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Workato's Second Annual Work Automation Index Shows Automation Surging Beyond IT

  • Written by Daily Sun

For this year's report, the anonymized data was collected from 900 midsize to enterprise Workato customers who utilize automation across their organizations. Twenty-one percent of these businesses have a presence in the Asia Pacific and Japan region. The data revealed a massive shift in which departments are using automation tools and creating those automations. At a time when the world is rapidly changing and organizations are finding that how we work is continually evolving, automation has become the great equalizer, creating an opportunity to be more efficient and delivering better business outcomes.

Workato discovered that the role of IT has shifted from delivering projects to being an enabler of the business. Sixty-six percent of organizations now have 5 or more departments using automation and the number of organizations 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 organizations. This demonstrates that when you have the right guardrails, the right governorship, and the right tools in place, business users can create automations safely," said Carter Busse, CIO at Workato. "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:

  • APJ and EMEA regions are tapping into the power of automation. For the APJ region, financial automations are a big focus with record-to-report growing 569 percent in the past year, and procure-to-pay growing 514 percent. In EMEA, the growth in automations for processes like insights and analytics, which has grown 403 percent in the past year, as well as in financial processes like record-to-report, and in IT operations.
  • Customer support operations is a big automation growth area in APJ. 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 percent for our user base in APJ.
  • Departments outside of IT are automating more than ever before. The number of organizations 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.
  • Finance rises to the top as the most automated department. Surpassing IT for the first time, Finance departments made up 26 percent 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 percent 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 percent 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 3x growth in automations in the past year.

"Business leaders increasingly recognize that pervasive use of automation technology leads to improved efficiency, greater business agility, faster innovation, and shorter time to value," said Massimo Pezzini, Head of Research, Future of the Enterprise at Workato. "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 analyzed 900 midsize ($50M to $2B in annual revenue) to enterprise (over $2B 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.

Click here to access the full report. To learn more about Workato's enterprise automation solutions, visit www.workato.com.

About Workato

The leader in enterprise automation, Workato helps organizations work faster and smarter without compromising security and governance. Built for Business and IT users, Workato is trusted by over 11,000 of the world's top brands, including Broadcom, Intuit, and Box. Headquartered in Mountain View, Calif., Workato is backed by Altimeter Capital, Battery Ventures, Insight Venture Partners, Tiger Global, and Redpoint Ventures. For more information, visit workato.com or connect with us on social media:


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