How AIOps Simplifies the Digital Transformation Journey

Simon Wilson, Chief Operating Officer at Avantra explores how AIOps simplifies the digital transformation journey.

Several businesses have followed their customers to the digital channels and fast-tracked their digital transformation agenda in response to the ongoing pandemic. According to a report by Mckinsey, the digital transformation among businesses has speeded up the adoption of digital technologies by several years. And this change is not temporary, but has changed forever the way IT supports the business.

For instance, retailers had to set up an online shopping experience and next-day fulfilment, which typically would have taken years to plan. When the pandemic hit, business leaders understood they had to change to a digital-first business almost overnight. People had the technology like Zoom for years but needed to roll it out to a broader employee base in no time, a project which otherwise would have taken several months.

With the abundance of technologies and services available, companies looking to transform into a digital enterprise recognize that SAP is a critical cog in the operational wheel and needs to be supported by technology capable of keeping up with the new business requirements. And therefore, AIOps has emerged as a preferred ingredient in any digital transformation strategy.

By implementing AIOps, businesses can rapidly deliver applications and innovations that produce great customer experiences. Doing so allows them to serve customers more efficiently and grow their businesses. Automation within AIOps enables rapid response times – ensuring every stakeholder has a seamless experience.

How does AIOps enable SAP digital transformation?
SAP currently serves 94% of the world’s 500 largest companies, covering supply chain management, procurement, manufacturing, sales, service finance, and HR.

There is no moving away from SAP supporting business-critical processes and has been the core to large enterprises for years. While digital operations became critical and available, adjusting to unprecedented volumes of change demands the SAP infrastructure to be resilient.

What makes AIOps critical to supporting digital transformation initiatives with SAP is that it helps IT shift from a firefighting state into a proactive role. It also enables actionable intelligence that can inform business decisions based on accurate, real-time information. But how exactly does AIOps do all of these things? Simply put, AIOps helps companies continuously monitor IT infrastructure data to get more insights on operations, security, and performance—while staying ahead of incidents before they become problems. It’s a critical shift because it allows businesses to operate more efficiently and with greater agility than ever before.

Challenges during SAP digital transformation
The biggest challenge companies face during their digital transformation is finding and retaining technical people with relevant skills.

Whether you are already engaged in SAP digital transformation or planning for an upcoming project, it is important to identify and mitigate obstacles early on. AIOps supports the management of change throughout all phases of your SAP digital transformation journey.

When changing business processes, evaluating new systems, or migrating data to new sources, effectively responding to any issues is key to not only achieving your goals but making it worth everyone’s time. That’s where AIOps comes in. It makes sure teams are on top of any potential issues related to changes before they disrupt business operations. But before anything else happens, AIOps will help determine if any pending service outages could affect your planned transition.

Managing SAP security with AIOps
Digital ubiquity means digital complexity, faster and more frequent changes, and increased risk. What saves businesses time also increases systems risk. As data increases so does alert fatigue and thereof risk. Businesses can drown in data without efficient management of systems as well as the data they manage.

Inevitably, a pandemic-driven increase in digitalization has led to a consequent increase in data to be managed, processed, understood, and used within and by businesses. So, what prevents a data bulge from impeding data flow or threatening its security?

Cyber threats are real, and the precision of cyberattacks nowadays is often scary. Equipped with advanced techniques cybercriminals are looking to exploit any possible vulnerability in network systems.

AIOps helps provide better visibility of IT infrastructures’ health through advanced analytics of IT infrastructure logs across all tiers. It helps organizations ensure proactive risk management against cyber-attacks by detecting any anomalies or changes in systems or applications behaviour before it can result in a breach of business continuity or corporate confidentiality.

Way forward
The last year may have seemed like a rollercoaster of challenges requiring swift adaptation and transformation but learning on a curve is effective.

According to the 2021 Gartner Market Guide for AIOps Platforms, “There is no future of IT operations that does not include AIOps. It is due to the rapid growth in data volumes and pace of change (exemplified by the rate of application delivery and event-driven business models) that cannot wait on humans to derive insights.”

Businesses want automation applied to everything from new systems development to IT operations and security relating to speed and consistency of quality, rather than just saving on cost or effort.

As more industries incorporate digital technologies into their daily operations, AIOps will help businesses understand that technology by providing valuable insights into business transactions.

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Further to the increased demand, we’re also seeing the dividends of our multi-year investments into advanced systems and business automation as we continue to record double digit growth despite the global product supply constraints.”