Taking the Lead on IT Automation: IT Leaders as Evangelists for Their Automation Strategies
As companies strive to become more agile and digitize their operations, IT automation has evolved into a business imperative. IT automation, once thought of exclusively as simple tools or scripts to help IT professionals streamline tasks, is now being seen as a strategic initiative and long-term IT strategy.
A Harvard Business Review Analytic Services survey of 338 business executives worldwide highlights the importance of IT automation: 80% of respondents say adopting IT automation is “extremely important” or “very important” to the future success of their organization. More than two-thirds of respondents (68%) agree that in the past 12 months, IT automation at their organization has shifted from a “nice to have” to a “must have.”
Those companies that are currently exploring or implementing IT automation anticipate many business benefits from the technology. Increased efficiency of business processes, cited by 75% of respondents, is the top business benefit organizations most aim to realize from their IT automation investments. Other benefits that organizations seek to gain the most include reducing operational cost (63%), improving the customer experience (53%), and improving agility/ flexibility (48%).
“The mega trend behind IT automation is recognizing the need to reduce friction in a highly digitalized business world,” explains Mary Johnston Turner, research vice president, the Future of Digital Infrastructure Agenda program, at the technology consultancy IDC. “You really have to look carefully at what’s slowing things down in your operations, because that has a direct impact on the customer experience and other important business objectives.” Ironically, a key factor that is slowing down the adoption of IT automation is IT leaders themselves. Sixty-eight percent of survey respondents say IT leaders should be sharing a vision of how IT automation will benefit their organization and workers’ jobs. However, only half that number of respondents (34%) say that IT leaders are actually embracing that role.
The disconnect between what IT leaders should be doing to advance IT automation versus what they are doing was reflected in several areas. Fifty-three percent of respondents say IT should be serving as a proponent of culture change to assure automation is accepted, but only 26% say that is happening. There is a double-digit gap between action and expectation of actions in setting IT automation priorities and seeking buy-in from the broader executive team, as well.
