Budgets in IT departments are tight these days, so proving a return on investment is essential for justifying or expanding a project. The good news is that automation saves money by reducing the amount of human effort required. It is similar to investing in a robot vacuum cleaner. Despite the upfront cost, you save time (and money) by not having humans do the vacuuming. Reporting the value delivered by an automation program can be challenging since the value depends heavily on what is being automated.
For slides and more information, see our blog post:
https://cfengine.com/blog/2023/cfgmgmtcamp/
Between on-premises data centers and private, public, and hybrid clouds, today's networks have never leveraged a more comprehensive range of technologies, nor have those technologies been this interconnected. The result is that networks are now far more capable than ever before, and are able to augment their capabilities by leveraging other technologies to their highest and best use.
Concerns of automation taking away the available jobs for the workforce have prevailed for over 50 years. While automation can be a substitute for labor, David Autor declares, “Automation also complements labor, raises output in ways that lead to higher demand for labor, and interacts with adjustments in labor supply.” Automation can be invaluable for industries that provide professional services.
In the last few weeks, I have had a number of conversations with customers about what we have come to call the Automation Paradox. What happens is that organizations seeking to automate manual processes are so busy, that they cannot find the time to invest in automating in the first place, and so they find themselves frozen - unable to move forward. I took some time to talk to customers who got through this, and found a number of themes that may help you get past this. Blocks are often a state of mind