Banks, insurance and healthcare systems will be the most automated sectors in the years ahead

For most companies the quality of their products and services strongly depends on the level of automation of IT processes, according to new research released by Automic, which reveals that 93 per cent of businesses value automation as high or very high when it comes to product and service quality.

The research also found that almost nine out of ten respondents (88 per cent) believe that automation helps increase efficiency as well as reducing costs (87 per cent). The majority of the participants were from Europe (91 per cent) working at medium sized companies with an overall annual revenue from 50 million to 2 billion Euros.

As companies of all sizes increasingly feel the pressure of national and international competition, they do not consider IT automation as only a method of increasing efficiency. Over two thirds of respondents (69 per cent) also considered IT automation as very important for the security of their company’s future.

“The constantly increasing data volume and the growing number of processes handled by IT increases the significance of IT automation,” comments Richard Muirhead, CEO, Automic. “First of all, it is important to avoid mistakes while at the same time working faster and more efficiently, in order to gain a competitive advantage. In addition to this, IT automation releases highly qualified specialists from monotonous repetitive tasks, so that they can spend more time on developing new solutions and promoting the company.”

According to the research, IT service providers, banks, logistic companies, the healthcare industry and insurance firms in particular will increase their automation levels over the next five years. The most frequently quoted reason for this is cost pressures (70 per cent), followed by the competitive pressures (66 per cent) in these industries. According to 39 per cent, backlogs are a motivation, while innovation pressure and the lack of specialists only play a minor role in increasing automation.

Research methodology

The research gathered responses from 98 participants at Automic’s customer conference “Innovate” in June 2014 in Hanover, Germany.