IBM Is Aiming to Transform Through Intelligent Automation

For a considerable time the term “dynamic automation” has been used by IBM to somewhat cryptically describe the ongoing corporate transformation. Without explaining its exact meaning, the term was used in investor calls and discussions with stakeholders to suggest a relentless drive to enhance process efficiencies and margins while management is driving change through big investments in what IBM calls CAMSS (cloud, analytics, mobile, social and security).

At a recent analyst briefing of IBM’s GTS business unit, the company explained how these efforts would be leveraged in delivering services to clients. The narrative of the client facing side of dynamic automation is aligned with The HfS Intelligent Automation Continuum (see http://www.hfsresearch.com/from-rpa-to-ai–the-hfs-process-automation-continuum) by emphasizing the interdependence of disparate automation approaches. At the heart of this is ITIL-based core automation leveraging proprietary tools for task automation, server virtualization and server end-point management. The step change in process efficiency is meant to be achieved through robotic automation that is integrating IPsoft’s IPcenter platform with a set of proprietary tools. Moving forward, IBM’s Watson’s cognitive capabilities will be incrementally added to the service delivery approach.

IBM’s aspiration for dynamic automation needs to be viewed in the context of a set of recent announcements including Syntel’s SyntBots platform and Capgemini’s Autonomics PaaS platform. Thus far, discussions around Robotic Process Automation (RPA) have dominated the discourse on Intelligent Automation. But in order to get to much more scalable deployments, autonomics, cognitive computing and artificial intelligence need to be part of broader automation strategies. Furthermore, organizational stovepipes need to be overcome to leverage automation capabilities beyond narrowly defined scenarios such as IT help desk or sub-processes of F&A.

The vision for dynamic automation is sound, yet the success of IBM’s corporate transformation hinges on the capability to drive through change management while not losing its competitive edge. IBM shares these challenges with many of its customers. Disruption or avoid being disrupted becomes ever more the reference point for corporate strategies. By starting customer discussions on automation with transformation, IBM is eating its own dog food while offering a plethora of automation capabilities. However, the metric for success will be the ability to manage change—not technology in itself.

HfS has put autonomics at the heart of its research agenda on Intelligent Automation until the end of the year. A good example for that is the launch of an Autonomics Premier League Table—stay tuned for that. If you are interested in engaging with us on the topic, just drop me a line at tom.reuner@hfsresearch.com.