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Vice President—technology and innovation at SLK software , an automation company with three decades of experience in IT transformation. Interest in intelligent automation is rising among enterprises and service providers due to advancements in AI. Robotic process automation, typically used for standard procedures and rule-based processes, is now being re-evaluated for potential replacement or integration with AI/ML.
This article is the first in a series that will share insights on overcoming barriers to intelligent automation in enterprises. In recent decades, IT operations have developed labor-intensive services to support operations, resulting in siloed towers for both providers and customers. Standard operating procedures were established for end-user support and runbook automation for data centers.
For end-user support, channels included phone, email, chat and self-service via IT service management (ITSM) tools, while data center operations have monitoring tools and event management tools that are integrated with ITSM tools. Service levels and frameworks were created to manage these services and provide better business outcomes while providing end-user delight. Despite intentions to improve efficiency and business outcomes, both service providers and customers became trapped in their own technology and process silos.
In end-user support, channels like phone support are now measured by metrics such as first call resolution (FCR) and average call handling time (AHT). Similarly, data center support through network operation centers has developed complex service-level frameworks, agreements and large matrix structures for availability and performance management. Despite various tools and numerous assignment groups, support services across enterprises remain reactive.
The approach of consistently throwing people at problems, combined with bureaucratic legacy processes by both service providers and their consumers, resembles an expensive insurance policy. For example, end users have to adhere to calling the service desk through phone and email channels for simple support requirements of access and productivity application issues. In data center operations, most of the monitoring and the incident tickets created have no action whatsoever, but are allocated to engineers for verification.
The cost of this legacy process-driven support is becoming clearer as generative AI platforms show the effectiveness of intelligent automation in support roles, highlighting the reduced need for such structures and personnel. Traditional support channels (e.g.
, phone calls) are disappearing from our daily interactions within our banking systems or online e-commerce systems. Yet enterprises still rely on these outdated methods for IT support. The transformation mentioned above is due to stringent margin requirements and increased competition.
This is forcing a shift from traditional support channels to self-help options. This transition is facilitated by implementing reliable back-end systems powered by intelligent automation and driving effective change management. For example, our financial systems have all implemented self-help channels for most of the daily issues that arise, with a common one being password self-help.
Similar self-help solutions have also been provided in tracking and logistics in our e-commerce systems. This approach shows that support is proactive, with a significantly reduced resolution time, making many legacy metrics and their monitoring unnecessary. Most importantly, it shows a very clear shift from robotic process automation, which adheres to an inefficient process, to an intelligent automation that disrupts the current processes and channels of support and provides user empowerment for self-help.
Another interesting aspect of these intelligent automation-led transformations is that they never involve a huge amount of time when it comes to training consumers. The changes were all intuitive so that anyone could easily adapt to them. This was made possible due to intelligence generated over the last several decades using customer satisfaction and interaction data combined with contact center data, and using all of that to develop intelligent change management.
This could then be used to develop intuitive transformation programs that help drive customer delight and also provide better business outcomes. Though intelligent automation is proving effective and adaptive across many such consumer-facing examples, and similar automation is possible for enterprise IT support, there appears to be a lack of similar intelligent change management in IT support that can be used to develop non-intrusive transformation programs that can be easily adopted without much user training and disruption. To achieve the benefits of intelligent automation, enterprises and IT service providers should adopt intelligent change management.
This involves a few steps: The first is generating organization-specific intelligence that can identify clear bottlenecks in the processes. Next, IT leaders should use this data to make traditional support channels (phone, email, chat) less accessible and encourage users to rely on self-help resources. Finally, they should align support teams with those who have the proper troubleshooting skills and understand the back-end systems that support the self-help platforms.
Given that there is a large volume of operational and log data available, AI is currently capable of generating intelligence to guide such change management and drive the required transformation. For example, AI-powered change management allows IT operations to run without relying on a service desk, empowering users through intelligent automation. Similarly, network operation centers handling level 1 and 2 support tasks can be aided with intelligent automation and change management.
In conclusion, achieving the benefits of intelligent automation is possible if enterprises and service providers lead operational transformation initiatives by first eliminating legacy processes and relying on AI-powered intelligent change management. Forbes Technology Council is an invitation-only community for world-class CIOs, CTOs and technology executives. Do I qualify?.
