EDITOR’S QUESTION: Describe the approach CIOs and IT decision-makers need to adopt to begin their journey in the automation of processes and operations across the enterprise.
This month we present responses from regional top executives of Omnix Digital, Fortinet, and HPE. CIOs in all industries, and all types of enterprises, wrestle with where to begin and how to begin their automation journey.
CIOs and IT decision-makers should work on having a full strategy where they must look out for important factors involving business and IT alignment, clear roles and responsibilities, best hyperemotional tools, automation skills, internally or externally, etc.
CIOs and IT decision-makers should advocate the benefits of deploying process automation within organisations. They must spend time in educating business owners on the potential benefits of the automation. They need to talk about how automation can boost productivity, improve efficiency, create better customer service experience, increase revenue, and reduce cost.
Automation provides many benefits, including faster response times, greater efficiency, and cost savings. However, to begin this journey, CIOs and IT decision-makers must follow a systematic approach that covers various aspects of IT security automation
A very first step is to identify the processes and operations that can be automated, the technology required, and the potential benefits, and that would require a detailed assessment of the current security operation and processes.
Automation might create some resistance among different team members in the beginning as being something new and out of the norm of what people have been doing for a while. Training of IT security staff and operations for the new automation technology is important as it requires new skills and knowledge in order for them to use the new technology effectively.
Automation of processes would require deep and tight integration between different technologies within the organisation, when it comes to security, relaying on an automation logic that might have gotten broken between different software upgrades can actually do more harm.
Walid Gomaa, CEO, Omnix Digital
CIOs and IT decision-makers need to look at automation as a journey and not as a one-off approach. There must be an early adoption phase followed by more wide adoption phases to get the benefits out of the automation.
To start the journey, CIOs and IT decision-makers are required to work closely with business teams to select the appropriate processes to start the journey. The selection can be based on several factors, such as the most obvious, highest impact, most engaged business users, least complex, most pain, best gain.
To begin their journey in the automation of processes and operations across the enterprise, CIOs and IT decision-makers need to adopt a data-first modernisation approach. This approach should consider the critical domains of strategy, people, processes, and technologies.
The main reason is that the early adoption phase will have a huge impact on the overall adoption later. If the first adoption is a success, then more business owners will be engaged, and the more automation adoption will follow.
While looking at the early adoption phase, CIOs and IT decision-makers should work on having a full strategy where they must look out for important factors involving business and IT alignment, clear roles and responsibilities, best hyperemotional tools, automation skills, internally or externally, etc.
CIOs and IT decision-makers should advocate the benefits of deploying process automation within organisations. They must spend time in educating business owners on the potential benefits of the automation. They need to talk about how automation can boost productivity, improve efficiency, create better customer service experience, increase revenue, and reduce cost.
In conclusion, the adoption of automation is increasing, and organisations must make the best use of the technology. Successfully automating the right processes will definitely prove to be extremely beneficial to organisations.
Tony Zabaneh, Manager, Systems Engineering, Fortinet
Process and operation automation are rather a long process and as you rightly said, it is a journey. As a security vendor we tend to advice and help customers when it comes to automation from an IT security point of view as automation -as an umbrella term- can get into almost every aspect of an organisation core and support functions.
Under the general circumstances, Automation provides many benefits, including faster response times, greater efficiency, and cost savings. However, to begin this journey, CIOs and IT decision-makers must follow a systematic approach that covers various aspects of IT security automation
A very first step is ideally to Identify the processes and operations that can be automated, the technology required, and the potential benefits, and that would require a detailed assessment of the current security operation and processes.
Once you have a clear insight towards which processes and operations that can be automated, a second task would be to identify the right technology and tools that can satisfy the organisation’s specific requirements.
A later step would be to plan the implementation of automation technology, that is a critical step and especially for security focused solutions, and when done correctly the benefits would be phenomenal.
This would be due to fast response times to threats and its exposure, planning is normally done in a phased manner, starting with a few processes, and gradually scaling up. adequate resources, budget, and infrastructure to implement the technology effectively are key for a successful implementation.
