Automation/ROI - where to start? (Part 1)

What is Return on Investment (ROI)?

In the financial world, ROI or return on costs is a ratio between net income and investment. A high ROI means the investments are comparing favorably to their cost and are therefore considered efficient.

Why is it important to have automation ROI strategy?

You may be personally convinced about the value of automation your team brings to the table. However most automation teams are not consumers of automation benefit. The other teams for which you may have automated something are the ones absorbing the savings and benefits. Therefore we need to be very clear as to what ROI is and whether all parties agree.

If you spend some time planning, it will ensure your focus is on automating the right things. Your return on investment (ROI) analysis should demonstrate the ability to achieve short-term results (quick wins). At the same time, it should also address the longer-term, strategic benefits of automation.

Identify Quick Wins

To show quick ROI, you should start by automating small efforts that can be implemented quickly and successfully, think 1-2 months. Try identifying multiple ‘low hanging fruit’: tasks or processes that are visible and can deliver large returns. Success will lead to more success; it will let you move to the next stage, expand automation to other areas and gain cross-organizational support in the long term.

Your best candidates will usually be repetitive manual processes and tasks that are time consuming and frustrating, such as manually restarting services on a server.

Identify Areas for Future Automation

In addition to immediate wins, you want to think ahead and do some longer-term planning. With IT automation we need to think of sustained growth over time. Which areas can automation grow into in your area? Where can it add value?

Some areas to consider for automation:

• Configuration Management
• Deployment and Provisioning
• Compliance enforcement
• Change Management
• Testing
• Maintenance tasks
• Device Upgrade and Patching
• Performance management
• Capacity management
• Incident and problem management
• Troubleshooting
• Reporting and Data Collection