Cutover commissioned Forrester Consulting to conduct a Total Economic ImpactTM (TEI) study of Cutover Recover (find the study here), our platform for IT, cloud, and cyber disaster recovery (DR). This article contains some of the results from that study as well as tips on how to calculate return on investment (ROI) for runbook automation.
The financial benefits of implementing runbook automation
Firstly, what is runbook automation? Runbooks can be used to detail the steps for performing complex operations - runbook automation accelerates and streamlines this process by making the runbooks executable, automating orchestration and communications, and providing greater visibility. Implementing runbook automation has a number of benefits:
Fewer manual errors
The need for manual intervention in DR is time consuming and increases the risk of human error. Manual processes are also difficult to replicate consistently, reducing reliability and repeatability. With runbook automation, you reduce the risk of making manual errors during the creation, execution, and audit of your IT operations and save time, reducing recovery times.
Reduced downtime
The absence of comprehensive testing and reliable processes increases the risk of prolonged downtime and data loss, giving users little confidence in their ability to execute a live recovery scenario. With runbook automation, you can fix issues mid-recovery within a couple of minutes, rather than at least 30 minutes with manual solutions. This helps you recover faster and reduce the amount of downtime your organization and customers experience.
The productivity benefits of runbook automation
Automating runbooks streamlines complex workflows, reducing manual effort, minimizing errors, and improving overall efficiency. By standardizing processes and enabling seamless orchestration, organizations can achieve faster execution times, enhanced collaboration, and significant time savings. Here’s how automated runbooks improve productivity:
Faster task execution
The Forrester study, based on a composite organization representative of interviewed customers, found that using Cutover Recover resulted in a 50% reduction in execution time thanks to more efficient orchestration and collaboration leading to tasks being executed more efficiently.
Improved collaboration and visibility
A lack of visibility into the progress of DR tests and clear ownership of the execution process make it challenging to track the status of recovery efforts and identify issues in real time. Cutover Recover increases visibility, with each step of the plan detailed in the runbook and attributed to individual users. This increased visibility means that fewer preparation and planning meetings are needed. Cutover Recover also increases visibility via runbooks and dashboards and enables users to react more quickly mid-recovery, using real-time data for decision making. Users can also easily share status updates with senior stakeholders, increasing visibility across the organization and reducing the communication burden on those running and executing the event.
Reduce time to recovery
Using Cutover Recover’s automated runbooks, the composite organization saw a 50% reduction in execution time, reducing the time to recovery and knock-on impacts to the business and customers.
Reducing repetition and increasing job satisfaction
Runbook automation provides greater predictability of when each user needs to join and execute a task, reduces the time each user needs to be involved, and has a positive impact on work/life balance as well as freeing people up to focus on other tasks.
Quantifiable time savings
Cutover reduced planning time for IT disaster recovery tests and execution time for recoveries by 50% and reduced audit and post-test analysis time by 80%. With Cutover, there is less time spent fixing mistakes or checking the accuracy of the latest document compared to spreadsheets and communication time is decreased thanks to automation. With the process clearly outlined in the runbook and real-time updates, users can accurately predict their task execution time, reducing the amount of wasted time where individuals have to be on standby waiting to execute. These benefits amounted to time and cost savings of $3 million for the composite organization over three years.
How to calculate the ROI of runbook automation
Runbook automation streamlines IT operations, reduces manual effort, and minimizes downtime, making it a valuable investment for enterprises. However, to justify this investment, it’s essential to calculate the return on investment (ROI). Calculating the ROI of runbook automation requires a structured approach, which can be broken down into four key steps:
Identify the costs
The costs of runbook automation include the software subscription based on the number of users plus the costs of implementation and any integrations to IT service management or automation tools.
Quantify the financial benefits
Cost savings and financial benefits from automated runbooks will depend on how many application failover or recovery tests you run, how many hours each one takes to plan and execute, how many team members are required to participate in each test, and how many hours are spent on post-event reporting.
Incorporate productivity gains
The Forrester study found that recaptured productivity from using Cutover amounted to $188,000 over three years. Productivity benefits will vary depending on the size of your organization and the scope of recovery testing and execution, plus how many manual processes can be automated.
Calculate ROI
If you want to learn the potential return on investment, annual savings, and payback period your organization could get from Cutover, use our Cutover Recover ROI calculator.
Cutover’s Collaborative Automation SaaS platform enables enterprises to simplify complexity, streamline work, and increase visibility. Cutover’s automated runbook software connects teams, technology, and systems, increasing efficiency and reducing risk in IT disaster and cyber recovery, cloud migration, release management, and technology implementation. Cutover’s runbook automation software is trusted by world-leading institutions, including the three largest US banks and three of the world’s five largest investment banks.