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How to use IT automation to streamline your ITSM processes
IT automation is just one of the many types of business automation that today’s enterprises are embracing in the quest for operational efficiency. Automation enables businesses to do more with the resources they have, improve the quality of their output, and potentially cut costs. In fact, 82% of decision makers feel their automation strategy is important to their overall business strategy, reports Forrester.
Adoption of business process automation (BPA) is accelerating. Simple task automation using technologies like robotic process automation (RPA) is being supercharged with machine learning, artificial intelligence (particularly generative AI), and process intelligence to create intelligent automation. While this is still an emerging technology, mainstream use is expected in the next five to ten years, according to Gartner, and IT departments will be at the forefront of adoption.
So what is IT automation, what can you use it for, and how do you get started?
What is IT automation?
IT automation can mean lots of things. The Forrester report mentioned earlier reveals IT leaders currently have the greatest influence on decision-making for business automation strategies, meaning IT teams are usually the drivers of organization-wide infrastructure automation initiatives.
But IT automation can also relate to the automation of departmental processes within the IT function. Our latest process trends research — which will be released as part of our annual Process Optimization Reports, coming out in January 2025 — indicates IT departments are slightly ahead of other functions such as Supply Chain and Finance in their automation journey, with IT leaders saying 75% of their processes are automated to some extent.
For the purpose of this article, we’re talking specifically about IT automation within IT service management (ITSM). This largely involves using process automation software to streamline the management of IT service requests and incidents.
The benefits of IT automation
There are numerous reasons to automate ITSM processes, and minimizing time to resolution is one of the most obvious automation benefits. When there’s an IT incident that disrupts operations, for example, businesses need to resolve issues and restore services ASAP. Nobody wants their employees sitting around unable to work due to systems issues, and automated processes to help route tickets correctly and move incidents quickly along the path to resolution can get things up and running far quicker than manual fixes.
Find out how LinkedIn’s IT operations team was able to give over 300,000 working hours back to employees by resolving requests more quickly using Celonis Process Intelligence for ITSM.
Increasing productivity is another core benefit of IT automation. By automating repetitive tasks that are relatively simple but time-consuming, IT automation can free up IT teams to focus on more value-add activities.
To really amplify team productivity, AI-powered automation can also be used to help agents with tasks that still need to be done manually. It can assist with prioritization of manual tasks and give them the information they need to resolve tickets quickly and effectively.
IT support automation can also improve service quality across the board, from reducing first contact delays and long external holds to eliminating forgotten incidents.
Three IT automation use cases
Automation can be used to streamline ITSM in various ways. Three example use cases are:
1. Zero-touch tickets
In some cases, ITSM processes can be fully automated and tickets can be resolved without human intervention. This means triggering an automation like a Celonis Action Flow, or a workflow built in a process automation tool like ServiceNow. Let’s look at an example. A password reset is a routine task for IT helpdesks but it can take a surprising amount of time to resolve. By triggering a workflow automation instead, the user can be authenticated and the password can be reset without an agent having to get involved.
2. Automated routing
Allocating ITSM tickets to the right team to fix an issue is a time consuming task.When tickets are routed to the wrong team, it can take hours or even days for them to be reallocated, even if the ticket is then resolved fairly quickly.
A printer issue is a common example of a task where an on-site technician may be required, meaning the ticket must be routed to a local team. On the other hand, issues with third-party applications or cloud computing may need routing to specialized teams with experience in those areas.
Workload automation, which helps to manage and automate IT tasks across different systems and platforms, can categorize the issue using technologies like machine learning, as well as generative AI that can use free text as input. It can then assign the ticket to the right resolution group, minimizing the time it takes to fix the issue or provide the service.
3. Closing tickets
Once an issue or service request has been resolved, the ticket needs to be closed. ITSM automation can be used to close tickets once they’ve met specific criteria – for example, if there has been no further communication around the ticket for a set number of hours post resolution. In the case of an incident, generating a report for post-incident analysis can also be an automated process.
ITSM automation in action
Let’s follow the path of an ITSM ticket raised for a service request or incident, and explore how automation software is used:
Step one – Creation: A request is made, or an incident is reported, and a digital record (or ticket) is automatically created.
Step two – Routing: The content of the ticket is interpreted by generative AI and that data is analyzed by machine learning to determine whether the ticket can be acted upon or solved by using an automated workflow, or if it should be routed to the appropriate resolution team.
Step three – Resolution: The ticket is resolved, either by an automated workflow or by the resolution team it is assigned to.
Step four – Closure: The correct closure codes are automatically applied to the ticket and it is closed, with a post-incident report automatically generated for analysis if appropriate.
Getting started with ITSM automation
The hardest part about IT automation is often knowing where to start. ITSM consolidates an extensive set of processes, with thousands of daily tickets taking different journeys. This complexity can be exacerbated by all sorts of factors, including growth, mergers, system migrations, and general feature creep. All these combine to make automation opportunities difficult to see.
Celonis Process Intelligence can help ITSM teams identify the processes that are ripe for automation. By using process mining to extract real-time data from business systems, and layering in standardized process knowledge and AI, Celonis creates a process digital twin of the ITSM function. With this digital twin, IT leaders can identify the areas where automation will have the most impact, and where the time to value will be quickest.
This doesn’t necessarily mean automating entire end-to-end processes from the outset. Starting small with specific automated tasks and then scaling is often the best approach.
When describing Cisco’s process automation journey with Celonis, Cisco’s Continuous Improvement Lead Miguel Gutierrez explains:
“All in all, we’ve automated 17 critical steps in our two-hour service delivery process, reaching 54% automation across it. But we’re not finished. We think we can easily get that figure up to 70% and bring even greater efficiency and accuracy to the process.”
As well as identifying opportunities for automation, Celonis Process Intelligence is also used to feed intelligent automation, and make sure it’s working from the most accurate and up-to-date process knowledge and enterprise priorities. It can work with any automation solution to orchestrate end-to-end business processes. It can even be used to monitor the effectiveness of IT automation by measuring deviation from the ideal business process.
Find out more about how ITSM automation can benefit your business:
Learn more about automating workflows with Celonis Action Flows
Read how AI’s role in IT operations is changing
Discover how out-of-the-box Celonis apps help you drive value in ITSM
