Automation and Digital Transformation The ways that automation solutions can support digital transformation within ICT companies

Sammanfattning: Digital transformation is a big deal for every company. On the one hand, to survive in a severe competitive market and the emergence of new technologies, companies are forced to adapt themselves to changes rapidly. On the other hand, changing processes, especially in the big companies, is not easy. Furthermore, any mistake about decisions and value proposition assumptions for digital transformation and strategies to implement required structural changes can cause the digital transformation to fail and the company perhaps losses its share in the market. Thus, applying changes needs to have an effective strategic plan to employ innovation processes which can lead companies through digital transformations. The objective of this paper is to identify the ways that automation solutions can support digital transformation within ICT companies. The paper investigates supportive characteristics of automation from both “dimensions of digital transformation” and “procedural aspects of digital transformation” perspectives. Considering the automation definition, an automation does not change roles and missions. Thus, the automation doesn’t mean transformation, the automation tries to make processes that are known, easer by employing management skills and technological solutions. Most studies in the digital transformation area focused on transforming from traditional workflows to technologies that can employ to digitalize Information. This case study research focuses on understanding concepts of the digital transformation and the ways that automation solutions can support digital transformation to reduce mistakes about decisions and value proposition assumptions. This study tries to connect findings from theories by looking at characteristics of the automation and the ways that automation solutions facilitates transformation in different domains of digital transformation in ICT companies. As a part of this report we have analyzed relevant theory from automation and digital transformation domain but also one automation project from service delivery department in Ericsson.