Analyst(s): Daniel Newman, Mitch Ashley
Publication Date: November 12, 2024
The Futurum Group’s latest research report, Accelerating AI, Automation, and Innovation in Modern Enterprises, completed in partnership with Red Hat delves into the technical challenges organizations are currently navigating. The research highlights how automation, generative AI, and innovative technologies such as Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform enable businesses to overcome these obstacles by simplifying complex tasks, optimizing resources, and bridging the skills gap.
What is Covered in this Article:
- The growing complexity of IT environments requires automation to streamline operations, reduce manual tasks, and minimize human error.
- Skills gaps in the workforce hinder the adoption of new technologies, but automation and AI provide solutions to upskill teams and simplify the development of workflows.
- Modernizing legacy infrastructures is essential for efficiency and scalability, and automation supports this process by enhancing operational resilience and reducing downtime.
Organizations are striving to evolve faster than ever. Managing complex IT environments, tackling the growing skills gap, and modernizing legacy infrastructure are just a few of the challenges businesses face every day as they look to stay competitive. Navigating these challenges today requires that organizations turn to automation and AI to assist in driving operational efficiencies and freeing up time for innovation.
The Power of Automation
One of the biggest drivers, as well as supporters, of the increasing evolution of organizations is the introduction of automation. By automating routine and repetitive tasks, organizations have been able to free up valuable resources to focus on more strategic initiatives. This not only empowers teams to challenge the status quo but also reduces manual errors and improves overall efficiency. Even further, automation can help scale operations with minimal effort while enabling these organizations to keep pace with technological advancements.
As we’ve seen, generative AI is making big waves in this area. Organizations that leverage AI-driven solutions are able to further simplify the creation of automation workflows, which allows even non-developers to build and deploy complex solutions. With the democratization of technology, generative AI and automation are helping bridge the skills gap issue that many industries are facing today.
Tackling the Skills Gap
Speaking of skills gaps, finding the right people in sufficient numbers is one of the most pressing challenges organizations are facing today. The Futurum Group, in partnership with Red Hat, covers this issue, noting a significant number of organizations report they lack the technical expertise to manage their evolving IT environments. However, with the introduction of automation and AI, along with upskilling and training existing teams, the same organizations may be able to overcome this challenge. Solutions such as Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform are designed for exactly this effort. Red Hat Ansible can help reduce the strain on IT resources and support efficient operations through interactive quickstart guides, the generation of Ansible playbooks utilizing IBM watsonx Code Assistant, and an Ansible development tools package to aid in the creation of automation.
Modernizing Legacy Systems for a Competitive Edge
Relying on legacy infrastructures can be costly and increasingly difficult to modernize. Unfortunately, this is the reality for many organizations. Delaying modernization efforts comes with additional risks, such as increased technical debt, security vulnerabilities, and delays in implementing strategies and new product capabilities. However, with automation, the modernization process can be simplified by making it easier to migrate and upgrade legacy systems without disrupting operations. Specifically, event-driven automation can help organizations enhance resilience and scalability, and at the same time ensure systems are responsive to real-time changes by receiving alerts from sources including observability, logging, or ITSM tools, which can then be processed in decision-making workflows within the Ansible Automation Platform. This reduces downtime and, again, improves operational efficiency.
The Road Ahead: Embracing Automation for Innovation
If your organization is looking to become or remain agile and competitive, it’s imperative to adopt a strategic approach to automation and AI. With these technologies, your organization will have the tools it needs to streamline processes, reduce operational burdens, and free up resources to focus on innovation. All of this can enable your organization to thrive.
For a deeper dive into how automation and AI can help your organization manage these challenges, check out Accelerating AI, Automation, and Innovation in Modern Enterprises.
Disclosure: The Futurum Group is a research and advisory firm that engages or has engaged in research, analysis, and advisory services with many technology companies, including those mentioned in this article. The author does not hold any equity positions with any company mentioned in this article.
Analysis and opinions expressed herein are specific to the analyst individually and data and other information that might have been provided for validation, not those of The Futurum Group as a whole.
Other insights from The Futurum Group:
Highlights from Red Hat Summit 2024: Expanding on Innovation
Red Hat Virtualization and AI Impacts on DevOps | DevOps Dialogues: Insights & Innovations
Red Hat Summit and AnsibleFest 2024 Unveils Innovations
Author Information
Daniel is the CEO of The Futurum Group. Living his life at the intersection of people and technology, Daniel works with the world’s largest technology brands exploring Digital Transformation and how it is influencing the enterprise.
From the leading edge of AI to global technology policy, Daniel makes the connections between business, people and tech that are required for companies to benefit most from their technology investments. Daniel is a top 5 globally ranked industry analyst and his ideas are regularly cited or shared in television appearances by CNBC, Bloomberg, Wall Street Journal and hundreds of other sites around the world.
A 7x Best-Selling Author including his most recent book “Human/Machine.” Daniel is also a Forbes and MarketWatch (Dow Jones) contributor.
An MBA and Former Graduate Adjunct Faculty, Daniel is an Austin Texas transplant after 40 years in Chicago. His speaking takes him around the world each year as he shares his vision of the role technology will play in our future.
Mitch Ashley is VP and Practice Lead for the CIO & Technology Buyers and Software Lifecycle Engineering practices at The Futurum Group. A multi-time CIO and CTO with 30+ years leading technical organizations, Mitch built and operated production systems spanning cybersecurity for the U.S. Department of Defense, PKI services for the broadband and 5G industries, SaaS platforms, large-scale telecom and banking systems, and a national broadband network. His work with AI began early, developing expert systems that diagnosed and repaired complex mainframe environments. That operator foundation grounds his analysis in operational consequence, covering the technology buyer's world of software engineering, cybersecurity, DevOps, cloud, and AI.
