T A B L E O F C O N T E N T S
Work Automation Index 2022
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Automation acts as a great equalizer, influencing which departments automate and who builds automations.
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Table Of Contents
Executive Summary
More departments are automating than ever before
Automation growth by industry
Most commonly automated processes
Automation adoption by department
The creators of automated workflows
Top automated processes within each department
IT
DataOps
Finance & Accounting
Sales & Marketing
Human Resources
Customer Support
Automation growth by region
Europe, the Middle East, and Africa
Asia Pacific and Japan
Top 10 apps used across all automated processes
Conclusion
Methodology
Executive Summary
For the second year in a row, this report comes out in a world that is rapidly changing and finds that the way we work is playing catch up. It’s not news that automation is being used to bridge this gap, but what may surprise you is who in a company is doing that automation. It’s not engineers, it’s not even IT.
Here’s why:
In today’s world, customers are digitally native and their expectations are higher than ever, more and more services have moved online, and employees are distributed. You need a high level of speed, scale, and productivity for business transformation.
But when you only rely on IT or technical experts to execute this vision, you’re limited to completing a few projects at a time. Scale becomes impossible. The rest of the business must be part of the transformation, and they must be enabled to do so safely with guardrails.
Employees without traditional technical or coding skills—or business technologists—are now able to create new solutions using low code/no code platforms. And it’s only going to continue to increase.
According to Gartner®, by 2024 80% of technology products and services will be built by those who are not full-time technical professionals.
Key Findings
Automation usage is exploding as it becomes more accessible.
The number of automations is doubling year over year. We’ve seen massive growth since 2020: 1074% growth in business intelligence automations, 666% in customer support, 659% in finance, and so on. Automation technology has become more accessible and organizations are using it to create new solutions.
Finance is the most automated department. Finance moved just past IT, totaling 26% of all automations. Order-to-cash continues to be one of the top automated processes. Record-to-report automation also saw significant growth with a 290% increase.
With these key findings established, let’s take a deeper dive into the top processes, departments and other trends revealed in our data.
Changes in number of departments with automated processes 2020 vs. 2021
Automation growth by industry
This year’s data shows that finance and accounting is the most automated department—no surprise as collecting money from customers and paying business expenses are arguably the most critical processes to a business. Automation decreases errors, ensures timely payout, and provides a smooth payment experience for customers. This is an upset to last year’s data, which had IT as the most automated department. However, IT is generally very involved in creating financial automations and partners closely with the Chief Finance Officer.
Finance overtaking IT as the most automated department is testament to the IT department acting as enablers of business. As another proofpoint, IT automations accounted for nearly 40% of all automated processes last year, so we can see that automation is becoming more dispersed across departments.
These YoY growth figures show where automation is expanding the quickest across departments. DataOps experienced the largest growth at 303% in the last year, and has continued to be one of the fastest growing departments for automation over the past 2 years. Although IT is accounting for fewer automations across departments as a whole, IT automations still grew 240% last year.
Top automated processes within each department
Information Technology (IT)
IT operations was the fastest growing area within IT.
Especially as businesses become more digital and continue to add and expand services, IT operations is critical for managing the health and performance of the infrastructure that supports business services and determining how software should be managed. Reducing errors, monitoring applications, and improving security and governance through automation is important as business users have more access to technology through SaaS and low code/no code platforms.
The top applications connected in IT
The top applications connected to build these automated IT workflows are ServiceNow, Jira, Zendesk, Okta, Snowflake, Salesforce, Active Directory, SQL Server and PostgreSQL. Slack and ServiceNow are used frequently in IT service management automations. These applications are commonly used as the interface to kick off IT services and help desk processes. Slack is used in 18% and ServiceNow in 9% of IT service management automations. SQL Server is part of 21% of IT operations automations for processes like autonomous operations, health log analytics, and site reliability operations.
The top applications connected in finance & accounting
NetSuite and Salesforce are two of the most popular applications used across finance workflows. Salesforce is used in 42% of order-to-cash workflows and 21% in procure-to-pay. NetSuite is used in 29% of record-to-report automations, and 25% in order-to-cash. Other top applications for finance automations are SQL Server, Oracle, Coupa, Shopify, Snowflake, Concur, and PostgreSQL.
The top applications connected in customer support
The top applications used in these processes are Salesforce, Zendesk, ServiceNow, Jira, NetSuite, Microsoft Dynamics CRM, Microsoft Teams, and Slack. Customer operations automations related to customer accounts use Salesforce in 41% of automated processes and Slack in 11% of automations to help with churn detection, account management, and new customer onboarding. When dealing with customer support tickets, requests, and escalations, Zendesk is used in 17% of automations and Jira is used in 13%.
The top applications connected in sales & marketing
The top applications connected as part of sales and marketing workflows are Salesforce, Marketo, Slack, SQL Server, HubSpot, NetSuite, and Microsoft Dynamics CRM. Salesforce is the most popular application used in most automations. For example, Salesforce is used in 46% of campaign operations automations and 48% of lead and contact enrichment automations. Slack is also a top application used across marketing and sales. Connecting Slack with a marketing automation platform and CRM lets lead information be routed to sales reps, opportunity information updated, and deals approved from within the app. Slack is used in 32% of MQL routing automations, 9% of marketing automation and CRM sync processes, and 7% of overall marketing operations automations.
The top applications connected in HR
The main applications connected as part of HR automations are Workday, Greenhouse, DocuSign, BambooHR, Okta, and Google Calendar. Workday and Okta are important applications for employee onboarding workflows. Workday is used in 6% of employee onboarding automations and Okta is used in 10%. Slack and Microsoft Teams are also frequently used in HR automations. Slack is used in 24% of recruiting automations for things like sending out offer letters, job setup and approvals, and reminding interviewers to complete scorecards after talking with candidates. Microsoft Teams is used in 5% of employee onboarding automations to help with identity and access provisioning, requesting setup for required accounts and applications, and anything else a new employee might need on their first day.
Automation growth by region
Top 10 apps used across all automated workflows
Conclusion
Automation is no longer a “nice to have” for businesses; it’s unavoidable for growth.
As organizations become more digital and the majority of customer interactions are online, you have to automate in order to stay relevant and scale.
Automation enables companies to be more agile, efficient, innovative, and able to respond to changing market conditions, which has been incredibly important during the events of the past few years.
As we’ve seen in this year’s data, automation is not just for IT departments or developers anymore. As more and more employees become aware of the strategic and tactical benefits of enterprise automation, adoption across a growing number of departments will continue. We expect that the use cases and workflows automated will continue to diversify in the coming year, and that business technologists will continue to drive significant automation growth.
We see this as an opportunity for the business and IT to collaborate to create a strategic automated enterprise that delivers better business solutions. As IT’s role continues to shift from delivery to enabler of the business, its new focus will be on helping business users to pursue enterprise automation in an increasingly self-service way.
