Today, companies need to innovate faster than ever to accelerate the delivery of cutting-edge services tailored to meet the increasing demands of customers. This cannot be achieved without the constant introduction of new technologies. But instead of focusing on technologies that help the company keep pace with the competition, IT teams – the backbone of modern companies – are weakening under the pressure of maintaining an increasingly complex infrastructure.
Maintenance instead of innovation
With the same number of people, IT teams need to manage an increasingly dynamic IT infrastructure consisting of key operational and technical elements (such as servers, networks, data, storage, applications, processes, platforms, policies, and security). At the same time, they must maintain a high level of security, prevent outages and re-establish them as they occur, while keeping pace with the latest technology and integrating them into the existing infrastructure. On top of all that, these complex challenges are handled manually, although they are easy to automate.
Complex Challenges, Simple Solution: IT Automation
So why don’t companies opt for process automation even though they know its benefits? Most often, the reason is the lack of time to introduce IT automation, which is a kind of contradiction, because it is automation that It relieves teams of more time-consuming tasks and allows them to dedicate their time to more important tasks.
Many companies are using automation to make optimum use of their resources and compete successfully in global markets, leaving those who are still struggling with challenges manually behind. Below we present the most important benefits that IT automation brings to the company.
1. Increase speed, efficiency and productivity
The speed with which even the most diligent professional can perform complex business tasks cannot be compared to automation, which can perform many tasks at the same time – and without the errors that usually accompany manual procedures. Freeing professionals from time-consuming manual labor not only shortens the time required to complete tasks, but also increases their productivity. When most of the work that overwhelms them is done through automation, your professionals can do a lot more with fewer resources.
2. Reducing disruptions to service delivery
Service failure negatively impacts productivity, revenue, and reputation. Whether it is a security incident, simple human error, money out or some other reason, the main services of a company are always at risk. However, companies still rely on their manual maintenance. Instead of looking for potential errors and mitigating consequences when they occur, they can use automation to prevent or automate their response – all without significant service disruption.
3. Elimination of human errors, greater reliability
With repetitive tasks, we can easily overlook any details, and even a small mistake is enough to stop things. Whether it’s disabling services or spending a lot of time and effort finding and fixing bugs, both of these take a toll on performance. Automated systems do just the opposite. They always perform a certain task the same way, reliably and consistently.
4. Enable Transparency
Manual execution of tasks quickly leads to a lack of transparency, especially in the abundance of activities related to the management of such a complex system as the IT infrastructure. Everyone has their own way of working, and even if organizations use a record-keeping system, updates still have to be entered manually, which quickly leads to incomplete and inconsistent data. Automation provides standardization and transparency, which means that you get a clear record of all activities related to a particular project.
5. Accelerate service delivery
Companies need to deliver their products and services faster and faster, but not at the cost of poor quality. On the contrary, the quality requirements are higher than ever. High-quality services can be delivered quickly with the introduction of automation that simplifies operations and increases productivity.
6. Promote innovation
Once the professionals are freed from the monotonous manual labor, they have time to focus their energy on further improving processes and developing and upgrading the service. All of this helps companies deliver new, improved and reliable services faster, which enhances the user experience and thus leads to revenue growth.
7. Reduce operating costs
With automation, business growth does not necessarily mean increased costs. Fewer service interruptions, greater efficiency, debugging, more time spent on value-added tasks… all contribute to significant cost savings. The benefit of IT automation specifically is that we do more inappropriately with existing resources and the infrastructure itself.
8. Optimization of operation and resource utilization
Automation does not mean that you have to add a lot of new tools to the infrastructure, which makes it more complex. Instead, it helps you make better use of what you already have. Automation allows you to make optimal use of existing resources and make the most of your IT environment.
9. Stronger safety
Automating security processes allows you to detect threats in real time and respond to them instantly. Security alerts are no longer overwhelmed by IT teams, responses to most incidents are standardized and automatic, and your experts can focus only on the most critical events that require human intervention.
10. Business growth
Teams that are free of manual labor quickly introduce new technologies and can focus on innovation. Significantly increased productivity and efficiency. You provide services to your customers faster based on their wants and needs. All this supports and enhances the growth and success of your business.
Most Important Benefit – Employee Satisfaction
All too often, companies hire the best professionals and then let them get bogged down in repetitive manual chores (and boredom). Can you blame them for looking for career opportunities elsewhere where they can really use their talents? If automation is concerned with manual work, your employees can focus on the strategic work they are good at, which means they will stay with you longer.
Can’t wait to start the automation?
It is clear that success without automation is no longer possible. DrBut its implementation is simple, effective, and aligned with your business objectives as much as possible It is recommended to work with experts. company xlabAnd the specialized for IT Automation with AnsibleRed Hat’s most popular open source automation tool, here’s it Helps determine the best automation strategy. They guide and support you in its implementation, and provide your experts with the knowledge to use the Ansible tool independently and achieve reliable automation. Get in touch with them and they will be happy to help you get started.