Organizations are already beginning to invest a great deal of capital in hyper-automation. Some benefits include lower operating costs, increased up-time, and lessening the chance that a human introduces a defect. In the realm of IT, experts have named hyper-automation as a strategic technology trend for two years in a row.(1)
However, companies might be losing sight of the true target zone—code and how IT gets that done. The harm is twofold: organizations want to stay ahead of the game, and if they don’t do hyper-automation well, it will cost them more than money.
Hyperautomation is defined as “a framework and set of advanced technologies for scaling automation in the enterprise.” (2) In other words, hyper-automation is the application of advanced technologies like Robotic Process Automation (RPA), artificial intelligence, machine learning, and process mining to augment workers and automate processes in ways that are significantly more impactful than traditional automation capabilities.
“In today’s climate for businesses, there is a need to move faster and produce capabilities faster and faster. The tension is: I need to go faster, but I need to be able to do it in a controlled and supportable way. Our work with clients has focused on ensuring a solid automation foundation is in place to support an ‘everything-as-code’ approach.” – Mike McLaughlin, Technologent’s CIO and VP of Professional Services.
Companies want to not only get things done more quickly, but they also want these functions performed as effectively as possible—and the answer is code:
- To start, workflows must be built that are decoupled from the technologies themselves. This allows for the ability to call critical foundational building blocks (functions and services) from a central and autonomous fulcrum.
- Next, architect and deploy development stacks based on “serverless” services and self-contained runtime environments so they are standardized.
- The challenge is in the stitching together of the multiple automation mechanisms—basic scripting through complex tools like Terraform/Puppet/Chef/Ansible can often result in unwieldy multi-tool sprawls of static configurations, scripts and files.
Building on a Solid IT Foundation
From significant reduction of Day 2 cost of operations to freedom to redeploy their best and brightest to innovation initiatives and resilient environments; By focusing on a solid foundation, companies can begin to accelerate the realization of the tangible benefits.
Automation isn’t about seeking to eliminate jobs, but rather its goal is to better utilize employees who do routine jobs so these workers can be utilized in other vital areas. In fact, automation, if done right, seeks to help employees achieve their potential. This ensures the organization is capable of dynamically and autonomously responding to volatile market demands.
Automation is the hot initiative for the moment, but not all automation approaches are alike. McLaughlin feels there is a race to identify the next buzzworthy concept and the marketing inertia it can provide.
“Our work with customers has focused on ensuring a solid foundation is in place to support an everything-as-code approach. That is how we are able to help our customers begin to accelerate the realization of automation’s benefits to their workforce.” – Mike McLaughlin
How can businesses set up the right institutional foundation in order to ensure the successful rollout of hyper-automation technology? Mike McLaughlin can speak to the following:
- What are the advantages of having a solid IT foundation when rolling out hyper-automation?
- What can go wrong if you don’t have the right foundation in place?
- How do you build workflows decoupled from the technologies themselves?
- Why is this important?
- How do you architect and deploy serverless servers and self-contained runtime environments?
- Why is it important to make this standardized?
- How do you successfully stitch together multiple automation mechanisms?
- How does RPA work?
- How does RPA advance employees’ potential?
About Technologent:
Technologent is a Global Provider of Edge-to-Edge(TM) Information Technology Solutions and Services for Fortune 1000 companies. They help companies outpace the new digital economy by creating IT environments that are fast, flexible, efficient, transparent and secure. Without these characteristics, companies will miss the opportunity to optimally scale. Technologent mobilizes the power of technology to turn vision into reality, enabling a focus on driving innovation, increasing productivity and outperforming the market. Visit www.technologent.com.