Methodology
This report is based on anonymized data collected from 900 midsize ($50M to $2B in annual revenue) to enterprise (over $2B in annual revenue) Workato customers who use automation in their businesses. We looked at all of the automated workflows created at these companies from February 2021 to January 2022, as well as compared to the period from February 2020 to January 2021 for year over year trends. We also looked at the job titles of those people creating the workflows to determine the relative proportion of developers and engineers and business users who built those automations.
Executive Summary
More departments are automating than ever before
Automation growth by industry
Most commonly automated processes
Automation adoption by department
The creators of automated workflows
Top automated processes within each department
Automation growth by region
Top 10 apps used across all automated processes
Conclusion
Methodology
More departments are automating than ever before. The number of organizations with 7 departments automating has nearly tripled since 2019. Which departments are automating is also shifting. IT automations make up 25% of automated processes this year, while they accounted for nearly 40% of all automated processes last year.
HR automation continues to be a primary focus for organizations. As the competition for top talent continues and “work from anywhere” becomes the norm, HR teams are using automation to stand out and improve the employee experience right from the start. As a result, recruiting automations grew 316% over last year.
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We predict automation will act as a great equalizer. Both in terms of which departments are automating and who is creating those automations. Automation is not just for IT departments, but can and will be used by all departments in an organization, creating an opportunity to be more efficient and deliver better business outcomes.
Automation reaches more departments than ever before
Number of departments with automated processes in 2021
28% of organizations have 7 departments using automation, 3x higher than in 2019. In 2020, the majority of companies were automating processes in only 1-2 departments.
In 2021, the majority are automating in 7 departments. More organizations are starting to allow automation at scale within their companies thanks to improved compliance and governance capabilities in tools.
Which industries are using automation?
Technology companies are where you might expect to see high levels of automation, and we do see that the technology companies in our user base are very automated. But in terms of growth, we see other industries embracing automation. Automations created by organizations in the healthcare and pharma industry grew by 857% in the past year, and we expect that this will continue to trend up.
The hospitality industry has struggled over the past two years with lockdowns and travel restrictions keeping people at home. As the industry begins to recover, we see that automations have grown by an incredible 1518% in the past year.
Most commonly automated processes in 2021
Top 10 most automated processes overall across all departments
1. Order-to-cash
2. DataOps
3. IT service management
4. Sales operations
5. Employee and workplace—IT
6. IT operations
7. Marketing operations
8. Customer support
9. Procure-to-pay
10. Record-to-report
Not sure what these processes mean?
Click here to see the definitions
When we look at all automations created, order-to-cash is the most commonly automated process across our user base. Now, let’s take a look at which processes have grown the most when comparing 2020 with 2021.
Overall top processes by growth percentage
Returns and refunds is not one of the most common automations, but tops the list in terms of growth. This is a strong indicator that we’ll see more emphasis on a smooth return and refund process in the coming year—no surprise as online shopping remains the primary commerce channel of choice despite brick-and-mortar locations reopening.
DataOps was also flagged as an emerging trend in last year’s report and now we’re seeing that momentum continue with 332% growth. Delivering data insights from your product or data warehouse and delivering it to other critical business applications (like a CRM or CS app or even into Slack) has become an incredible opportunity for IT to add value to the business, and this data shows that IT orgs are taking notice.
Last year, the top 3 fastest growing processes were DataOps, customer support, and HR analytics. This year, we see customer support move to the bottom of the list and HR analytics fall off the top 10. Although HR analytics has moved down the list, we continue to see high growth in other parts of HR like recruiting and employee onboarding.
Automation adoption by department
Growth in automation by department over the past year
Growth in automation by department from 2020-2022
If we zoom out and look at growth over the last two years, the emphasis on DataOps automation is even more pronounced. Customer support automations come back into focus as a key area for automation although it did not grow as much this year as in previous years.
Developers are no longer the largest creators of automated workflows.
Business technologists are building more automations.
As we’ve already said, automation will act as a great equalizer and who is creating automations is shifting. Business technologists across departments are able to build automations to improve their workflows and we expect to only see this number grow. This year, the main automation builders were in business operations, including sales, marketing, finance, HR, revenue, and customer support. And over 70% of the automations in the marketing, sales, and customer success teams are being created by business users themselves. The IT operations and service management team, which is predominantly made up of non-developers, is the largest team in IT building automations.
Who builds automations
YoY automated process growth in IT
Breakdown of automations in IT
Which automations make up these top IT processes?
The top applications connected in DataOps:
Snowflake is one of the most frequently used applications as part of automated data processes and is used in 23% of data warehousing automations and 9% in operations data storage automations. It’s also frequently part of automations for processes like insights and analytics and reverse ETL. Reverse ETL is another important process within DataOps. SQL Server is used in 32% of reverse ETL automations, and Amazon S3 is used in 13%. The other top applications connected to build automated DataOps processes are Salesforce, Netsuite, Google BigQuery, PostgreSQL, and Redshift.
YoY automated process growth in DataOps
Which automations make up these top processes?
YoY automated process growth in finance & accounting
Breakdown of automations in finance & accounting
Which automations make up these top processes?
YoY automated process growth in marketing
Breakdown of automations in marketing
YoY automated process growth in sales
Breakdown of automations in sales
Which automations make up these top processes?
YoY automated process growth in HR
Breakdown of automations in HR
Which automations make up these top processes?
Breakdown of automations in customer support
YoY automated process growth in customer support
Which automations make up these top processes?
Overall top processes by growth
HR automations are a growing focus in EMEA
Employee onboarding automations grew by 269% and recruiting automations grew by 243% in the past year. Notice periods can vary widely across the world and in EMEA it is often several months between when a new employee accepts your job offer and their start date. Kerry Moore, VP of Talent and Diversity at Workato, recommends focusing on making new employees feel connected to your company before they even start.
“It's going to continue to be really important to find unique ways to create a quick connection for employees. It’s all about creating a personal experience. Automation helps you to create personalized moments for your employees, without having one person responsible for managing those interactions manually,” said Moore.
This data also shows the global trend of improving customer support operations this year as retail continues to migrate online and the ongoing need for customers to easily return items. Returns and refunds automations increased by a massive 1005% for our user base in APJ. In Singapore, for example, coming out of the pandemic many retailers have had to deal with rising occupancy costs and labor issues that have led to the closure of many brick-and-mortar retail stores, including major household names like Robinsons and Topshop, while e-commerce has grown exponentially.
Rapid growth in automated finance processes in APJ
We see that finance automations are a priority
in APJ and have grown rapidly in the past year. Business critical financial processes like order-to-cash, record-to-report, and procure-to-pay are some of the most commonly automated processes for organizations in the region, and have also seen huge growth in the past year. Many of these finance automations are through NetSuite, which we also see is one of the most popular applications in APJ.
