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Over the last several decades, digital processes have grown from a novelty to the backbone of every business, big or small. Digital products help us in almost every facet of our corporate lives. Everything from sales to invoicing to business intelligence is now simpler, safer, and more efficient. Unfortunately, as our capabilities change, our needs change. Businesses today have to sort through and analyze far more data than ever before, leading to huge inputs of labor, and error-prone practices. Workload automation does away with that.
According to the International Data Corporation, the volume of data created over the next three years will exceed that created over the past 30 years (source). As our data burden grows, so does the complexity of our digital processes. What starts as a few isolated programs grows into a massive, heterogeneous, ceaseless ecosystem of workloads that struggles to interact with itself. Any complex workflow has to be handed off between 3 or 4 separate applications, none of which are fully integrated, forcing owners and employees to babysit each automated process. This siloed strategy makes workflow inefficient, insecure, and unreliable.
Advanced WLA technology allows us to protect our businesses against the inherent complications of managing large batches of data and byzantine digital procedures.
1) Batch Processes
Businesses have always had to manage data, but as the data grows, its management grows beyond the capabilities of humans to process it. Advanced workload automation technology is sophisticated enough to process large amounts of data across multiple applications without compromising on security or integrity. It does this by integrating the file transfer capability into its job scheduling function, allowing the scheduler to identify and respond to the precise point of failure in the event of a transfer interruption.
2) Reliable integration
When looking for the right workload automation software for your business, make sure it includes integrations for your existing tech ecosystem. Most vendors will show on their webpage which applications they have already integrated. Proper integration will allow you to free up your employees for more complex and rewarding tasks, leading to greater efficiency, a happier workforce, and fewer headaches for you.
Businesses are moving increasingly toward API-based integration solutions. These solutions are extremely effective at connecting multiple disparate applications and managing jobs across several platforms. Many WLA programs use this same technology to offer your team quick, simple integration solutions using minimal code.
3) Data warehousing
Every organization needs a comprehensive means to manage its own business intelligence and data. If you don’t know how well you’re doing, how can you possibly grow and improve? Unfortunately, many data warehousing solutions on the market today can communicate across platforms only in very limited ways, forcing IT teams to pass data manually across systems, a tedious and unreliable process. Workload automation provides businesses with the ability to manage their BI data responsibly without dedicating work hours toward actually accessing and using it. In fact, it can even manage workflows across multiple warehouse environments, reducing your IT workload from multiple scripts to a simple, unified, low-code solution.
4) Compliance Measures
Data is more than just raw information accumulated. Sometimes it represents people’s private details or even their livelihoods. As a result, governing bodies have put regulations in place to make sure businesses treat their customer’s sensitive data with the respect it deserves. While these regulations are certainly necessary, they are also complicated and constantly changing. Keeping up with these security regulations can be a significant burden on any company’s IT department. WLA software can keep pace with these regulations on your behalf, implementing measures such as two-factor authentication, secure directories, and encrypted file transfers to keep your customer’s data as safe as possible.
5) Optimizing ERP
Enterprise Resource Planning is a powerful way to manage multiple business processes, but many programs fall short in their ability to communicate with project management or other systems. Error-free ERP data is crucial for keeping your business running smoothly and managing inventory effectively. Using workload automation, you can seamlessly integrate your existing ERP systems with your other business applications to enable your entire tech stack to exchange important data freely.
6) Streamlining Documentation Practices
While it is both convenient and efficient to automate your workflow, visibility is critical for facilitating human oversight, especially in the event of any kind of disaster. This need can create challenges as your business scales and develops. When a business grows and takes on more employees for more specialized work, they often run into situations where the person starting a workload has no insight or involvement with that workload down the line, which can cause confusion and inefficiency. As vital as documentation is, it is also time-consuming and easy to justify skipping. This is because the person creating the documentation is never the person who benefits from it. An employee may be altruistic by nature but still easily justify skipping that last step in order to start a workload sooner. The solution is a WLA platform that is self-documenting. Not only does this fully integrate and automate your workflow, but it also provides all the visibility your employees need to oversee it effectively while forcing no humans to document their portions.
7) Time is money
Ultimately, automation is the strongest weapon we have to defend against every business’ greatest foe: the simple passage of time. Each of these tips is really just another way to say that workload automation will save you time, but time, in this case, means so much more than the 8 hours you spend at work each day. Time causes our machines to wear out, our employees’ productivity to diminish, and our cash to lose value. The adage “time is money” is so overused because it perfectly applies to many business problems and solutions. Workload Automation is no different. As the world accumulates more data, businesses grow larger, and processes grow more complex, every enterprise organizations undertake becomes a footrace against time. Workload automation is like a bicycle in that footrace, allowing you to take on more data, provide for more customers, and grow your business without falling behind on time.
