Speed. Efficiency. Organization. Every IT department dreams of these benefits; yet, all too often, they are swamped with service tickets, monitoring security, shortening mean resolution times, or generally just trying to stay afloat.
The often-touted solution, as you probably know, is automation. Yet not all automation solutions were created equal. Whereas RPA might achieve roughly 30% end-to-end automation, HIRO uses knowledge automation to achieve up to 90% end-to-end automation. In this post, we walk you through a few common IT scenarios where HIRO can make a big difference.
1.Customer and Employee Password Resets
Password resets are a costly, time-consuming beast that can overwhelm any IT department. According to research from Forrester, the average helpdesk labor cost for a single password reset is $70 while some large US-based organizations set aside over $1 million per year for password-related support costs.
While you could rely on RPA to automate password resets, you will eventually run into issues. RPA frequently breaks, doesn’t scale well, and as a result, requires hands-on management. In contrast, HIRO’s Knowledge Automation uses advanced AI to apply the knowledge it’s learned to dynamically reset passwords on its own. No step-sequencing, process reengineering, or maintenance needed.
2. Access Requests
Automating access requests can free-up time for your IT staff, expedite new hire onboarding, and limit security risks from terminated employees.
The New Hire
In addition to saving time for IT, automation can improve the notoriously underwhelming experience of onboarding a new hire. According to a relatively recent Gallup survey, “Only 12% of employees strongly agree that their organization does a great job of onboarding.”
During onboarding, every new hire will need to be set up in standard applications, like Active Directory, email clients, messaging apps, Internet browsers, as well as software specific to their job, like SAP ERP for Finance or Operations or HR ERP for Human Resources, and so on.
The more time these access requests take, the more issues it causes—from creating a bad first impression for the company to preventing that employee from starting their job.
The Employee Switching Roles
Similarly, an employee switching roles will likely need new permissions —whether in the same applications or totally new ones. Without these permissions, the employee will have trouble fully stepping into their role.
The Employee Leaving
According to a survey from Osterman Research, 69% of organizations polled say that they have suffered significant data or knowledge loss resulting from employees who took information resources with them when they left the business. When an employee leaves, their access to company accounts and systems should end immediately. Yet this process usually takes weeks, if not months. That lapse poses security risks, like data theft, misappropriation of work accounts, and can even open up your company to lawsuits if there’s a significant data breach.
In all three cases, HIRO’s knowledge automation outperforms other solutions by understanding an employee’s role or privileges. By working at the API level of applications, it can then automatically grant or deny permission.
Learn how HIRO can also streamline new employee onboarding both in and outside IT. See #4 in this blog post.
3. Configuration Management
Managing servers is one element of configuration management that companies shouldn’t ignore. According to Hewlett Packard Enterprise, the estimated cost of comatose servers globally in 2015 was $30 billion. That piece goes on to state that this finding still holds true.
Automating server management can save man hours and capital for the long term. Case in point: One arago client, working on behalf of a global company, needed to assess 200,000 servers worldwide and efficiently decommission those that were comatose or underutilized.
Normally, decommissioning one server required staff to manually complete 27 steps and took three to six months in total. With HIRO, the client could automate more than half of these steps, which allowed them to decommission 200 servers a month and save $6 million dollars annually. With HIRO, the process was 83% faster all while requiring less staff.
4. Automating L1 or L2 Tasks and Triaging Ticket Assignments
HIRO can free your IT team from executing or even assigning tedious, routine L1 and L2 tasks. Take the example of Swisscom, a leading Swiss company which provides B2B and B2C telecom, Internet and IT services globally.
As part of their offerings, they rent their infrastructure to other ISPs. In turn, Swisscom and these ISPs must sort out who is responsible for customer support tickets. Unfortunately, their previous manual system of assigning tickets was less than 50% accurate, resulting in wasted time, confusion, and delayed resolutions.
With HIRO, they have automated over 150+ tasks, saved over 100,000-man hours, and empowered highly-trained IT staff to work on more complicated projects. In doing so, HIRO would assign L1 and L2 tickets with 96% accuracy or just complete each task.
Empowering IT for tomorrow
ITSM without automation is a bit like trying to stop a tidal wave with an umbrella. Sooner or later, your IT staff will be flooded, overwhelmed and in chaos. The key is to find an automation solution that does what many automation solutions out there can’t. HIRO can be implemented in a matter of weeks; it applies Advanced AI to find an ideal solution, and it scales with minimal IT support needed.
From password resets to configuration management, what we’ve seen so far from HIRO is just the beginning. With HIRO, your IT staff can focus on more complicated tasks, elevate customer service, and catalyze growth as the digital backbone of your company.