Collection of tools, technologies, and processes that organizations use to automate various business processes to deliver integrated and effective solutions.
Overview
Over the years, many organizations have grown to build a portfolio of technology platforms and tools to manage integrations and automation requirements. Typically, organizations procure each tool in their automation portfolio across different teams to solve a particular problem. The portfolio could include legacy stacks such as Enterprise Service Bus (ESB), Business Process Management (BPM), and Robotic Process Automation (RPA) systems to more modern solutions such as Workflow Automation, Cloud-native integration platforms, and Artificial Intelligence based decision-making technologies to name a few.
When used in isolation, each of these technologies can still solve the challenges they were designed for, providing some benefits to the organization. However, this approach fails to benefit from the advances in technology. Integrating purpose-built technologies can allow you to address use cases that weren't feasible to automate using separate tools independently.
For example, consider IT Helpdesk automation. As companies grow, IT needs to be able to scale their processes to provide consistent employee experience without incurring additional operational overheads. Helpdesk automations can reduce the workload on IT teams by streamlining the most common requests of employees. A workflow automation platform can help integrate different IT systems to automate parts of the process. However, combining the workflow automation platform with Natural Language Understanding (NLU) and Chatbot technologies can produce better gains from end-to-end process automation and help provide a personalized user experience.
The Automation Ecosystem is about selecting the combination of tools, technologies, and processes that organizations use to automate various business processes to provide cohesive and effective solutions. Establishing the automation ecosystem allows organizations to build complementary capabilities that help overcome individual platforms' limitations. Organizations can use an ecosystem of integrated technologies to implement automations that deliver impactful solutions using the best tools and capabilities, ensuring they derive the highest possible value from their investments.
Each organization will have variations in its automation ecosystem. New tools and technologies are constantly emerging in the automation space. Hence it becomes necessary for organizations to standardize the approach used by different teams in selecting the best-fit platform for automating their use cases. Such a practice emphasizes the need for centrally governing and managing technology investment decisions.
Organizations can start by creating a list of existing automation tools and technology in their IT landscape. Identify limitations, technical debt, and operational overheads of existing platforms, such as infrastructure maintenance, that limit its application beyond certain use cases. Consider if you can consolidate such tools or replace them with modern platforms that cater to current and future needs. If investing in a new platform, ensure it can integrate with your existing ecosystem.
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