Talk to a business executive about IT and they will invariably talk about the need for innovation. Our recent research highlighted the issues facing many enterprises about how they respond to disruption and drive differentiation and innovation in their industry. However, walking the walk to innovation is a lot harder than it sounds. How do you free up the resources and budget to drive it?
The answer is that automation plays an increasingly relevant part in that strategy. Many enterprises are now realizing the diverse number of roles automation plays across their enterprise – from process automation in the finance department, to agile release automation across DevOps, to automating disaster recovery, production lines and customer on-boarding to data analytics and beyond. However, too often these applications of automation work independently and are not sufficiently interconnected. Gartner have a great phrase for this – they call it "islands of automation".
For many global organizations, the implementation of automation strategies typically takes place at the individual or departmental level; and this responsibility nearly always falls within the IT factory. Due to the fact that the IT department tends to "own" this process, this strategy can present long-term operational issues. In particular, we have seen that silos of automation arise, and there is a lack of cross-departmental interconnectedness and thinking. In the end, these "islands of automation" are more costly than efficient. The various automation silos require constant revision and thereby incurring escalating IT operational costs and negatively impacting staff productivity and efficiency.
A recent PMG study revealed the lack of a holistic approach as the biggest obstacle to a successful automation strategy – 59% agreed that ad hoc automation leads to incompatibility. In the same way that an Enterprise Architect understands how everything is connected, and a Chief Data Officer is responsible for data processing, analysis and management, there is now an increasing need for a Chief Automation Officer (CAO) to connect islands of automation across the enterprise. Typically leading a shared services function, this role is responsible for driving repeatable and consistent processes across the modern enterprise and for filling the void between business strategy and IT.
By definition, the Chief Automation Officer would not do this manually. They would be responsible for rapidly utilizing the latest business IT technology to connect departments within offices, and various offices within a global corporation.
By analyzing how automation is employed throughout the company, the CAO can optimize human resource allocation to not only remove bottlenecks, but more importantly, improve productivity across their workforce. This is exactly the role of automation in companies like Facebook. The CAO would make sure every process that can be automated is defined and orchestrated as efficiently as possible, and work closely with those involved in the processes (i.e. those who know them the best) for inspiration and to drive workforce productivity.
Irish electricity supplier ESB unearthed 270 ideas by asking staff to suggest processes that could be automated. Without this communication between management and departmental specialists, these suggestions would have remained private. The CAO is a high-level coordinator with the remit to dive deeper when required.
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Nordea Bank have also instigated a culture of automation within their company. Here their focus is on automating every process to "free their employees to focus on the strategic future of the bank".
By looking at the whole of the company’s needs, a CAO can determine the best ways to utilize man houses, leaving any and all repetitive tasks to the machines. The CAO shouldn’t replace their knowledge workers with computers, but rather to connect the isolated islands of the business with technology and computers so that people can do more of the innovative thinking analysis and strategy. Thus initiating human-centric automation into the business. The CAO should capitalize on the benefits that automation delivers; creating efficiency in the business and enabling a new way of thinking from the enterprises brightest talent to succeed.
Ultimately, automation is an empowerment of business, a catalyst for innovation and a driver of knowledge worker productivity. If your company does not focus on automation as a competitive weapon, then ask why not and consider how long it will be before you are disrupted into oblivion.
By Chris Boorman, Chief Marketing Officer, Automic