Overall top processes by growth
Top 10 applications used globally
Salesforce
Slack
SQL Server
NetSuite
Snowflake
Jira
PostgreSQL
ServiceNow
Zendesk
Amazon S3
The top 10 applications globally look pretty similar to last year with Salesforce unsurprisingly topping the list. Slack remains in the second spot. NetSuite is unseated from the third most used to the fourth, with SQL Server taking its place. Snowflake moved up from the 8th spot to the 5th, which makes sense with the increased focus on DataOps.
Top 10 applications used in Europe, the Middle East, and Africa
Top 10 applications used in Asia Pacific and Japan
Slack
Salesforce
NetSuite
SQL Server
Microsoft Teams
Zendesk
Jira
Oracle
OutSystems
Amazon S3
Automation: The great equalizer
As a result, the role of IT has shifted from delivering projects to being an enabler of the business, a change that actually makes the department even more valuable to an organization. The relationship between the business and IT becomes more like that of a player and a coach, where the coach provides support and guidance to help the player do their best.
With greater access to automation, IT will have to encourage and support business technologists by providing training, consulting, best practices, "guardrails" and all kinds of support services to help them use automation effectively and safely. In this model IT is able to be a strategic partner to the business, and projects can be co-created. IT can still govern new projects, while the business becomes responsible for running them.
The role of IT: From delivery to enabler
Our findings show that in 2021 automation continued to move outside of IT and spread throughout the organization. 66% of organizations now have 5 or more departments using automation and the number of organizations with 7 departments automating has nearly tripled since 2019.
As for which departments are automating, IT automations make up 25% of automated processes this year, while they accounted for nearly 40% of all automated processes last year.
With so many automations being built outside of the IT department, who is building them? We found that 23% of automations were built by non-technical users in business operations roles, the highest of any persona in both business and IT.
Business leaders recognize that solving problems with automation leads to business agility, innovation, and faster time to value.”
We see this happening already, with business operations, including sales, marketing, finance, HR, and customer support operations roles, creating the fastest automation growth. DataOps automations have grown 332% over last year. Sales ops and marketing ops automations have both grown over 200% in the past year and are part of the top 10 most automated processes.
This report is based on anonymized data that we collected from our enterprise customer base to identify trends and to see how automation is being put to work in the real world. We looked at nearly 900 mid-size to large enterprises between February 2021 and January 2022 to determine which workflows are being automated most frequently, and which applications are used to create those workflows.
Let’s dive into our key findings.
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MASSIMO PEZZINI
Head of Research, Future of the Enterprise at Workato
IT needs to get out of the way. As these low code/no code tools are coming in from the business we need to be partnering with them. And IT needs to be open to that.”
CARTER BUSSE
CIO of Workato
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Gartner, “Top Trends for Tech Providers for 2022: The Democratization of Technology,” Mark Driver, 1 February 2022. GARTNER is a registered trademark and service mark of Gartner, Inc. and/or its affiliates in the U.S. and internationally and is used herein with permission. All rights reserved.
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It’s really just amazing to see that IT teams are now becoming the less dominant automation creators. I think this demonstrates that when you have the right guardrails, the right governorship, and the right tools in place it’s possible to have business users creating automation safely.”
Carter Busse, CIO at Workato
Regardless of the market, the candidate experience is super important. Top talent has so many different opportunities that we need to be able to run a smooth process in a succinct amount of time so we don’t lose people. Automation helps us to have regular touchpoints and communications
with candidates.”
Kerry Moore, VP of Talent and Diversity at Workato
Data creates a way for IT to add strategic value to the business.
Businesses are striving to become more data-driven and to use their data to make real-time decisions. The DataOps function is one of the top departments with 3x growth in automations in the past year.
Carter Busse, CIO at Workato
Automation becomes a global opportunity. This year, we included regional data to track how automation is growing across organizations in EMEA and APJ. In EMEA, we see the growth in automations for processes like insights and analytics, which has grown 403% in the past year, as well as in financial processes like record-to-report, and in IT operations. For APJ, the focus is on financial automations with record-to-report growing 569% in the past year, and procure-to-pay growing 514%. Marketing operations and customer support are also top automated processes in APJ.
Who builds automations in IT?
DataOps had 3x growth in automations over last year.
The DataOps function is one of the top departments in terms of automation growth, and had 3x growth in automations in the past year. DataOps is also one of the top automated processes overall, and grew 332% over last year. Data warehousing makes up 61% of the automations within DataOps.
Who builds automations in DataOps?
Order-to-cash continues to be the top automated workflow for finance teams.
Order-to-cash accounts for 57% of all automated processes. However, in last year’s report order-to-cash accounted for 72.5% of all automated financial processes so other financial automations are starting to catch up. As organizations begin their automation journey, they often focus all of their energy on the most critical top processes, such as order-to-cash. As we see the growth of other automated finance processes, we expect that automation will continue to push to the edges of organizations as they realize the benefits of automating outside of critical business processes.
Record-to-report and procure-to-pay show rapid growth.
Record-to-report made up 6.6% of finance automations last year, but has grown to 15% this year, making it the fastest growing process with 291% year over year growth. As we’ve seen with the growth of other data-related processes, the finance department is also focused on managing and delivering accurate data to leadership about the organization’s financial performance. Procure-to-pay automations grew 282% in the past year, making it the second highest in terms of growth.
Campaign operations is the most automated process in marketing.
Campaign operations account for 40% of all automated processes in marketing, and also grew 287% in the past year. Campaign operations workflows often involve everything in a campaign not related to leads, including creative & copy approvals, file storage, and capturing performance data. It might mean connecting CRM systems,marketing apps, and project management tools, allowing teams to plan, execute, and measure the impact of campaigns. Automating campaign execution processes helps creative resources avoid data entry and campaign leaders remove manual steps
from reporting.
Lead routing and management is a top priority.
Although campaign operations is the top automated process in marketing, the last year of work in automation has been focused on leads. Lead routing is the top growing process at 677%, but other contenders include notifications about lead status (lead tracking, 393%) and sophisticated scoring calculations (lead scoring, 320%).
Automating core sales & revenue operations processes.
Sales operations is focused on helping sales teams to sell faster and more efficiently as well as improving the buying experience. Automation helps sales teams stay focused on customer relationships, avoid busywork, and ensure every customer touchpoint offers value. These priorities are clear in the most automated workflows within sales operations in 2021: teams are reducing manual steps by automatically generating and managing sales contracts (31% of automations), and surfacing the right information for reps at different stages of the opportunity lifecycle (20% of automations).
Just like marketing, leads are a top priority for sales with MQL routing seeing the biggest growth from last year at 460%.
More effort is going towards helping build a holistic view of an opportunity (Deal intelligence, 433% growth) and maximizing AI and NLP insights from sales conversations (Conversation intelligence, 400% growth).
Just as with the high growth in lead routing and management in marketing operations, we see the emphasis on using automation to get qualified leads and relevant information about them to sales reps as quickly as possible so they can work to close opportunities.
