As we know digital transformation continues to shape within our organisation, senior leadership are trying to gauge the benefits and value of automation in reducing errors and higher productivity. The goal for them is always to lower operating cost, risks, reduce errors and faster execution (productivity).

We are currently moving towards a digital age where it is becoming extremely important to modernize enterprises at a very rapid pace. New business models are being evolved ever so fast and there is a business needs to fund these rapid innovations. Enterprises are still allocating 60%-70% of their IT spend to “run the business”, with the remaining to “transform the business”. Hence, there is an urgency to bring in efficiency to “run the business” through automation.

From my few experiences on journey to mature automation within the organisation typically fall into one of the following five stages:

Level Zero: Adhoc

At this initial level of maturity, automation is not typically a planned activity but happens in more reactive/adhoc basis. There would be few adhoc scripts and some internal or opensource tools that are available at the team’s disposal. The automation tasks would typically include runbooks, automation of some standard operating procedures with scripts or scheduled jobs for routine tasks. Requests are obtained from various sources within the organisation, completed inconsistently without having any process documentation. Difficult requests are often directed to individuals who have assisted with similar requests in the past.

Level One: Opportunistic

Level one we are looking at automation initiatives that are being executed to address an identified area of improvement or for addressing a problem. In this stage, customers have a formal method of requesting services, but it isn’t fully followed or enforced. At this stage organisations have limited processes and tools, and are still highly reactive, relying heavily on a specific individual’s knowledge. One of example could be a night job involving server monitoring and producing an hourly report. At this level we are looking at some form of formal evaluation of tools, some budget allocation to address automation with team level management focus.

Level Two: Practiced

Level two is a stage where we are looking for project / program level automation initiatives executed with defined automation targets with specific metrics. At this level it is more proactive initiation with exploring areas of automation to achieve a level of defined efficiency, productivity or quality. At this stage there would be exploration of multiple automation tools such as RPA, DevOps and even some level of custom-developed tools to suit the program / project. One would also find backlog of automation required to be done along with prioritization.

Level Three: Accelerated

At this level, automation is no more an initiative but it becomes the way of organisation standard way of working. Automation initiatives are taken up at the organisation level with a portfolio of platforms and tools. Automation strategy with organisation-wide knowledge and drives are well defined and documented. Enterprise-wide automation platform is accessible to all teams across the organisation. In this stage, organisations are focused on process execution and excellence with KPIs centered around IT, instead of the overall business.

Level Four: Optimised

At this highest level of automation where the automated process are optimised, they become adaptive to the demands of the business. All projects / programs have been automated and aligned with business initiatives, directly affecting business outcomes. At optimised stage, we are also looking at technologies / tools which support self-learning, self-healing auto-scaling and auto-optimisation methods across various processes. This level of automation is driven by strategy and vision established at all levels of the organisation. A road-map is well established to achieve the set goals as they involve; this will not only help in adopting technologies, but also transform the way in which systems support the business and processes.

Sunil Khatri

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