The Risks of Out-of-Date Automation Technology Part 1: Sustainability and Complexity
This is the first post in a three-part series looking at the specific risks to businesses that rely on ageing automation technology.
If you look at the automation market today, it can be a confusing landscape – particularly if you don’t already have experience of completing a successful automation project under your belt. On one hand, a large number of options might sound like a good thing: More choice is good, isn’t it?
Well, it can be, or it can be paralyzing.
Unfortunately, the potential for confusion between the capabilities of multiple automation tools (we’re looking at you, CA) leads to confused, disappointed and disillusioned customers.
If choosing between many different automation tools wasn’t tricky enough, there’s a niggling worry in the back of your mind that says, ‘but what if they stop supporting it or sunset it entirely?’.
And that should be a question you consider. However, by choosing solutions (such as RunMyJobs by Redwood® scheduling) from a long-established automation specialist like ourselves, distracting product diversifications and acquisitions aren’t going to impact your company’s future.
But what if you’re already invested in CA, or other scheduling software built on legacy architecture? Many organizations are, and many know how tricky it can be to achieve what should be simple automation goals with out-of-date tools that are tied to ‘new day’ schedules.
The new digital world has set expectations—both personal and professional—for immediate responsiveness. To support this, IT needs a process-centric view that can run tasks at any point, whether in the system of record, or according to release management based on DevOps. Scheduling tools that base planning on a daily model simply cannot adapt to the current dynamic environment that changes by the minute.
Even the cost to businesses of relying on out-of-date schedulers can be notable – requiring special skills and training. As this usage complexity increases, automation projects start to get a whole lot messier. By contrast, some of our customers have already achieved an 11-times reduction in the number of automation tasks they run, simply by using our no-nonsense, visual process editor.
In the next post, we’ll look at the perils of ambiguous pricing when using out-of-date automation tools.
To see if RunMyJobs by Redwood scheduling can exceed your automation requirements, try our no-commitment free trial at staging.marketing.redwood.com/runmyjobs
About The Author
Devin Gharibian-Saki
Devin Gharibian-Saki brings a wealth of knowledge and expertise on enterprise IT, the SAP ecosystem and business process automation to his current role as SVP of Business Development and Strategy at Redwood Software. Experience within product marketing, product management and enterprise software sales enables Devin to drive strategic initiatives and alliances for the organization and unlock new business models and go-to-market strategies. Acting as an executive advocate for the customer, Devin is passionate about delivering the best solutions to make the most out of a customer’s environment. His approach centers on connecting with customers, prospects and partners to better understand how Redwood can help their digital transformation initiatives, improving their automation roadmaps by leveraging a combination of his SAP and process optimization proficiencies.
Prior to working for Redwood, Devin was an SAP Technology Consultant, working directly at SAP and at EnBW, the third-largest utility in Germany. Devin holds a diploma in Mathematics from Karlsruhe Institute of Technology in Karlsruhe, Germany, as well as two patents.
