If you’re like most IT leaders, you’re responsible for ambitious digital transformation initiatives. But did you know that 70% of these projects will fail to meet their objectives?

With only 30% of businesses achieving their digital transformation goals, it’s critical to learn from their success. Many of these successful businesses share a fundamental characteristic: their automation-first culture.

This mindset is key to gaining support from your leaders and teams alike. Let’s explore how you can cultivate an automation-first culture at your business.

Get insights from Celigo’s CEO Jan Arendtsz on the importance of having an automation-first mindset. 

Embracing an automation-first mindset

At its core, an automation-first mindset means prioritizing automation across all business functions. This mindset ensures that whenever there is a new task or process, the first step is to consider how it can be automated. It’s creating a culture where automation is seen as the default, not the exception.

This mindset goes beyond just your IT team. All your teams across the enterprise should be thinking this way. To do this successfully, automation must be at the core of your business strategy, not just as a series of isolated projects. 

Developing an automation-first culture is critical for businesses that want to stay competitive in the modern business environment. With your processes automated, you can respond faster to market changes, optimize your operations, and uncover new opportunities for growth and innovation.

The benefits of an automation-first mindset

Adopting an automation-first mindset brings numerous benefits to your organization. Here are a few ways examples:

• Enhanced efficiency: Automated processes are faster and more accurate than manual ones, leading to increased efficiency.
• Cost savings: Automation can significantly cut down operational costs by minimizing errors and reducing the need for manual intervention. This not only saves money, but also improves resource allocation.
• Employee satisfaction: By automating mundane tasks, employees can engage in more meaningful work, leading to higher job satisfaction and productivity. 

5 tips for building an automation-first culture

Now that you understand the importance of having an automation-first mindset, you can begin to build this mindset into your teams’ culture. We’ve compiled a few key steps to help you get started: 

1. Get senior leadership involved: No matter the size of your organization, the automation-first shift requires the support of your leaders. This means your first step should be to convince your leaders that automation is essential to the success of your business.
2. Break down the benefits: To show your leaders the value of automation, you’ll need to explain the benefits. Consider the use cases your business cares about and the results you might see by automating these processes. 
3. Choose which processes to automate first: Don’t just automate to automate. Instead, determine where your biggest pain points are and begin tackling those processes first.
4. Empower your teams: Automation doesn’t have to be limited to your IT team. Empower your business teams to create, manage, and monitor integrations by utilizing an advanced iPaaS (Integration Platform as a Service) with a user-friendly interface.
5. Encourage continuous learning: Automation is not a one-time event, but an ongoing process. Provide training sessions, workshops, and resources to help your team stay updated with the latest trends and best practices.

Start automating with iPaaS

As you build your automation strategy and begin to create an automation-first culture at your business, leverage an integration solution that supports these initiatives. Some integration solutions, such as coded point-to-point integrations, require technical resources. To empower both your IT and business users to build integrations and drive automation, utilize an advanced iPaaS platform like Celigo. 

Celigo’s iPaaS offers your teams the scalability and flexibility you need to automate your processes end-to-end. With Celigo’s iPaaS, you’ll be ready to quickly adopt the latest innovative solutions and rapidly act as the market shifts.

Ready to learn how to automate your processes enterprise-wide with Celigo? Check out our ebook, ”From busywork to brilliance: How IT can champion smarter workflows.”