Seeking New Revenue Sources, Companies Plan Automation Expansions

With their automation efforts meeting with successful results, a clear majority of organizations plan to expand their use of these tech tools, according to a recent survey from CA Technologies. The resulting “The State of Automation” report reveals that most IT and business leaders anticipate that artificial intelligence (AI) advancements will improve automation deployments within the next several years. With this, they expect to better adapt to the rapid pace of technology and market shifts, while increasing revenue opportunities. More than 1,000 global IT and business executives took part in the research, which was conducted by Enterprise Management Associates. This slide show presents survey findings, with charts provided courtesy of CA Technologies.

Four of five survey respondents said their company is no less than “better than most” businesses in terms of automation maturity. And 16 percent even described their organization as performing at a “state of the art” level.

Nearly three-quarters of respondents said their company is looking for new use cases for automation. About two-thirds said they are planning to acquire “broader” automation tools.

More than three of five respondents said artificial intelligence (AI) will improve automation within no less than three years. Eighteen percent said this will happen within a year, with “significant” results.

When asked to rate their organization (from 1 to 5, with a 5 being superior) in terms of using automation for various processes/departments, respondents on average gave marketing a 3.75. IT operations earned a 3.62, while finance/accounting received a 3.57 and customer services earned a 3.44.

More than one-half of respondents said they are investing in business process automation to adapt to the rapid pace of change. Just over 47 percent said they are investing in this to drive new revenue opportunities.

Among business executives only, nearly 46 percent said they highly value scalability in an automation solution. Forty-four percent feel that governance/auditability-related qualities are very important.

In ranking top challenges of automation, 42 percent of respondents cited a lack of processes. The second-highest challenge was an excess of “task-specific tools,” as cited by 41 percent of respondents.

Should current employees harbor concerns about job security due to automation? Not at this time, as only 14 percent of respondents said their company plans to reduce staff. However, 67 percent said their organization will likely reduce hiring for the future.

There seems to be disagreement between business and IT executives about the impact of automation on the enterprise digital transformation, as 65 percent of IT execs said that robotic process automation is a key enabler of the transformation. But just 28 percent of business execs agree.

Similarly, 56 percent of IT execs believe that workload automation is a key enabler of the enterprise digital transformation. Only 39 percent of business execs agree.