While IT automation, including scripts, hasn’t been around for quite that long, it’s increasingly commonplace in many organizations. In fact, according to a recent pulse survey by Harvard Business Review Analytic Services, automation is so widespread that 68% of respondents agree that IT automation at their organization has shifted from a “nice to have” to a “must have” in the past 12 months.

At the simplest level, these tasks tend to be repeatable, task-based processes that often require both scale and precision, such as a security patch or a version update on a solution. Done manually, such tasks can be monotonous, making them prone to human error—particularly when repeated hundreds or even thousands of times. This combination of factors makes automation an ideal way to improve these types of processes, especially in scenarios where IT teams are asked to do more with less.