Bridging Departmental Divides for Successful Automation Projects

For too long, IT has been largely isolated from an organization’s core business. Any division between IT and lines-of-business (LOB) is even more detrimental when speed is not just a competitive advantage but an existential necessity in today’s accelerating digital economy. 

As business leaders streamline and turbocharge every facet of their operations, savvy organizations are rushing to eliminate inefficient and damaging gaps between departments by putting more software tools in the hands of more employees. Analysts predict 80% of technology products and services will be built by those who are not technology professionals by trade by 2024. 

This hits home amidst the booming trend toward robotic process automation (RPA), low-code/no-code and other automated solutions, which have only continued to grow as more businesses realize the vast benefits of automation: Accelerating operations while also reducing costs; elevating customer experiences and shifting employees to higher-value positions and laying the foundation for new data-driven revenue streams.

Squandering Automation’s Advantages

But these advantages are quickly squandered if there’s a turf battle between the business unit looking to optimize processes and the IT department responsible for deploying the tools to make that happen.

When there isn’t collaboration and plenty of trust on both sides, automation initiatives are more prone to disappointments and delays. 

This may happen if the IT department comes across as too smart for their own good, putting less value on feedback from their LOB colleagues and rushing to implement software with a focus on speed rather than outcomes. On the LOB side, leaders may assume their IT counterparts are too technical and don’t understand business objectives and choose to override important IT input about which vendors are best qualified when it comes to support, integration and security.

The problem here is not the technology; hundreds of thousands of businesses across the world have successfully deployed process automation solutions. It’s the execution.

When an automation initiative fails, there’s almost always blame to be shared on both sides of any divide. Likewise, success typically boils down to people across IT and every business department working better together to achieve a common goal. 

To embrace a collaborative mindset and set up your automation projects for success from day one, I encourage you to follow these clear steps:

1. Reinforce a shared mission: Whether it’s automating the customer onboarding process or deploying RPA bots to automate a repetitive, time-consuming process, communicating a shared mission is the crucial first step to pulling off a successful project. On the IT side, that involves talking with the LOB about their goals, objectives and business strategy. LOB leaders, meanwhile, can emphasize that IT is an equal business partner that has valuable insights and expertise to contribute.

1. Establish visibility and transparency: Armed with a full understanding of business objectives, IT leaders can now evaluate tools built to give all stakeholders a full view of the processes that will be affected. By documenting and mapping out each process within an organization, leaders can better understand current processes and gain insight into areas that are ripe for standardization and automation. 

1. Tailor solutions that match the problem: With heightened visibility across the organization, LOB and IT teams can then determine the scope of each problem and tailor solutions accordingly. Some processes can be kept and optimized; some can be tweaked with automation. Other processes may need to be reconfigured significantly before automating or shut down entirely because they are outdated or unnecessary. 

A great example of this collaborative approach comes from Coca-Cola Beverages Florida, LLC (Coke Florida): Encumbered with a legacy process repository — a collection of PDFs, videos, pictures and spreadsheets outlining more than 600 processes — Coke Florida standardized and leveraged visual process mapping software to establish an easily accessible document repository that provides visibility and control over key processes, encourages collaboration and increases accountability. 

Coke Florida continued an organization-wide initiative to digitize and automate its business processes with digital workflows, forms and RPA software, driving further efficiencies across its entire organization. As the company discovered firsthand, shared goals result in shared success. 

When speed and high-quality outcomes become the norm, companies master the essential arts of urgency, resilience, visibility and collaboration. By bridging the divide between departments, organizations not only drive internal efficiencies but also gain a competitive advantage that is indispensable in today’s burgeoning digital economy.