Who builds automations in sales & marketing?
Employee onboarding remains most automated process in HR.
Employee onboarding automations grew 256% in the past year, and make up 20% of automated HR processes. With remote and hybrid work here to stay, ensuring a streamlined onboarding process for employees regardless of location has become a priority. With automation, you can automatically move candidate data into your platform, send offer letters for signature, provision required applications and devices, and update payroll.
Employee experience is at the center of HR automations.
The competition for top talent and the Great Resignation have forced an even bigger focus on the employee experience, which starts at recruitment. HR automations provide a way to streamline the recruitment process and get top candidates into your organization faster. Recruitment automations were up by 316% in the last year. Automations around performance and development also grew by 275%, emphasizing the need to encourage employees to stay and grow their career with your organization.
HR Ops has become a critical role on HR teams and will drive the growth of automation.
Who builds automations in HR?
Improving the customer experience with automation.
As part of customer operations, customer experience and NPS survey automations grew by 378% in the past year, demonstrating the importance of understanding the needs of customers and seeking out their feedback. Automation has made it possible to have access to customer input faster and on a wider scale. We also can see the need to respond to customer questions and issues faster with the rise in chatbots as part of customer support. Automations for virtual agents (chatbots) was the process that grew the most year over year with 397% growth.
Returns and refunds automations continue to grow.
Returns and refunds automations grew 338% in the past year. This was also one of the fastest growing customer support processes last year as many customer support operations became digital. Online shopping has grown exponentially over the past few years, and as a result businesses need a fast and efficient returns process.
Who builds automations in Customer Service?
W*rk Automation Index 2022
IT operations
- Autonomous operations
- Health log analytics
- Site reliability operations
IT service management
- Service level management
- Request management
- Ticket management
Employee and workplace
- Onboarding and transitions
- Workplace reservation management
- Virtual service desk (chatbots)
Slack
Jira
Salesforce
ServiceNow
Snowflake
SQL Server
Okta
PostgreSQL
Active Directory
Breakdown of automations in DataOps
DataOps
- Data warehousing
- Operations data storage
- Master data configuration
Insights and analytics
- Reverse ETL
- Metrics
- BI service desk
Snowflake
Salesforce
Netsuite
SQL Server
Google BigQuery
PostgreSQL
Redshift
Amazon S3
Who builds automations in finance & accounting?
Order-to-cash
- Quote generation and validation
- Order collection and processing
- Inventory sync and reporting
Procure-to-pay
- Requisition creation and approval
- Vendor master data
- Purchase order approval
Record-to-report
- Automated compliance checks
- Reconciliation and reporting
- Transaction extraction
NetSuite
SQL Server
Oracle
PostgreSQL
Salesforce
SAP On-premise
Zuora
Coupa
Concur
Shopify
Snowflake
Microsoft Teams
Slack
Marketing operations
- Rule based lead routing
- Lead tracking
- Lead scoring
- Campaign operations
- Lead ingestion
Sales operations
- MQL routing
- Deal intelligence
- Conversation intelligence
- Lead to cash
- Pipeline management
Marketo
Slack
SQL Server
Salesforce
NetSuite
Microsoft Dynamics CRM
HubSpot
Recruiting
- Schedule interviews
- Resume/background checks
- ATS/HRS sync
Performance and development
- Training enrollment/cancellations
- Training feedback surveys
- Quarterly appraisals/reminders
Employee onboarding
- Schedule orientation
- Rule based IT requests
- Day 1, day 7, day 30 surveys
Greenhouse
DocuSign
Slack
Workday
BambooHR
Okta
Google Calendar
Microsoft Teams
Returns and refunds
- Return merchandise authorization
(RMA) processing
- Cancel and refunds
- Dispute and chargebacks
Customer support
- Support requests and escalations
- Virtual agents (chatbots)
Customer operations
- Customer experience and Net Promoter
Score (NPS) surveys
- Sales to customer success handoff
- Customer onboarding and training
Slack
Zendesk
ServiceNow
Salesforce
Microsoft Dynamics CRM
Microsoft Teams
NetSuite
Jira
IT service management automations account for 48% of automated processes in IT.
IT service management automations were also the second highest in terms of growth, at 235%. Many ITSM processes can be automated, such as ticket routing and approvals and incident and request management, which we see from the growth numbers here, helping IT to deliver services more quickly to the organization and improve operational efficiency. IT service management enables the IT department to better serve the needs of the business and be a strategic partner in business growth.
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The biggest thing that an IT department can do to make an impact and drive business outcomes is to provide great data for your business. This is where I see that IT can become strategic and bring
real value.”
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Growth in automation by department over the past two years
data ops
Finance & Accounting
RevOps, Sales & Marketing
MARKETING
SALES
Human Resources (HR)
I think there's a huge pool of HR Ops professionals who don't know what's possible with automation. As HR Ops start to realize what’s possible they’re going to be the ones building the automations. And we’re only going to see the number of HR automations keep going up.
KERRY MOORE
VP of Talent and Diversity at Workato
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customer support
Europe, Middle East, and Africa (EMEA)
1. Record-to-report
2. IT operations
3. Marketing operations
4. Procure-to-pay
5. Employee and workplace—IT
6. DataOps
7. Sales operations
8. Customer support
9. IT service management
10. Order-to-cash
Top 10 automated processes in 2021
When we look at all automations created in EMEA, record-to-report is the most commonly automated process. It also tops the list when we compare which processes have grown the most from 2020 to 2021, with 364% growth in the past year. IT operations is also an important area for organizations in EMEA, and had 297% growth in automated processes in the past year.
Asia Pacific and Japan (APJ)
1. Record-to-report
2. Procure-to-pay
3. Marketing operations
4. Customer support
5. DataOps
6. Order-to-cash
7. Sales operations
8. IT operations
9. IT service management
10. Employee and workplace—IT
Top 10 automated processes in 2021
Marketing operations and customer support are some of the most commonly automated processes in APJ when we look at all automations created in 2021. Marketing operations automation grew by 380% from 2020 to 2021, showing the importance of tracking and managing leads, accessing analytics to report performance, and running efficient campaigns to grow
the business.
Overall top processes by growth
Salesforce
Slack
SQL Server
NetSuite
Snowflake
Jira
PostgreSQL
ServiceNow
Zendesk
Amazon S3
NetSuite
Salesforce
Slack
Snowflake
PostgreSQL
Jira
ServiceNow
Zendesk
Oracle
SQL Server
Top 10 applications used in Asia Pacific and Japan
NetSuite
Salesforce
Slack
SQL Server
Microsoft Teams
Jira
OutSystems
Zendesk
Oracle
Amazon S3
Work Automation Index 2022
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Business technology roles reporting into IT
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W*rk Automation Index 2022
Work Automation Index 2022
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Register for Biz Systems Magic
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Methodology
This report is based on anonymized data collected from 900 midsize ($50M to $2B in annual revenue) to enterprise (over $2B in annual revenue) Workato customers who use automation in their businesses. We looked at all of the automated workflows created at these companies from February 2021 to January 2022, as well as compared to the period from February 2020 to January 2021 for year over year trends. We also looked at the job titles of those people creating the workflows to determine the relative proportion of developers and engineers and business users who built those automations.
