For years, automation in IT largely meant scripts.
You wrote something to remove a repetitive task, save a few minutes or eliminate the risk of human error.
A good script became part of the environment and did its job in the background.
That still happens, of course.
But the scale of what businesses now expect automation to do has changed.
Requests that once involved individual tasks are becoming requests to automate entire processes.
A manager wants a new starter provisioned automatically.
Finance wants data pulled from multiple systems into a single report.
HR wants approval workflows.
Operations wants notifications, integrations and exception handling built into existing processes.
And these requests arrive alongside everything else.
The service desk still needs support, security reviews still need completing, infrastructure still requires attention, and your existing projects continue moving through the pipeline.
Meanwhile, automation opportunities appear almost everywhere.
Building the automation is usually the straightforward part.
Understanding the process can take considerably longer.
I’ve seen automation projects spend weeks uncovering undocumented workarounds, conflicting requirements and exceptions that nobody realized existed until somebody tried to automate them.
A process that looked simple on a whiteboard suddenly involves six departments, three applications and a collection of manual steps that have evolved over several years.
The technical work becomes only one part of the exercise.
Somebody has to engage stakeholders, document requirements, test outcomes, manage changes and support the finished solution once people start relying on it.
Those responsibilities typically fall to you.
There’s also a growing expectation that one automated process should lead to another.
Departments start identifying additional opportunities.
Business leaders see productivity gains and ask where else similar improvements might be possible.
Before long, automation becomes another ongoing program rather than a one-off project.
That’s where resource constraints become difficult.
The business sees a clear return from automation initiatives and wants more of them.
But you still have responsibility for security, resilience, governance, budgeting and operational delivery.
This is one reason co-managed support is becoming part of the discussion for many internal IT teams.
IT directors need enough operational capacity to keep driving improvements while continuing to support everything the business already depends on.
As automation is becoming part of how organizations operate, somebody still needs the time, expertise and bandwidth to make sure those automated processes are secure, reliable and aligned with the wider goals of the business.
If you’re finding that the demand for automation is growing faster than your team’s available capacity, we can help. Get in touch.