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Automation as Business Strategy
Organizations increasingly realize that automation can’t be isolated. It must span across IT and business, from job scheduling to customer service. Yet, to do so effectively, automation must be orchestrated with intent. However, anything that is core to production, core to SLAs, and interacts with other infrastructure needs to be centrally managed.”
Enter the Citizen Developer
A major theme is the role of citizen developers: Non-technical users empowered to build automation within guardrails. The analyst firm Enterprise Management Associates (EMA) has done research on that aspect, and the following picture emerges: Only 28% of enterprises currently see meaningful contributions from citizen developers, while 52% say either none exist or only experimental use is permitted.
So why the hesitation? For many, the term "citizen developer" itself raises red flags. It conjures fears of uncontrolled processes, security risks, and bypassed governance. In a nutshell: Organizations face a balancing act between enabling this distributed automation and maintaining high reliability.
The promise is compelling: citizen developers can dramatically increase automation coverage by working closer to the business problem. But the tools and guardrails need to mature. This is where AI could change the game, however, not necessarily by writing automation scripts, but by capturing intent. Think of it as an intelligent note-taker that interprets user needs and translates them into executable automation behind the scenes.
Governance, Trust, and the Road Ahead
Trust is at the heart of citizen development. Can central IT rely on business users to stay within the rails? Should their automations go live directly, or must they be reviewed and promoted by a centralized team?
These are not new questions. Heavily regulated industries like banking have wrestled with similar dilemmas while adopting agile methodologies. The friction between speed and control isn’t going away, but it can be managed with the right frameworks.
As automation scales beyond IT into business operations, organizations must redefine how changes are proposed, validated, and deployed without becoming bottlenecks.
Final Thoughts
The automation landscape is no longer a back-office function. It’s become a strategic pillar for digital transformation. The challenge now is to orchestrate and monitor automation at scale while enabling those closest to the work, that is: the business users, to contribute meaningfully.
The answer doesn’t lie in full decentralization or complete central control. It lies in balance. In frameworks that empower without exposing. In platforms that provide observability and governance without stifling innovation.
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