Although automation brings in security risks, you can mitigate them with proper measures and practices. So here are Automation risks and mitigation practices that can help businesses better manage the risks that come with automation technology.
Automation Risks and Mitigation Practices
The key to decreasing risks is to choose appropriate processes that can be automated. Before automation, the assessment phase should explicitly identify the manual efforts necessary for the process, as well as the frequency, SLA, turnaround time, and other factors, which should be confirmed by process SMEs.
Here are practices that can help mitigate the risks that come with automation, for example:
1. Automation should never be used as a substitute for business or domain knowledge.
Remember that automation is only a tool, not a solution. It will provide the same results every time it is used, but it cannot solve problems that are not well defined. Before automating, you should have a clear understanding of the business context. For example, if you are automating an existing manual process, you should understand why things are done manually in that process.
2. Automation initiatives should be carefully planned and implemented with the involvement of all stakeholders.
Automation projects require much more than just coding skills. They also involve planning, testing, training, and monitoring processes. These activities should be carefully planned and delivered with the active involvement of all stakeholders.
Employees might work around automated tasks if they don’t understand their purpose. For example, if you automate a manual process but don’t provide any documentation or training, employees might try to find the original manual process and continue performing it instead of using the new automated process.
Different Ways of Automation
Automation can be done in many different ways:
1. Manual Automation:
This is the most commonly used form of automation, where business processes are automated. For instance, by using software tools or scripts that run on a computer. Manual Automation is also known as “Scripting”. The Automation Scripts can be in languages like Perl, Python, VBScript, VBA, etc.
2. Business Process Automation:
This is an approach in which the entire business process is automated by using application software and databases. Business Process Automation involves building an application to automate a business process and includes all of the applications and computers needed to support the business process.
3. Process Integration or BPM:
Business Process Management (BPM) refers to methods and tools that enable effective planning and execution of business processes across organizational boundaries. BPM allows enterprises to improve operational efficiency and achieve real-time visibility. For instance, into key business processes such as HR, payroll processing, customer relationship management (CRM), finance and accounting, procurement, supply chain management (SCM), e-commerce, etc.
BPM enables users to integrate disparate systems through the development of flexible integration frameworks that allow for easier data exchange between systems so that they can communicate with each other. BPM also provides for transparency across all departments within an organization to ensure seamless communication among them.
4. Enterprise Application Integration (EAI):
Enterprise Application Integration(EAI) is the integration of applications within an organization for exchanging data across applications or integrating different operating systems within the boundaries of one enterprise. EAI combines application programming interfaces (APIs) with middleware technologies to enable data sharing across applications.
The integration approach could be either synchronous or asynchronous depending on the nature of data between applications (e.g., transactional vs. informational).