Businesses failing to get the most out of automation due to lack of planning

Automation can save time, but not enough thought goes into how that time can be better used, warns Computing webseminar panel

Businesses are failing to take full advantage of automation because they are not giving enough thought to how to reassign staff time.

Speaking at a Computing web seminar today, Marcus Austin, analyst at research firm Quocirca, said that this planning needs to happen far earlier than he sees it happening now.

"There isn't a lot of thought put into the next step for the business when automating," Austin began. "They've put systems in to reduce complex tasks, but then what do staff do with that saved time? Firms need to understand it's a stepped process, automation isn't a solution in itself. You need to start thinking about [how to use this saved time] as you're putting these systems in."

But this saved time is one of the principal benefits of automation, as Donnie MacColl, director of EMEA technical services at HelpSystems, explained.

"When I ask people what I can do to make their working life better, most say 'time'. They want a single pane of glass. They have multiple screens, devices, databases, applications, and it would be good to bring them all together into one screen.

"So bring all those systems into single pane," MacColl advised. "Bring in all the messages and alerts you need to do something with. Put them into an easily repeatable, automated task, then non-IT people can be empowered to do them. For instance a sales person might want their sales figures at 5pm every day. If it's automated then they can run that task themselves at 5pm, it doesn't need a request to go to IT every day."

Computing's own research into automation found 69 per cent of respondents saying cost reduction was the main driver, while 66 per cent cited increased productivity.

MacColl however pointed to other statistics from the research with 47 per cent citing increased reliability, and 22 per cent less downtime. "If you add those together then it becomes joint top," he said.

He added that automation can reduce mundane, repetitive tasks, which can lead to improved employee morale and lower staff turnover. "That leads to reduced costs, but perhaps not in the direct, tangible way you may have expected up front," MacColl explained.

So what are the first steps to introducing automation into a business? MacColl advised firms to start with the simplest processes first.

"I recommend people start with mundane, boring, repetitive tasks. That's the low hanging fruit. It's checking servers are ok, applications are up and running, network ports are open and that people have access to the systems they should. Automate that, the easy stuff first then move on to the more complex stuff."

Computing's own research found that 54 per cent of those surveyed said that routine maintenance and patching could most usefullly be automated, while 51 per cent cited back-ups as the top choice.

The full web seminar will be available to view on-demand on Computing soon.