Automation might create some resistance amongst different team members in the beginning as being something new and out of the norm of what people have been doing for a while, thus training of IT Security staff and operations for the new Automation technology is important as it requires new skills and knowledge in order for them to use the new technology effectively.
Automation of processes would require deep and tight integration between different technologies within the organisation, when it comes to security, relaying on an automation logic that might have gotten broken between different software upgrades can actually do more harm.
It is important to keep on monitoring the automation process and its outcomes with clear dashboards and clear views if anything goes wrong, it is also important to have continuous drills and tabletop exercises and simulations that sharpens the skill set of the IT staff, and as well tests the responses of the automation tactics you have in place.
In conclusion, CIOs and IT decision-makers must adopt a systematic approach to automation to ensure that the implementation is successful. A successful automation implementation can help organisations achieve greater efficiency, faster response times, and significant cost savings while improving the overall security posture of the enterprise.
Mohammad Al-Jallad, CTO and Director, UK, Ireland, Middle East, Africa, HPE
To begin their journey in the automation of processes and operations across the enterprise, CIOs and IT decision-makers need to adopt a data-first modernisation approach that is holistic, outcome-focused, and sustainable. This approach should consider the critical domains of strategy, people, processes, and technologies.
To make Edge-to-Cloud work, organisations need an operating environment that is focused on outcomes and can power the distributed enterprise. This environment should enable organisations to bring speed and agility to their apps and data wherever they are, with seamless orchestration, workload mobility, and ransomware protection, and grant them the choice to build their clouds their way with complete openness, elasticity, and freedom.
CIOs and CDOs need to tap into data, break down silos, and unlock value for insights to improve productivity, optimise operations, increase efficiency, or support the business to generate new revenue streams. They are encouraged to consume IT as a service, which could be on-premises with full control, data sovereignty, governance, and security.
As IT plays a key role and contributes to sustainability, consuming IT as a service can offer benefits such as increased energy efficiency and reduced carbon footprint. Additionally, IT-as-a-service can provide benefits such as IT simplification, automation, enhanced experiences, reduced TCO, and less risk and unplanned downtime.
HPE offers the edge-to-cloud adoption framework, rich transformation services, best-of-breed technologies, GreenLake edge-to-cloud platform with more than 70 cloud services across 17 categories, as a service experience, pay-per-use model, and pathways to sustainability to help customers achieve that edge-to-cloud architecture.
Ali Kaddoura, Country Manager UAE, ServiceNow
Organisations should ask a couple of basic questions before deciding if a process is fit for automation: What are the processes that pose challenges for employees?
There is no such thing as a perfect process. Often, processes have gaps and unnecessary complexities that prevent a seamless and efficient journey. Pinpointing these friction-causing moments is an essential first step.
What would a simpler and more agile system look like — answering this will help you understand whether it is possible to use automation to manage and resolve productivity-killing complexity and repetition in cross-functional processes.
Start by talking to your business counterparts, understand what is important to them and then focus on things that will assist in achieving the business goals and objectives. This will help you identify your priorities and allow you make constant and iterative changes. Also speak with your strategic platform vendors — often they have capability that will allow you to fast track your requirements and even outline what good looks like and how to define your automation strategy.
That being said, while automation is great for streamlining workflows and processes, it doesn’t provide visibility into the actual processes in order to further optimise them. To do this, what is needed is a platform that integrates automation with digitisation, analytics, low-code, no code visual interfaces and process mining. As a consequence, we are seeing a shift from automation to hyperautomation.
If you are just getting started with hyperautomation, it is important to understand it is more than just automation. It encompasses intelligence, integration, automation, digitisation, transformation, and optimisation and involves multiple tools.
You truly need a hyperautomation platform, such as the Now Platform, that provides a central nervous system. It is a central hub to everything that’s happening across the business. What is core to hyperautomation is the ability to workflow people, systems, and processes across the enterprise.
