the Product Owner Prioritize the Automations? 

But with all of these different automations to attend to, how is the product owner supposed to prioritize them and keep them straight? The first way one can start prioritizing is by outlining a general timeline that outlines which automations need to be developed when. Giving some initial due date priority will help keep product owners on track and avoid letting things fall behind. Like most things in life, there are two ways to approach product development. You can look at it from a business-oriented point of view, or you can take an engineering-minded approach. Each approach will have specific pros and cons, especially as far as deadlines and budgeting go. 

With a little creativity and the help of a few experts, product managers can help validate certain assumptions with the use of varying experiments and test cases. As an example, if field operations want you to improve services, measure improvement in request and incident resolution times. If a human resources department wishes to enhance the employee onboarding experience, they’ll want to quantify every step that automation could reduce or get rid of altogether, as well as measure the implementation effort in order to gauge savings.

Measure the Impact and Share with Stakeholders

As IT delivers solutions in agile projects, the CIO should require members of the development team to report on metrics such as problem tickets and bug reports created and resolved in a defined cadence. It’s often the aggregation of several data sources that drives metrics improvements, and it might take some time before automations show their business impacts.

Some metrics to consider include: 

Cost optimizations – Determine the ROI by showing an increased volume of incidents, requests and changes being handled, either done by a larger number of people working in IT Service Management (or automating your routine tasks independently).

Incident management – Reduce the number of incidents overall and improve the process/service/product that you are offering to your customers, it doesn’t necessarily have to be both.

Request management – Decrease employee stress with faster time-to-workbook in your system because it means employees have more time to focus on their actual work and duties.

Change management – Automate changes in quality assurance and define an automation policy.

Risk reduction – Demonstrate faster cycle times to apply patches and hotfixes quickly before the bugs get too big.

The most valuable thing is sharing information with stakeholders, who are key experts and influencers in their field, when keeping them up to date on the success of a project. This approach demonstrates the value of a better product that’s easier to use, which fosters an increased demand for automating something, so it can be delivered more quickly.

Conclusion

As technology advances and becomes more connected, it is crucial that you have the right kind of leadership in place to manage all of your needs. Stakeholders rely on technology and automation more than ever, which can be a heavy burden to bear. But I know that if you have the right people in place whom you can trust and who have your best interests at heart, then it becomes much easier to manage everything effectively. Every company is trying to improve customer experience and the delivery of technology services to employees. Though this may lead to increased employee satisfaction and productivity, it comes at a cost: human resources.

With online business booming and the demand that companies provide their customers with a high level of tech support, it’s important to let the IT professionals you employ, who are incredibly smart people by all means, do their job the way they know how. We strongly advice you to never lose sight of what drives your company’s purpose as an entrepreneur – this way you’ll be able to guide others much more easily on where they can make improvements in whatever system they’re trying to perfect a bit more.

Key Takeaways

Are you able to automate your business processes? Are you able to start with a product that is easy-to-use and affordable? Are you looking for a way to grow your own business? If you answered yes to these questions, you need to get in touch with Integromat. It comes with a 30-day trial and has a great set of documentation that’s easy to follow. Integromat fills in the blanks for you. It helps you get up to speed and integrate with the tools you need to do business. Integromat wants to help you automate your business and integrate with the tools you need to grow your business.

There are few things more exciting than learning how to automate your business processes and having the freedom to work less and make more. Integromasters will help you get started the right way and work smarter. With over 30 lectures and close to 6 hours of content – you will learn the basics of automation, how to adapt it to your business processes, and how to easily leverage the ideas and concepts presented in order to double your income! With detailed instructions, examples, and a mastermind group to guide you, this is the best course on the market.