The automation imperative

Moving from technical projects to an automation strategy

There's no getting around it: automation can be overwhelming. From eliminating traditional job functions to adopting new technologies like artificial intelligence, automation means embracing change throughout all levels of an organization. At the same time, executive leaders across industries know that automating their organizations is imperative to staying competitive.

The good news is that when done right, automation can solve for the very things we fear. IT professionals can achieve a better work-life balance while focusing on more valuable tasks. Business unit leaders can see their ideas for great customer experiences put into production faster and more reliably. Technical leaders can enable supporting teams by providing standardized toolchains as a service.

It's likely that some form of automation is already underway at your organization. Maybe DevOps is helping to deploy application code more efficiently for a particular application, or IT has implemented a self-service portal for a select number of employee and customer resources. These are clear-cut examples of basic technical automation projects.

But what does enterprise-wide automation look like? How do we connect technical automation projects to business outcomes? How do we gain comprehensive visibility into all the grassroots automation efforts underway to properly evaluate which we should double down on? Should an automation strategy start from the top down or bottom up?

We see 2023 as a year where organizations can begin to develop the right answers to these questions. The specifics will vary depending on the business outcomes an organization is trying to achieve. Luckily, there are over-arching focus areas that can help any organization embrace automation more broadly.

In this report, we've identified five priorities that we feel will help organizational leaders make tangible gains in automation by the end of 2023. Action steps for some priorities will require people to work differently or take on new responsibilities. Other priorities will require looking at technology in new ways and embracing new processes.

Although enterprise-wide automation won't happen overnight, these priorities can help remove the inherent fear associated with automation and, most importantly, provide entry points into implementing automation at scale.

Here are your automation priorities for 2023.

Jim Stuckey

About Jim