Automation is no longer a “nice to have” for businesses; it’s unavoidable for growth.
As organizations become more digital and the majority of customer interactions are online, you have to automate in order to stay relevant and scale.
Automation enables companies to be more agile, efficient, innovative, and able to respond to changing market conditions, which has been incredibly important during the events of the past few years.
As we’ve seen in this year’s data, automation is not just for IT departments or developers anymore. As more and more employees become aware of the strategic and tactical benefits of enterprise automation, adoption across a growing number of departments will continue. We expect that the use cases and workflows automated will continue to diversify in the coming year, and that business technologists will continue to drive significant automation growth.
We see this as an opportunity for the business and IT to collaborate to create a strategic automated enterprise that delivers better business solutions. As IT’s role continues to shift from delivery to enabler of the business, its new focus will be on helping business users to pursue enterprise automation in an increasingly self-service way.
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Business technology roles reporting into IT
*
Conclusion
Top 10 apps used across all automated workflows
Top 10 applications used globally
Salesforce
Slack
SQL Server
NetSuite
Snowflake
Jira
PostgreSQL
ServiceNow
Zendesk
Amazon S3
Top 10 applications used in Europe, the Middle East, and Africa
NetSuite
SQL Server
Salesforce
Slack
Snowflake
PostgreSQL
Jira
ServiceNow
Zendesk
Amazon S3
NetSuite
Salesforce
Slack
SQL Server
Snowflake
PostgreSQL
Jira
ServiceNow
Zendesk
Oracle
Top 10 applications used in Asia Pacific and Japan
NetSuite
Salesforce
Slack
SQL Server
Microsoft Teams
Jira
OutSystems
Amazon S3
Zendesk
Oracle
The top 10 applications globally look pretty similar to last year with Salesforce unsurprisingly topping the list. Slack remains in the second spot. NetSuite is unseated from the third most used to the fourth, with SQL Server taking its place. Snowflake moved up from the 8th spot to the 5th, which makes sense with the increased focus on DataOps.
Automation growth by region
HR automations are a growing focus in EMEA
Employee onboarding automations grew by 269% and recruiting automations grew by 243% in the past year. Notice periods can vary widely across the world and in EMEA it is often several months between when a new employee accepts your job offer and their start date. Kerry Moore, VP of Talent and Diversity at Workato, recommends focusing on making new employees feel connected to your company before they even start.
“It's going to continue to be really important to find unique ways to create a quick connection for employees. It’s all about creating a personal experience. Automation helps you to create personalized moments for your employees, without having one person responsible for managing those interactions manually,” said Moore.
When we look at all automations created in EMEA, record-to-report is the most commonly automated process. It also tops the list when we compare which processes have grown the most from 2020 to 2021, with 364% growth in the past year. IT operations is also an important area for organizations in EMEA, and had 297% growth in automated processes in the past year.
Overall top processes by growth
Overall top processes by growth
1. Record-to-report
2. Procure-to-pay
3. Marketing operations
4. Customer support
5. DataOps
6. Order-to-cash
7. Sales operations
8. IT operations
9. IT service management
10. Employee and workplace—IT
Top 10 automated processes in 2021
This data also shows the global trend of improving customer support operations this year as retail continues to migrate online and the ongoing need for customers to easily return items. Returns and refunds automations increased by a massive 1005% for our user base in APJ. In Singapore, for example, coming out of the pandemic many retailers have had to deal with rising occupancy costs and labor issues that have led to the closure of many brick-and-mortar retail stores, including major household names like Robinsons and Topshop, while e-commerce has grown exponentially.
Rapid growth in automated finance processes in APJ
We see that finance automations are a priority
in APJ and have grown rapidly in the past year. Business critical financial processes like order-to-cash, record-to-report, and procure-to-pay are some of the most commonly automated processes for organizations in the region, and have also seen huge growth in the past year. Many of these finance automations are through NetSuite, which we also see is one of the most popular
applications in APJ.
Marketing operations and customer support are some of the most commonly automated processes in APJ when we look at all automations created in 2021. Marketing operations automation grew by 380% from 2020 to 2021, showing the importance of tracking and managing leads, accessing analytics to report performance, and running efficient campaigns to grow the business.
Overall top processes by growth
Asia Pacific and Japan (APJ)
1. Record-to-report
2. IT operations
3. Marketing operations
4. Procure-to-pay
5. Employee and workplace—IT
6. DataOps
7. Sales operations
8. Customer support
9. IT service management
10. Order-to-cash
Top 10 automated processes in 2021
Europe, Middle East, Africa (EMEA)
The top applications connected in customer support
The top applications used in these processes are Salesforce, Zendesk, ServiceNow, Jira, NetSuite, Microsoft Dynamics CRM, Microsoft Teams, and Slack. Customer operations automations related to customer accounts use Salesforce in 41% of automated processes and Slack in 11% of automations to help with churn detection, account management, and new customer onboarding. When dealing with customer support tickets, requests, and escalations, Zendesk is used in 17% of automations and Jira is used in 13%.
Slack
Zendesk
ServiceNow
Salesforce
Microsoft Dynamics CRM
Microsoft Teams
NetSuite
Jira
Improving the customer experience with automation.
As part of customer operations, customer experience and NPS survey automations grew by 378% in the past year, demonstrating the importance of understanding the needs of customers and seeking out their feedback. Automation has made it possible to have access to customer input faster and on a wider scale. We also can see the need to respond to customer questions and issues faster with the rise in chatbots as part of customer support. Automations for virtual agents (chatbots) was the process that grew the most year over year with
397% growth.
Returns and refunds automations continue to grow.
Returns and refunds automations grew 338% in the past year. This was also one of the fastest growing customer support processes last year as many customer support operations became digital. Online shopping has grown exponentially over the past few years, and as a result businesses need a fast and efficient returns process.
Breakdown of automations in customer support
YoY automated process growth in customer support
Which automations make up these top processes?
Returns and refunds
- Return merchandise authorization
(RMA) processing
- Cancel and refunds
- Dispute and chargebacks
Customer support
- Support requests and escalations
- Virtual agents (chatbots)
Customer operations
- Customer experience and Net Promoter
Score (NPS) surveys
- Sales to customer success handoff
- Customer onboarding and training
Who builds automations in Customer Service?
customer support
The top applications connected in HR
The main applications connected as part of HR automations are Workday, Greenhouse, DocuSign, BambooHR, Okta, and Google Calendar. Workday and Okta are important applications for employee onboarding workflows. Workday is used in 6% of employee onboarding automations and Okta is used in 10%. Slack and Microsoft Teams are also frequently used in HR automations. Slack is used in 24% of recruiting automations for things like sending out offer letters, job setup and approvals, and reminding interviewers to complete scorecards after talking with candidates. Microsoft Teams is used in 5% of employee onboarding automations to help with identity and access provisioning, requesting setup for required accounts and applications, and anything else a new employee might need on their first day.
