From ransomware attacks and data leaks to forgotten passwords and stalled business operations, IT system failures seem to be a way of life. But it is also something that no business can afford.
Just one look at news headlines from the past decade uncovers a range of financial losses with as little as a single hour of downtime – from US$100,000 to more than $1 million. This even considers the countless daily, smaller disruptions that cause extra work – incurring additional business and IT costs due to delays and waiting times that can often be automatically fixed before they become issues.
Fortunately, recent developments in artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning are reducing the risk of such potentially revenue-impacting and budget-crushing events. By allowing business systems to self-heal, these digital innovations are identifying and fixing issues, addressing performance variations, and restoring outages without human intervention.
Automating the Care of Digital Business Operations
Based on a platform of AI and intelligent robotics, combined with self-learning, the business operations self-healing service links to business-monitoring solutions. This approach allows the service to understand how business systems usually function and react to any irregularities or potential errors. If unusual activity is determined to be problematic, it makes any necessary adjustments to restore normal operations.
This self-healing service can become a transformational moment in the user experience (UX) compared to traditional, manual methods and processes. SAP has observed that its business operations self-healing service settles issues in a fraction of the time and improves the UX dramatically. Such results are especially accessible now that the service can be implemented in a matter of four weeks and as a standard platform.
Gone are the days of submitting a help desk ticket and waiting for a member of the IT team to intervene when a system incident occurs. Equipped with a combination of advanced algorithms, network, and infrastructure intelligence, and coupled with increased computing power, users can now take advantage of automated diagnostics and root-cause analyses. Doing so enables them to troubleshoot the failure as well as find and implement a solution with guided prompts, all while documenting the resolution process for future reference.
Intensifying the Business Value of Intelligent Experiences
In many ways, the use of self-healing business operations is a critical point in the business value of AI enablement. This is more than just reducing IT and business costs, avoiding unplanned downtime, and expanding a digital footprint without the risk of unexpected disruption. It is also about helping business users, service desks, and IT professionals work more strategically with relevant cross-channel experiences, while mundane repetitive tasks are handled faster and more effectively.
When users experience better interactions with business systems and processes, issues become non-issues and a company’s bottom line can improve.
SAP’s business operations self-healing service is designed to take remediation to that next step, cultivating a workforce that is ready and able to adapt to digital change openly and confidently.
Learn more through a business operations self-healing service infographic, available here, and explore the Innovation and Advisory Services area of sap.com here.
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Glenn Svensson is the vice president of Digital Innovation at SAP. Follow him on Twitter at @glennsvensson and on LinkedIn.