The IT talent shortage is a real challenge for businesses of all sizes. With the demand for IT skills far outstripping the supply, businesses are struggling to find and retain the talent they need to operate effectively.
According to a recent IBM article – 5 Intelligent Automation Strategies for the IT Talent Shortage – automation can help businesses to address the IT talent shortage by automating manual tasks and freeing up IT staff to focus on more strategic and value-added work.
It’s a worthwhile read, but if your short on time I’ve summarised the key points below:
1. Automate application development and maintenance
Application development and maintenance is a time-consuming and resource-intensive process. Intelligent automation can be used to automate many of the tasks associated with application development and maintenance, such as code testing, deployment, and monitoring. This can free up IT staff to focus on more strategic and value-added work.
2. Automate IT infrastructure and management
IT infrastructure management is another area where intelligent automation can be used to improve efficiency and reduce costs. Intelligent automation can be used to automate tasks such as server provisioning and configuration, network monitoring and security, and software patching and updates. This can free up IT staff to focus on more strategic and value-added work.
3. Automate customer support
Customer support is a critical function for many businesses, but there are a number of associated tasks that can be automated, such as answering customer inquiries, processing orders, and shipping products. This can improve customer satisfaction and reduce costs.
4. Automate back-office processes
Back-office processes are often manual and repetitive. Intelligent automation can be used to automate many of your back-office processes, such as accounting, payroll, and human resources. This can improve efficiency, reduce costs and reduce the workload required to support a number of applications and systems.
5. Use AI to augment the skills of IT staff
Artificial intelligence (AI) can be used to augment the skills of IT staff by providing them with insights and recommendations. For example, AI can be used to identify security threats, diagnose problems, and recommend solutions. This can help IT staff to work more efficiently and effectively.
Benefits of intelligent automation
Intelligent automation offers a number of benefits to businesses, including:
- Cost reduction: helping businesses to reduce costs by automating manual tasks and streamlining processes.
- Increased efficiency: automation can help businesses by freeing up IT staff to focus on more strategic and value-added work.
- Improved quality: helping improve the quality of their work by reducing the risk of human error.
- Increased productivity: automation can help increase productivity by automating manual tasks and increasing output and freeing up staff to focus on more value-added work.
- Improved customer satisfaction: improve customer satisfaction by providing faster and more efficient customer support.
Intelligent automation is a powerful tool that can help businesses to address the IT talent shortage and improve their overall performance. By automating manual tasks and freeing up IT staff to focus on more strategic and value-added work, intelligent automation can help businesses to reduce costs, increase efficiency, improve quality, increase productivity, and improve customer satisfaction.
Recommendations for CIOs
The article makes a number of recommendations for CIOs who are looking to kick-start their journey with intelligent automation to address the IT talent shortage:
- Identify areas where intelligent automation can be used to improve efficiency and productivity.
- Invest in the necessary tools and technologies to implement intelligent automation.
- Train IT staff on how to use intelligent automation tools and technologies.
- Monitor the results of intelligent automation initiatives and make adjustments as needed.
If you have any questions about the above or are interested in starting your business on its automation journey, please feel free to give me a call.