Greenhouse
DocuSign
Slack
Workday
BambooHR
Okta
Google Calendar
Microsoft Teams
YoY automated process growth in HR
Breakdown of automations in HR
Employee onboarding remains most automated
process in HR.
Employee onboarding automations grew 256% in the past year, and make up 20% of automated HR processes. With remote and hybrid work here to stay, ensuring a streamlined onboarding process for employees regardless of location has become a priority. With automation, you can automatically move candidate data into your platform, send offer letters for signature, provision required applications and devices, and
update payroll.
Employee experience is at the center of HR automations.
The competition for top talent and the Great Resignation have forced an even bigger focus on the employee experience, which starts at recruitment. HR automations provide a way to streamline the recruitment process and get top candidates into your organization faster. Recruitment automations were up by 316% in the last year. Automations around performance and development also grew by 275%, emphasizing the need to encourage employees to stay and grow their career with your organization.
HR Ops has become a critical role on HR teams and will drive the growth of automation.
I think there's a huge pool of HR Ops professionals who don't know what's possible with automation. As HR Ops start to realize what’s possible they’re going to be the ones building the automations. And we’re only going to see the number of HR automations keep going up.
KERRY MOORE
VP of Talent and Diversity at Workato
“
Who builds automations in HR?
Which automations make up these top processes?
Recruiting
- Schedule interviews
- Resume/background checks
- ATS/HRS sync
Performance and development
- Training enrollment/cancellations
- Training feedback surveys
- Quarterly appraisals/reminders
Employee onboarding
- Schedule orientation
- Rule based IT requests
- Day 1, day 7, day 30 surveys
Human Resources (HR)
The top applications connected in sales & marketing
The top applications connected as part of sales and marketing workflows are Salesforce, Marketo, Slack, SQL Server, HubSpot, NetSuite, and Microsoft Dynamics CRM. Salesforce is the most popular application used in most automations. For example, Salesforce is used in 46% of campaign operations automations and 48% of lead and contact enrichment automations. Slack is also a top application used across marketing and sales. Connecting Slack with a marketing automation platform and CRM lets lead information be routed to sales reps, opportunity information updated, and deals approved from within the app. Slack is used in 32% of MQL routing automations, 9% of marketing automation and CRM sync processes, and 7% of overall marketing
operations automations.
Marketo
Slack
SQL Server
Salesforce
NetSuite
Microsoft Dynamics CRM
HubSpot
YoY automated process growth in marketing
Breakdown of automations in marketing
MARKETING
Campaign operations is the most automated
process in marketing.
Campaign operations account for 40% of all automated processes in marketing, and also grew 287% in the past year. Campaign operations workflows often involve everything in a campaign not related to leads, including creative & copy approvals, file storage, and capturing performance data. It might mean connecting CRM systems,marketing apps, and project management tools, allowing teams to plan, execute, and measure the impact of campaigns. Automating campaign execution processes helps creative resources avoid data entry and campaign leaders remove manual steps
from reporting.
Lead routing and management is a top priority.
Although campaign operations is the top automated process in marketing, the last year of work in automation has been focused on leads. Lead routing is the top growing process at 677%, but other contenders include notifications about lead status (lead tracking, 393%) and sophisticated scoring calculations (lead scoring, 320%).
Automating core sales & revenue operations processes.
Sales operations is focused on helping sales teams to sell faster and more efficiently as well as improving the buying experience. Automation helps sales teams stay focused on customer relationships, avoid busywork, and ensure every customer touchpoint offers value. These priorities are clear in the most automated workflows within sales operations in 2021: teams are reducing manual steps by automatically generating and managing sales contracts (31% of automations), and surfacing the right information for reps at different stages of the opportunity lifecycle (20% of automations).
Just like marketing, leads are a top priority for sales with MQL routing seeing the biggest growth from last year
at 460%.
More effort is going towards helping build a holistic view of an opportunity (Deal intelligence, 433% growth) and maximizing AI and NLP insights from sales conversations (Conversation intelligence, 400% growth).
Just as with the high growth in lead routing and management in marketing operations, we see the emphasis on using automation to get qualified leads and relevant information about them to sales reps as quickly as possible so they can work to close opportunities.
YoY automated process growth in sales
Breakdown of automations in sales
SALES
Which automations make up these top processes?
Marketing operations
- Rule based lead routing
- Lead tracking
- Lead scoring
- Campaign operations
- Lead ingestion
Sales operations
- MQL routing
- Deal intelligence
- Conversation intelligence
- Lead to cash
- Pipeline management
Who builds automations in sales & marketing?
RevOps, Sales & Marketing
The top applications connected in finance & accounting
NetSuite and Salesforce are two of the most popular applications used across finance workflows. Salesforce is used in 42% of order-to-cash workflows and 21% in procure-to-pay. NetSuite is used in 29% of record-to-report automations, and 25% in order-to-cash. Other top applications for finance automations are SQL Server, Oracle, Coupa, Shopify, Snowflake, Concur,
and PostgreSQL.
NetSuite
SQL Server
Oracle
PostgreSQL
Salesforce
SAP On-premise
Zuora
Coupa
Snowflake
Microsoft Teams
Slack
Concur
Shopify
Order-to-cash continues to be the top automated workflow for finance teams.
Order-to-cash accounts for 57% of all automated processes. However, in last year’s report order-to-cash accounted for 72.5% of all automated financial processes so other financial automations are starting to catch up. As organizations begin their automation journey, they often focus all of their energy on the most critical top processes, such as order-to-cash. As we see the growth of other automated finance processes, we expect that automation will continue to push to the edges of organizations as they realize the benefits of automating outside of critical business processes.
Which automations make up these top processes?
Order-to-cash
- Quote generation and validation
- Order collection and processing
- Inventory sync and reporting
Procure-to-pay
- Requisition creation and approval
- Vendor master data
- Purchase order approval
Record-to-report
- Automated compliance checks
- Reconciliation and reporting
- Transaction extraction
Record-to-report and procure-to-pay show rapid growth.
Record-to-report made up 6.6% of finance automations last year, but has grown to 15% this year, making it the fastest growing process with 291% year over year growth. As we’ve seen with the growth of other data-related processes, the finance department is also focused on managing and delivering accurate data to leadership about the organization’s financial performance. Procure-to-pay automations grew 282% in the past year, making it the second highest in terms of growth.
YoY automated process growth in finance & accounting
Breakdown of automations in finance & accounting
Who builds automations in finance & accounting?
