Fujitsu’s Wilfried Cleres writes about process automation; the less glamourous, but crucial building block of digital transformation.
By Wilfried Cleres, Fujitsu Distinguished Engineer, Managing IT Consultant for EPS Automation and Cloud Services – Fujitsu EMEIA EPS
Our industry has talked a lot about digital transformation and the extraordinary benefits that customers have been able to unlock by deploying appropriate technologies. We’ve all seen the headlines about companies that have created whole new revenue streams or who have dramatically reduced their costs while equipping themselves to handle whatever the future throws at them. What isn’t covered as frequently are the less glamourous, but crucial building blocks of these transformations – including process automation. This unsung hero is the key to unleashing all the benefits, as it essentially removes the need for IT teams to physically handle every single process manually.
Automation – more than just saving time
When you start to think about how many processes that a typical IT team is responsible for, you start to see the enormous difference that automation makes. Not that long ago, every new piece of software, printers and new users, to name but a few examples, would have to be set up or installed manually – requiring a huge amount of manpower. Process automation reduces much of the required effort to just a single mouse click. And this automation can extend beyond simple processes – there are now data centers that use sensors to track everything from computing power to local temperatures and even the water level of nearby rivers. Should the water level rise enough to threaten the building or other emergency situation occur, a full contingency plan to switch IT service delivery to a secondary location can be activated automatically.
Why customer and partner know-how counts
Establishing these processes does require time spent up front – firstly to map the processes themselves, to identify any dependencies and then to set up the automation itself. While well designed automated processes generally require very little technical expertise to run, automating them in the first place does require considerable skills. Consequently, Fujitsu works closely with customers to facilitate every part of the process to ensure they derive the most benefit possible. The processes are truly co-created– our customers bring the in-depth knowledge of their business, its processes and requirements, while we contribute our technical expertise.
A great example of how we work was a project we recently undertook with a large German public sector company responsible for managing the information technology and service delivery for public sector organizations in several German states – a challenging task as this involved a large number of users across multiple locations, with entirely different processes and infrastructure in every state.
We worked closely with representatives from the customer’s individual departments, first to help them model all their processes using Business Process Model and Notation (BPMN) 2.0. This essentially creates flow charts to identify all the steps involved in each process and their dependencies. The next phase was to examine these processes across the entire organization and then optimize them, minimizing complexity by standardizing them across all sites where possible. Once the new processes were planned, the Fujitsu development team sprang into action to develop all the relevant interfaces and connections that would be required to make it work. We extensively tested the new system and trained the organization’s IT team how to use it. The master processes are now run from the company’s central library in their datacenter – which now governs the processes for all sites.
The platform we use to manage these processes is from CA Technologies – it allows us to automate IT processes that span multiple organizations and diverse systems, reduce the time it takes to deliver services and allows us to enforce standards and compliance policies across departments. We have of course added connectors to all of Fujitsu’s products – from servers and integrated systems to storage devices. Technically minded customers can of course write their own code to add processes, but this is absolutely not a requirement.
From IT support to facility management – how users and administrators benefit
The solution automated a significant number of previously cumbersome and time-consuming tasks. For example, historically the company received many hundreds of support requests every day from users relating to simple tasks, for example password resets – each of which might require several minutes to solve. With the new system, these tasks are not only automated but also self-service. Now employees can use the user-friendly online interface to handle many of these tasks – and can reset their own passwords at the click of a mouse.
Now, onboarding new employees, setting up their identities, permissions and passwords is also child’s play to handle, and the same applies to shutting down accounts when people leave the company. As our customer is also responsible for facilities management – they have also been able to automate many aspects of this, from managing the lifecycle of not just IT equipment but also furniture, coordinating spare parts and warranty processes. Moving teams between buildings or from one floor to another is a breeze as everything possible is automated, short of actually moving the furniture itself!
Of course, for any project to be successful, its users actually need to take advantage of the services. Our customer’s IT team loves it as it frees them from handling the mundane but time-consuming tasks, and their customers love it as IT issues can now be solved almost instantaneously. Furthermore, we all know how easy it is to forget to check the right box or select all the required options – now the chances for human error to creep into processes have effectively been eliminated. Staff with no technical expertise can now manage their own technology requirements.
So, by investing some time upfront, and by working closely with us to co-create a powerful solution to automate the majority of their processes, our customers save time and effort every day. And there are always opportunities to take things even further – consider the effects that automating backup and recovery processes will have on your stress levels, or even entirely automated contingency plans…
About Author
Wilfried Cleres is responsible as Managing IT Consultant for Automation and Cloud Services at Fujitsu Enterprise Platform Services. 2004 – at Fujitsu Siemens Computers – he led and defined the Global Project Support Team for SAP infrastructures, followed by management responsibilities in the Fujitsu service and product area. Prior to joining Fujitsu Wilfried worked for Siemens CIO as Project Management in the Siemens Enterprise Portal and the Siemens SAP Task Force. Wilfried holds a degree in electrical engineering, specializing in automation and information technology, from the Fachhochschule Darmstadt / Germany.