85 per cent of I&O leaders expect to increase their automation within 3 years: Gartner

A recent Gartner survey reveals that 85 per cent of infrastructure and operations (I&O) leaders who do not currently have full automation expect to become more automated in the next 2-3 years.

Gartner predicts that by 2025, 70 per cent of organizations will implement structured automation to provide greater flexibility and efficiency, a significant increase from 20 per cent of organizations in 2021.

I&O teams most often use automation for deployment tasks, such as deploying applications (47 per cent), I&O workload automation (43 per cent), and deploying end-user devices (41 per cent).

“Automation is essential for I&O to scale for the rising demands of digital business,” said Yinuo Geng, VP, Gartner. “I&O automation technologies can support IT in enabling speed to market, increasing business agility, ensuring compliance with security and regulatory requirements and optimizing service costs.”

Gartner’s survey was conducted in April and May 2022 among 304 I&O leaders and their direct reports at companies with annual revenue of at least US$1 billion in North America, APAC (Asia Pacific) and EMEA (Europe, Middle East and Africa).

Ninety percent of respondents who automate application deployment say it has brought value.

However, only 22 per cent of I&O managers currently automate patching and vulnerability remediation, though 70 per cent of those who automate these activities find it has a business impact, stressing the urgency for I&O to extend automation to operational domains.

Only 21 per cent of survey respondents reported high levels of success in their automation efforts. Commonly cited challenges include estimating return on investment to select the best use case opportunities, shifting ways of working towards more consumer-centric approaches, improving legacy processes and infrastructure, and developing and acquiring relevant skills.

“When selecting automation initiatives, I&O leaders tend to look towards feasibility and demand volume rather than potential business value,” said Melanie Freeze, senior principal, Research at Gartner. “I&O leaders can extract more future returns from automation investments if they also prioritize initiatives that are reusable and support innovation and emerging business priorities”, she added.