Finance & Accounting
Snowflake
Salesforce
Netsuite
SQL Server
Google BigQuery
PostgreSQL
Redshift
Amazon S3
The top applications connected in DataOps:
Snowflake is one of the most frequently used applications as part of automated data processes and is used in 23% of data warehousing automations and 9% in operations data storage automations. It’s also frequently part of automations for processes like insights and analytics and reverse ETL. Reverse ETL is another important process within DataOps. SQL Server is used in 32% of reverse ETL automations, and Amazon S3 is used in 13%. The other top applications connected to build automated DataOps processes are Salesforce, Netsuite, Google BigQuery, PostgreSQL, and Redshift.
DataOps had 3x growth in automations over last year.
The DataOps function is one of the top departments in terms of automation growth, and had 3x growth in automations in the past year. DataOps is also one of the top automated processes overall, and grew 332% over last year. Data warehousing makes up 61% of the automations within DataOps.
YoY automated process growth in DataOps
Which automations make up these top processes?
DataOps
- Data warehousing
- Operations data storage
- Master data configuration
Insights and analytics
- Reverse ETL
- Metrics
- BI service desk
Who builds automations in DataOps?
Breakdown of automations in DataOps
data ops
Jira
Salesforce
ServiceNow
Snowflake
Slack
SQL Server
Okta
PostgreSQL
Active Directory
The top applications connected in IT
The top applications connected to build these automated IT workflows are ServiceNow, Jira, Zendesk, Okta, Snowflake, Salesforce, Active Directory, SQL Server and PostgreSQL. Slack and ServiceNow are used frequently in IT service management automations. These applications are commonly used as the interface to kick off IT services and help desk processes. Slack is used in 18% and ServiceNow in 9% of IT service management automations. SQL Server is part of 21% of IT operations automations for processes like autonomous operations, health log analytics, and site reliability operations.
IT operations was the fastest growing area within IT.
Especially as businesses become more digital and continue to add and expand services, IT operations is critical for managing the health and performance of the infrastructure that supports business services and determining how software should be managed. Reducing errors, monitoring applications, and improving security and governance through automation is important as business users have more access to technology through SaaS and low code/no code platforms.
Top automated processes within each department
Information Technology (IT)
YoY automated process growth in IT
Which automations make up these top IT processes?
IT operations
- Autonomous operations
- Health log analytics
- Site reliability operations
IT service management
- Service level management
- Request management
- Ticket management
- Onboarding and transitions
- Workplace reservation management
- Virtual service desk (chatbots)
Employee and workplace
Who builds automations in IT?
Breakdown of automations in IT
IT service management automations account for 48% of automated processes in IT.
IT service management automations were also the second highest in terms of growth, at 235%. Many ITSM processes can be automated, such as ticket routing and approvals and incident and request management, which we see from the growth numbers here, helping IT to deliver services more quickly to the organization and improve operational efficiency. IT service management enables the IT department to better serve the needs of the business and be a strategic partner in business growth.
These YoY growth figures show where automation is expanding the quickest across departments. DataOps experienced the largest growth at 303% in the last year, and has continued to be one of the fastest growing departments for automation over the past 2 years. Although IT is accounting for fewer automations across departments as a whole, IT automations still grew 240% last year.
Growth in automation by department from 2020-2022
If we zoom out and look at growth over the last two years, the emphasis on DataOps automation is even more pronounced. Customer support automations come back into focus as a key area for automation although it did not grow as much this year as in previous years.
This year’s data shows that finance and accounting is the most automated department—no surprise as collecting money from customers and paying business expenses are arguably the most critical processes to a business. Automation decreases errors, ensures timely payout, and provides a smooth payment experience for customers. This is an upset to last year’s data, which had IT as the most automated department. However, IT is generally very involved in creating financial automations and partners closely with the Chief Finance Officer.
Finance overtaking IT as the most automated department is testament to the IT department acting as enablers of business. As another proofpoint, IT automations accounted for nearly 40% of all automated processes last year, so we can see that automation is becoming more dispersed across departments.
Growth in automation by department over the past year
Growth in automation by department over the past two years
Developers are no longer the largest creators of automated workflows.
Business technologists are building more automations.
As we’ve already said, automation will act as a great equalizer and who is creating automations is shifting. Business technologists across departments are able to build automations to improve their workflows and we expect to only see this number grow. This year, the main automation builders were in business operations, including sales, marketing, finance, HR, revenue, and customer support. And over 70% of the automations in the marketing, sales, and customer success teams are being created by business users themselves. The IT operations and service management team, which is predominantly made up of non-developers, is the largest team in IT building automations.
Who builds automations
Automation growth by industry
Which industries are using automation?
Technology companies are where you might expect to see high levels of automation, and we do see that the technology companies in our user base are very automated. But in terms of growth, we see other industries embracing automation. Automations created by organizations in the healthcare and pharma industry grew by 857% in the past year, and we expect that this will continue to trend up.
The hospitality industry has struggled over the past two years with lockdowns and travel restrictions keeping people at home. As the industry begins to recover, we see that automations have grown by an incredible 1518% in the past year.
Most commonly automated processes in 2021
Overall top processes by growth percentage
1. Order-to-cash
2. DataOps
3. IT service management
4. Sales operations
5. Employee and workplace—IT
6. IT operations
7. Marketing operations
8. Customer support
9. Procure-to-pay
10. Record-to-report
Top 10 most automated processes overall across all departments
When we look at all automations created, order-to-cash is the most commonly automated process across our user base. Now, let’s take a look at which processes have grown the most when comparing 2020 with 2021.
Returns and refunds is not one of the most common automations, but tops the list in terms of growth. This is a strong indicator that we’ll see more emphasis on a smooth return and refund process in the coming year—no surprise as online shopping remains the primary commerce channel of choice despite brick-and-mortar locations reopening.
DataOps was also flagged as an emerging trend in last year’s report and now we’re seeing that momentum continue with 332% growth. Delivering data insights from your product or data warehouse and delivering it to other critical business applications (like a CRM or CS app or even into Slack) has become an incredible opportunity for IT to add value to the business, and this data shows that IT orgs are taking notice.
Last year, the top 3 fastest growing processes were DataOps, customer support, and HR analytics. This year, we see customer support move to the bottom of the list and HR analytics fall off the top 10. Although HR analytics has moved down the list, we continue to see high growth in other parts of HR like recruiting and
employee onboarding.
Not sure what these processes mean?
Click here to see the definitions
Automation adoption by department
With these key findings established, let’s take a deeper dive into the top processes, departments and other trends revealed in our data.
Automation reaches more departments than ever before
Number of departments with automated processes in 2021
Changes in number of departments with automated processes 2020 vs. 2021
28% of organizations have 7 departments using automation, 3x higher than in 2019. In 2020, the majority of companies were automating processes in only
1—2 departments.
In 2021, the majority are automating in 7 departments. More organizations are starting to allow automation at scale within their companies thanks to improved compliance and governance capabilities in tools.
