Organisations in Australia and around the world face major challenges determining what type of IT infrastructure they require, currently and in the future, to achieve their ongoing digital business objectives. Given the enormous pressure to compete digitally, the direction enterprises decide to take in the coming years is likely to have a significant influence on their long-term success.   

One thing that many IT professionals tend to agree upon is the need for companies to implement IT automation.

Experts agree that IT automation is the future 

In a BMC Software study involving more than 650 IT decision makers in 12 countries, 73 per cent of respondents believed that organisations which  fail to embrace IT automation within the next five years, as a part of their overall digital strategy, will no longer be in business in 10 years.

Additionally, 94 per cent of the survey participants said they expect automation to spread from IT departments into all areas of the business by 2020, with DevOps, workload automation/scheduling and containerisation being the top three priorities in terms of investment. 

Mr Gur Steif, president of digital business automation at BMC, said that digital enterprises are being challenged by the sheer complexity of the workloads they're having to manage as they move to adopt hybrid cloud capabilities.

"IT teams must be able to manage the customer value chain in spite of decentralised usage of cloud services. This is requiring a new level of IT automation to adapt to the challenges posed by increasingly diverse infrastructure, disparate data, and accelerated applications – the critical components of digital business."

The obstacles can be overcome

In the BMC study, 89 per cent of respondents considered IT automation to be essential for finding new ways for firms hoping to realise their digital business objectives. Of note, enterprise architects identified a variety of barriers to success, including a lack of budget (67 per cent), time (51 per cent) and skills (44 per cent).

"BMC believes that without taking a new approach to IT automation, companies will not be able to overcome the budget, skills, and time constraint challenges identified by the survey respondents, Mr Steif said.

"Only through new digital-first technologies with automation solutions that support hybrid multi-clouds, will CIOs enable their companies to innovate, transform, and accelerate growth by aggressively pursuing a digital agenda that differentiates them from their competitors."

While there are many hurdles associated with digital business automation, 88 per cent of IT decision makers in the BMC study said they were empowered to deliver the what was required to drive digital business transformation. Furthermore, 77 per cent believe that firms are on the right track and doing enough to prepare and up-skill their workforces. 

DevOps enables continuous delivery 

To maintain competitiveness in today's digital world, it's becoming more important than ever for companies to have the ability to continuously deploy new software into the market. That is where a DevOps approach can help – by incorporating DevOps, a business can greatly speed up its product development and delivery cycle.

DevOps is an adaptable method that often involves a change in the way that different functions within an organisation collaborate.  

Reach out to the automation experts

Leading Australian IT firm ANATAS specialises in providing consultancy services to organisations looking to adopt IT automation within their enterprise. DevOps is a large part of our offering.

Please contact ANATAS today to find out more about how we can help your organisation leverage upon or adapt its existing IT infrastructure for future success.