Financial automations in the Asia Pacific and Japan region grew to 569% in the past year and procure-to-pay grew to 514% while in Europe and Middle East insight and analytics automation grew to 403% in the past year, as well as in financial processes like record-to-report and in IT operations, according to the second annual Work Automation Index by enterprise automation platform Workato.
Focusing on key trends that shaped automation last year, this year’s report anonymised data was collected from 900 midsize to enterprise Workato customers who use automation across their organisations.
Twenty-one percent of these businesses have a presence in the Asia Pacific and Japan.
Data revealed there is a massive shift in which departments are using automation tools an creating those automations.
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IT has shifted from delivering projects to being a fundamental core in businesses. Sixty-six percent of organisations now have five or more departments using automation and the number of organisations with seven departments automating has nearly tripled since 2019.
“It’s amazing to see that IT teams are now becoming the less dominant automation creators within organisations. This demonstrates that when you have the right guardrails, the right governorship, and the right tools in place, business users can create automations safely,” comments Workato chief information officer Carter Busse.
“From finance becoming the most automated department to HR seeing the value in automation to help improve the employee experience, we’ll continue to see this type of growth and adoption as automation becomes more accessible across departments.”
This year’s report identified the following key findings:
Customer support operations is a big automation growth area in Asia Pacific and Japan. As retail continues to migrate online, the region is turning to automation to meet the ongoing need for customers to easily return items. Returns and refunds automations increased by a massive 1005% for Workato’s user base in Asia Pacific and Japan.
Departments outside of IT are automating more than ever before. The number of organisations with seven departments automating has nearly tripled since 2019. Twenty-three percent of automations were built by non-technical users in business operations roles, the highest of any persona in both business and IT.
Surpassing IT for the first time, finance departments made up 26% of all automations. Order-to-cash continues to be one of the top automated processes with record-to-report automation also seeing significant growth with a 290% increase. In the Asia Pacific and Japan region, record-to-report and procure-to-pay are the top two most automated processes.
HR automation continues to be a focus with recruiting automations growing 316%. 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.
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 three times growth in automations in the past year.
“Business leaders increasingly recognise that pervasive use of automation technology leads to improved efficiency, greater business agility, faster innovation, and shorter time to value,” says Workato head of research Massimo Pezzini.
“Consequently, we’re seeing a foundational shift in how IT and business decision makers are embracing automation tools. A business-led, IT-enabled democratized model will become the dominant approach to automation over the next five years.”
Designed to uncover the workflows used and the role automation plays across departments and functions, the 2022 Work Automation Index analysed 900 midsize ($50 million to $2 billion in annual revenue) to enterprise (over $2 billion in annual revenue) Workato customers who use automation in their businesses.
The team 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.