Finance is the most automated department. Finance moved just past IT, totaling 26% of all automations. Order-to-cash continues to be one of the top automated processes. Record-to-report automation also saw significant growth with a 290% increase.
Data creates a way for IT to add strategic value to the business. Businesses are striving to become more data-driven and to use their data to make real-time decisions. The DataOps function is one of the top departments with 3x growth in automations in the past year.
Automation becomes a global opportunity. This year, we included regional data to track how automation is growing across organizations in EMEA and APJ. In EMEA, we see the growth in automations for processes like insights and analytics, which has grown 403% in the past year, as well as in financial processes like record-to-report, and in IT operations. For APJ, the focus is on financial automations with record-to-report growing 569% in the past year, and procure-to-pay growing 514%. Marketing operations and customer support are also top automated processes in APJ.
The biggest thing that an IT department can do to make an impact and drive business outcomes is to provide great data for your business. This is where I see that IT can become strategic and bring
real value.”
Carter Busse, CIO at Workato
“
Automation usage is exploding as it becomes more accessible. The number of automations is doubling year over year. We’ve seen massive growth since 2020: 1074% growth in business intelligence automations, 666% in customer support, 659% in finance, and so on. Automation technology has become more accessible and organizations are using it to create new solutions.
More departments are automating than ever before. The number of organizations with 7 departments automating has nearly tripled since 2019. Which departments are automating is also shifting. IT automations make up 25% of automated processes this year, while they accounted for nearly 40% of all automated processes last year.
It’s really just amazing to see that IT teams are now becoming the less dominant automation creators. I think this demonstrates that when you have the right guardrails, the right governorship, and the right tools in place it’s possible to have business users creating automation safely.”
“
Carter Busse, CIO at Workato
HR automation continues to be a primary focus for organizations. As the competition for top talent continues and “work from anywhere” becomes the norm, HR teams are using automation to stand out and improve the employee experience right from the start. As a result, recruiting automations grew 316% over last year.
Regardless of the market, the candidate experience is super important. Top talent has so many different opportunities that we need to be able to run a smooth process in a succinct amount of time so we don’t lose people. Automation helps us to have regular touchpoints and communications
with candidates.”
“
Kerry Moore, VP of Talent and Diversity at Workato
Key Findings
For the second year in a row, this report comes out in a world that is rapidly changing and finds that the way we work is playing catch up. It’s not news that automation is being used to bridge this gap, but what may surprise you is who in a company is doing that automation. It’s not engineers, it’s not even IT.
Here’s why:
In today’s world, customers are digitally native and their expectations are higher than ever, more and more services have moved online, and employees are distributed. You need a high level of speed, scale, and productivity for business transformation.
But when you only rely on IT or technical experts to execute this vision, you’re limited to completing a few projects at a time. Scale becomes impossible. The rest of the business must be part of the transformation, and they must be enabled to do so safely with guardrails.
Employees without traditional technical or coding skills—or business technologists—are now able to create new solutions using low code/no code platforms. And it’s only going to continue to increase.
According to Gartner®, by 2024 80% of technology products and services will be built by those who are not full-time technical professionals.
We predict automation will act as a great equalizer. Both in terms of which departments are automating and who is creating those automations. Automation is not just for IT departments, but can and will be used by all departments in an organization, creating an opportunity to be more efficient and deliver better business outcomes.
Our findings show that in 2021 automation continued to move outside of IT and spread throughout the organization. 66% of organizations now have 5 or more departments using automation and the number of organizations with 7 departments automating has nearly tripled since 2019.
As for which departments are automating, IT automations make up 25% of automated processes this year, while they accounted for nearly 40% of all automated processes last year.
With so many automations being built outside of the IT department, who is building them? We found that 23% of automations were built by non-technical users in business operations roles, the highest of any persona in both business and IT.
Business leaders recognize that solving problems with automation leads to business agility, innovation, and faster time to value.”
MASSIMO PEZZINI
Head of Research, Future of the Enterprise at Workato
“
As a result, the role of IT has shifted from delivering projects to being an enabler of the business, a change that actually makes the department even more valuable to an organization. The relationship between the business and IT becomes more like that of a player and a coach, where the coach provides support and guidance to help the player do their best.
With greater access to automation, IT will have to encourage and support business technologists by providing training, consulting, best practices, "guardrails" and all kinds of support services to help them use automation effectively and safely. In this model IT is able to be a strategic partner to the business, and projects can be co-created. IT can still govern new projects, while the business becomes responsible for running them.
IT needs to get out of the way. As these low code/no code tools are coming in from the business we need to be partnering with them. And IT needs to be open to that.”
CARTER BUSSE
CIO of Workato
“
We see this happening already, with business operations, including sales, marketing, finance, HR, and customer support operations roles, creating the fastest automation growth. DataOps automations have grown 332% over last year. Sales ops and marketing ops automations have both grown over 200% in the past year and are part of the top 10 most automated processes.
This report is based on anonymized data that we collected from our enterprise customer base to identify trends and to see how automation is being put to work in the real world. We looked at nearly 900 mid-size to large enterprises between February 2021 and January 2022 to determine which workflows are being automated most frequently, and which applications are used to create those workflows.
Let’s dive into our key findings.
Gartner, “Top Trends for Tech Providers for 2022: The Democratization of Technology,” Mark Driver, 1 February 2022. GARTNER is a registered trademark and service mark of Gartner, Inc. and/or its affiliates in the U.S. and internationally and is used herein with permission. All rights reserved.
1
The role of IT: From delivery to enabler
Automation: The great equalizer
Executive Summary
Executive Summary
More departments are automating than ever before
Automation growth by industry
Most commonly automated processes
Automation adoption by department
The creators of automated workflows
Top automated processes within each department
IT
DataOps
Finance & Accounting
Sales & Marketing
Human Resources
Customer Support
Automation growth by region
Europe, the Middle East, and Africa
Asia Pacific and Japan
Top 10 apps used across all automated processes
Conclusion
Methodology
Table Of Contents
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Automation acts as a great equalizer, influencing which departments automate and who builds automations
Work Automation Index 2022
*
Executive Summary
Most commonly automated processes
Automation adoption by department
Top automated processes within each department
IT/Engineering
Finance & Accounting
Sales & Marketing
HR & Payroll
Customer Support
Business + IT: The creators of automated processes
Top 10 apps used across all automated processes
Conclusion
Methodology
T A B L E O F C O N T E N T S
Automation acts as a great equalizer, influencing which departments automate and who builds automations.
Download report
W rk Automation Index 2022
*
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Executive Summary
More departments are automating than ever before
Automation growth by industry
Most commonly automated processes
Automation adoption by department
The creators of automated workflows
Top automated processes within each department
Automation growth by region
Top 10 apps used across all automated processes
Conclusion
Methodology
T A B L E O F C O N T E N T S
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