Automation is a growing trend across industries. When many businesses face increased demand, inflation and resource gaps, automation can be a cost-effective path to doing more without obtaining additional resource.
However, many teams struggle to know how to apply automation. While it’s now built into many systems and technologies, this is only part of the potential. The challenge is knowing where to apply automation more widely and how.
This was something we faced internally. But in the last few months, our Service Operations team have applied automation across their processes and reclaimed 118 weeks. Here’s how they did it and all the benefits they’ve found.
Why did we apply automation?
As is often the case for anyone looking to apply automation, we need more time. Our Services Operations team deal with high volumes of tickets alongside regular maintenance. This demand can also fluctuate over specific periods, which can make it harder to manage capacity.
Stefan Mincher, Head of Service Operations, said: “We started off with a goal to free up engineers’ time by automating those repetitive tasks that were slowing us down regularly.”
On top of the capacity issues, they faced clients who had raised tickets but then were not contactable to deliver the resolution. This would particularly happen around peak holiday times, such as half-term, where tickets were logged and then would sit unresolved for a week. This affected the team’s stats and led to client frustration.
Automation was explored as a route to completing this work proactively to reduce the need for tickets, while giving engineers’ their time back.
How our Services Operations team applied automation internally_
Given the challenges they were facing, Stefan and his team kickstarted a project to increase their use of automation across processes. This began in June 2024.
The first step was a change in mindset, specifically viewing tasks as automated and scalable rather than repetitive and manual.
The main tool used for automation was ConnectWise Automate, an RMM tool. One member of the team, Ed, had half his time allocated to scripting within this platform, with the aim of developing scripts that could automate repetitive tasks and resolve issues at scale.
During this process, the team also used Copilot to ask questions to prepare and fix scripts, which streamlined the process.
To date, several regular tasks have been automated. These are all jobs that the team regularly carry out for multiple clients, meaning significant time has been saved in the last six months already.
This has included:
- Disabling HP Wolf: 65,000 minutes saved so far
- Google Chrome updates: 11,920 minutes saved
- Startup fixes: 13,510 minutes saved
- Uninstalling Zoom: 11,940 minutes saved
- Removing older .NET version: 2,010 minutes saved
On top of these automated scripts, the team have also built Power Automate flows that can turn activity previously done in testing phases into seamless processes. This organises thousands of testing components into a 15-minute job. This frees up even more engineer time to focus on strategic goals, rather than doing repetitive work.
The benefits of our automation efforts_
The time savings experienced to date since the scripts were implemented in June have been astronomical.
Across the processes automated so far, the team have saved 4721 hours. This amounts as 118 weeks or 2.26 years. It also translates into a cost saving of £68,098.
Speaking of the results, Stefan said: “In just six months, the impact has been transformative. From simple updates to resolving complex issues, we’ve been able to automate work that would otherwise have drained our team’s time, focus and morale”.
Clients are benefitting too. 90% of vulnerabilities that may be flagged in a clients Cyber Essentials Plus report can now be covered by automatic scripts, allowing these issues to be rectified promptly and maintaining compliance for clients.
The team have also been able to move from reactive work to a proactive, preventative approach that fixes issues before clients even need to raise a ticket. With smarter processes in place, the team can root out issues in advance to minimise disruption to organisations.
Stefan follows on: “The beauty of automation isn’t just in the time it saves, but also the reliability that it brings. It doesn’t forget, it doesn’t skip any steps. Every task is executed with precision and brings flawless results every time”.
The added win for the team is that it gets rid of the work they don’t enjoy doing. Mundane, repetitive tasks have been swapped for strategic work that better utilises their skills and offers learning opportunities. This has enabled internal projects to move forward faster and leaves time for more complex issues, while allowing the team to do work they’re passionate about.
The future vision_
Given the results we’ve seen through automation so far, there’s no desire to stop now. The Service Operations team already have a vision for where they can take automation next.
High on the priority list is the automation of patch management across clients, ensuring that systems are always up to date with no downtime and no risk of human error. There are also plans to explore the automation of new user onboarding, security remediation and configuration, which can take hours from the team. The aim is for this to run smoothly by the end of 2025, with minimal manual intervention required.
The vision extends beyond individual tasks to entire workflows. Automation will allow us to standardise excellence across all our clients, elevating their experience. Ticket triaging will become smarter and faster, making it easier to prioritise critical incidents and resolve them quickly. These investments will equip our people to deliver exceptional results for both Infinity Group and our clients.
It will also enable us to provide guidance to clients looking to embed automation themselves, through tools like Power Automate and Copilot Agents, following our own learned lessons and successes.
Top tips for introducing automation_
With the experience we’ve had so far, we’ve refined our best practices for applying automation. There are two core tips we’d recommend any business follow when exploring it for themselves:
1. Think simple_
When applying automation, aim your efforts on things you are doing that are simple and repeatable.
In short, it’s anything that gives you the feeling of doing something over and over again. Even if it’s something that takes just five minutes of your time, that can add up if it’s repeated by multiple people.
Simple actions are also easy to automate, making them a great starting point.
If you attempt to automate something complex, it will take so long to do that it would likely cancel out any time saved. So, simple is best, and can still yield great results.
2. Test_
Once you start automating, it’s crucial to track the impact. This enables you to understand whether you’re having positive results, which can make it easier to secure buy-in and warrant future automation.
When it comes to our automation, the key figure we were looking at was time savings. We did this by checking how long the scripts were taking to run compared to how long the task took manually per client. We could then add up the time saved across the team for total cost savings.
But it’s also important to look at your broader results. For example, have quality or accuracy standards stayed the same (or even improved)? Are you seeing better employee morale? While these metrics are harder to track, they allow you to see the far-reaching advantages of automation, while ensuring you still maintain a high quality of work.
Get support bringing automation into your business
There are now more options to drive automation in your business than ever before. From Power Automate to Copilot, we can help you find tools that make it accessible and effective.
Moreover, we’ll help you to find the best use cases for automation in your processes as part of our Business Value Assessment. Taking an objective view of your existing pain points and objectives, we’ll identify areas to sensibly automate and guide you in applying them with a phased roadmap.
