4 Ways Self Service Automation Boosts IT Operations in 2024

Changing business conditions force IT staff to deliver quality and timely services. However, handling IT services and solutions manually cost organizations time and money. As IT services proliferate, providing efficient IT services becomes a challenge for IT staff.

For example, repetitive and manual tasks such as resetting passwords and handling emails cost IT teams many hours and money. According to Gartner, 40% of IT support tickets are related to password resets and Forrester estimates that each call for this service costs about $70. Especially during busy periods, the workload of IT teams can exceed their capacity, often resulting in slow and inefficient service delivery with high costs.

By 2024, companies can reduce their operational costs by 30% with the integration of hyper-automation technologies into operational processes, Gartner estimates. One of these automation models is self-service automation, which enables non-IT staff to use IT services without help from the IT team.

In this article, we’ll explore 4 ways self-service automation can improve IT service delivery in enterprises. 

What is Self-Service Automation?

Self-service automation refers to the automation of manual, repetitive IT services in order to increase productivity and reduce manual practices in IT service delivery. This is often achieved through web applications of self-service automation tools. By using self-service automation tools, enterprises can automate numerous tasks and run them on their own. Besides, self-service automation tools can trigger, run, restart or cancel processes. 

Service requests such as resolving password issues, generating reports, and provisioning resources (see Figure 1) can be automated and run through self-service automation. 

Figure 1: Services offered by self-service automation 

1. Reduce the number of IT support requests

Most IT self-service automation tools provide a portal in which various services are offered. These portals allow employees to access IT services without the help of IT staff. In addition, when IT problems arise, employees can access self-service portals, follow predefined steps, and find solutions instead of waiting for IT staff to assist them. 

Thereby, IT teams receive fewer tickets and call from employees and don’t have to deal with solving repetitive and manual tasks. This means less workload for IT staff and also an opportunity to focus on more strategic problems.

For example, workload automation tools that offer automated incident management solutions can be leveraged to achieve this.

2. Respond rapidly with monitoring and warning system

Self-service automation tools enable enterprises to improve their monitoring and alerting capabilities. Self-service automation tools detect errors and immediately alert the IT team. This enables IT teams to respond quickly to problems and start troubleshooting immediately. Thereby, they reduce the time it takes to resolve their IT issues.

3. Lower operational costs

Self-service automation helps enterprises to reduce costs regarding IT expenses and IT staff wages. The median salary for IT workers was ~$98.000 in the U.S. in May 2021, more than double the median salary for all occupations. Self-service automation can enable enterprises to employ fewer IT employees as it lightens the workload by automating long, repetitive manual workflows.

4. Improve employee performance/satisfaction

Receiving responsive IT services satisfies employees and improves their performance. This way, they save from waiting in queues for IT issues to be resolved. Since they don’t waste time resolving their IT issues and don’t get bogged down in service delivery, their performance doesn’t drop either.

Overall, this can also impact the performance of their business. When IT staff are unavailable, for example in remote companies or during night shifts, employees can turn to IT services without interruption.

Bruce Power¹, a global energy company, automated its IT service help desk tasks. The company created a self-service portal for the IT department and provided services such as e-mail handling and adding/deleting profiles. It helps the company save more than 20 days in a year by automating nearly 3000 tasks that would normally take 5-10 minutes to complete each.

Further Reading

To learn more about automation and orchestration, feel free to read our articles:

• Automation vs Orchestration: Differences & How to Get Started
• 6 Ways Cloud Workload Automation Transforms Your Business
• Top 5 Benefits of Intelligent Orchestration in Securing DevOps

If you are looking for automation and orchestration tools, you can visit our hub for the automation software landscape.

If you have other questions about self-service automation, we can help:

Resources

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