The way businesses handle technology-related processes is set to change dramatically. Autonomics solutions will make business processes easier and faster. Read this article to learn more.
Imagine if every business task spanning IT, HR, Finance, and Administration could be conducted on one platform. Now, imagine what would be possible if you connected that comprehensive platform to a digital colleague designed to automate, inform, and accelerate tasks across lines of business. This scenario would represent a new era for modern businesses. Unfortunately, today’s enterprises are weighed down by human-driven processes and sky-high performance expectations that are difficult to reach with the current state of siloed IT and business systems.
Although this current state has, for the most part, served companies well (or simply well enough) for decades, autonomics solutions, such as IPsoft’s AIOps (formerly 1Desk), provide cognitive-based Artificial Intelligence (AI) to transform time-consuming technological tasks into streamlined business processes. As a result, the difference between how services are delivered now versus the future — and the improvements in efficiency and productivity — will be quite pronounced.
The Here and Now
In many enterprises today, IT operations personnel need to increase the scale of the products they build and deploy, while operating in machine time. DevOps engineers need to update and introduce new products on accelerated timelines. Unfortunately, outdated systems and a lack of connections between disparate front- and back-office systems mean these teams face constant hurdles when trying to keep up with requests from users and business leaders. IT operations can easily drag on a business’ flexibility and speed.
Meanwhile, back-office employees — the ones who handle finance, payroll, procurement, human resources issues among others — often are forced to navigate a seemingly endless maze of information systems and procedures, which impedes productivity. When one of these employees has an IT issue, the time between initial occurrence and resolution can be costly.
For example: An issue arises which prevents a back office worker from doing his or her job. The employee calls or emails a service desk employee, which initiates a chain of human interactions, which are often riddled with downtime, delays, and errors. Eventually, a support employee picks up the call, opens a ticket, and dispatches it to a back-office expert. That person attempts to fix the issue, but needs more information, so the request is sent back to IT.
“Now you’re down to two hours of middleware ticket opening, another two hours responding back, another two hours fixing it. It takes [at least] 8-10 hours to get a real request fixed,” said IPsoft Founder and CEO Chetan Dube during his keynote address at the Digital Workforce Summit 2018.
However, a business enabled by AIOps in the future can eliminate needless delays and deliver new levels of agility.
The IT Operations Team of the Future
AIOps features a scalable army of virtual engineers who manage an integrated autonomic ITSM platform. They can handle most L1 tasks and around 40% of L2 tasks with absolutely no human intervention. But AIOps also changes how enterprises function by allowing these virtual engineers to work with data scientists, cognitive engineers, automation strategists, and integration specialists to anticipate and resolve problems that traditionally could only have been addressed by human intervention.
Our virtual engineers are trained to proactively detect anomalies to root out and resolve issues. They eliminate wasted time and allow human labor to focus on more creative problems. Rather than tasking human employees monitor and respond to minor issues that occur within an IT environment, they can focus on resolving more complex tasks that can’t be spotted and resolved via automation. While human workers are manually resolving new and complex issues, virtual engineers are logging the actions and determining whether the processes should be recommended to an automation specialist as a new, custom, automated workflow.
- For Further Reading: Your Employees Will Thank You for AIOps
This all leads to easier ticket management. AIOps features our digital colleague Amelia who is able to field queries and proactively complete tasks through systems integration. She learns from interactions with business users to help resolve issues on her own. She’s available 24/7 on any device and she scales as volume increases.
Your staffers and agents can chat with Amelia directly, rather than filling out tickets housed on web interfaces with massive drop-down menus. If they’ve forgotten their VPN password, they can just ask Amelia. No need to send an email to the helpdesk. Don’t fill out a ticket online. Amelia will guide them through simple tasks, such as password reset process, Wi-Fi connections, and deleted email recovery. Unburdening employees from lengthy support, service and ticketing processes will have a noticeable impact on productivity and efficiency.
The Back Office of the Future
AIOps is also designed to help perform technology-based tasks that don’t fall under the purview of the IT department. By connecting to a company’s information systems, AIOps allows companies to streamline or automate virtually all information-gathering and back office transactions.
Today, back-office employees and their tools function independently. To file expense reports, they open System A. To take a day off, they open System B. To file an IT request, they open System C. The list of software goes on and on.
When connected end-to-end, AIOps integrates with corporate software systems and can understand data contained within them. Amelia can then take action on a worker’s behalf, whether it be information-based or something transactional. For example: Amelia can answer questions, such as, “How many days off do I have left?” or “What is the company’s policy for paid paternity leave?” She can also help back-office workers collect and process expense receipts. She can send reminders to colleagues about specific deadlines when financial information must be submitted.
With Amelia and AIOps, enterprises revolutionize technology's role in business. IT issues become easier to manage, faster to resolve, and less repetitive for workers. Back office processes are consolidated under one information system interface, and employees can work directly with a digital colleague to resolve basic tasks. These changes, when combined, improve productivity and employee satisfaction, and help usher enterprises into a new era of innovation.
