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Automation in IT is often talked about as a feature. In practice, it’s experienced as a gap.
Most organizations automate isolated IT actions such as approvals, ticket workflows, and alert routing, but stop short of automating the underlying operational processes.
As teams scale and work becomes more distributed, these gaps compound into delays, cost leakage, and operational risk.
This is where the IT process automation solution comes into focus. Unlike tools that optimize individual tasks, real process automation looks at how work flows end-to-end across systems, teams, and, increasingly, physical operations.
It’s about ensuring that once a process is triggered, every step executes reliably without constant human intervention.
In this article, we evaluate the best IT process automation solutions: what each platform covers, and where its automation stops. We’ll also see how Firstbase extends the scope from software workflows into the full IT asset lifecycle, from procurement and zero-touch deployment to retrieval and ITAD.
IT process automation is widely adopted, but unevenly applied. Most organizations automate decision points: approvals, routing, notifications, while the work that follows still depends on people coordinating across tools, teams, and vendors.
The result is time loss for IT teams, cost leakage, and growing operational risk that accumulates with workforce scale and regional distribution.
Teams using Firstbase achieve 97%+ device retrieval rates, reducing asset loss and lowering manual follow-ups tied to offboarding. Take a self-guided tour to see how Firstbase aligns with ITSM processes and closes the execution gaps where most IT process automation tools stop.
Most IT process automation platforms promise the same outcomes: fewer tickets, faster workflows, and better visibility.
On paper, they all automate approvals, route requests, and update records across systems.
But the differences show up when work leaves the screen. When devices need to be procured and shipped globally, retrieved during offboarding, or reconciled for audits, some platforms stop at the record, while others drive execution.
Following the qualification criteria, the following are the top IT process automation platforms to consider:
Firstbase is an IT asset lifecycle and process automation platform for distributed, remote-first, and hybrid teams. It automates equipment procurement, deployment, tracking, retrieval, redeployment, and secure disposal across the employee lifecycle.
Teams using Firstbase see 30% reduction in lost asset costs within the first year due to automated recovery and lifecycle tracking, reducing dependence on spreadsheets, email coordination, and regional vendors.
Device recovery rates exceed 97%, helping organizations avoid write-offs and recover $67K annually through automated retrieval workflows.
Firstbase works as a central place of record for hardware operations, combining workflow automation with global logistics to ensure devices are delivered, tracked, and recovered with minimal manual effort.
Scaling, remote-first companies that need to automate IT asset provisioning, tracking, and recovery across multiple countries without adding operational overhead.
Firstbase’s APIs cover core integration needs, though teams with highly custom automation requirements may occasionally need additional endpoints as the platform continues to evolve.
The message is clear: Automation creates value when workflows actually move forward, not when tasks simply sit in a system. By turning asset data into real-world action, Firstbase helps teams align what’s tracked with what’s truly happening across the device lifecycle.
ServiceNow IT Service Management (ITSM) is a cloud-based, enterprise ITSM platform that combines service operations, request fulfillment, incident and change workflows, and automated process orchestration across large IT teams.
It standardizes and automates core IT processes, including incident, problem, and change management, service requests, and knowledge workflows, on a single platform. This improves efficiency, reduces manual work, and accelerates service delivery.
Large enterprises with complex IT environments that require standardized workflows, along with strong governance and compliance.
As ServiceNow mainly fits large IT ecosystems, it can have higher licensing costs, longer implementation timelines, and increased administrative overhead for mid-sized or fast-moving teams.
While ServiceNow ITSM supports workflow management and CMDB-driven visibility, its automation primarily manages processes and records. Whereas Firstbase focuses on distributed teams that need IT processes executed, not just managed. It removes the cost and complexity of enterprise ITSM while automating real-world IT operations, including device provisioning, retrieval, and end-to-end lifecycle tracking.
SolarWinds Service Desk brings incident, change, problem, and asset management into a single workflow-driven system. It optimizes IT operations by automating ticket handling, service request fulfillment, asset tracking, CMDB dependency mapping, and multi-channel support.
All of these enable IT teams to resolve issues faster, improve agent productivity, and provide a consistent internal IT service experience.
Organizations that are looking for a centralized, ITIL-aligned service management platform that automates ticketing, asset tracking, and change processes.
While SolarWinds Service Desk integrates service desk and asset management, certain features are limited, which could impact deeper workflow customization and detailed device control in some environments.
SolarWinds Service Desk manages asset lifecycles within ITSM workflows, primarily through tickets and tracking. Firstbase goes further by automating the asset lifecycle, including procurement, global deployment, retrieval, and redeployment, making it a stronger fit for distributed organizations.
Ivanti Neurons is a cloud-native platform that combines IT Service Management, autonomous endpoint management, AI-driven automation, and security operations into a single platform.
With shared data and integrated workflows, it automates routine IT tasks and service processes, reducing manual effort, improving service delivery, and providing proactive issue resolution across workflows.
The platform leverages AI and machine learning to improve automation and predictive insights and to offer self-healing capabilities within IT operations and service management.
Mid-sized to large enterprise IT teams that need an integrated, AI-supported ITSM and operations platform. It automates service delivery workflows, endpoint remediation, and predictive issue handling while unifying asset, service, and security domains.
Some advanced Ivanti Neurons features are more tightly aligned with Microsoft-centric environments, which can limit functionality for organizations that rely primarily on Google Workspace for email and collaboration.
While Ivanti Neurons supports IT asset lifecycle automation, it's within a broader ITSM and endpoint management framework. Whereas Firstbase is purpose-built to execute the physical IT asset lifecycle, with deeper automation across device workflows.
Freshservice standardizes everyday IT operations without enterprise-level complexity. It automates service requests, incident workflows, approvals, and asset-driven processes using no-code workflow builders and AI assistance, helping IT service desk teams reduce manual ticket handling at scale.
For SaaS companies hiring across regions, Freshservice centralizes workflows and asset data into a single system, improving operational visibility for IT Ops managers while supporting distributed teams.
IT teams that want a fast-to-deploy, AI-assisted ITSM with built-in asset management and no-code automation.
While Freshservice is easy to start with, building complex, enterprise-grade automation or deeply customized journeys requires time and a capable admin. Also, it has limitations in the mobile app and some asset UI/detailing compared with specialist ITAM tools.
Freshservice tracks IT assets in software, while Firstbase combines automation with physical infrastructure like bonded warehouses and global logistics to execute the hardware lifecycle end to end.
PagerDuty is a SaaS platform built to help IT and operations teams detect, manage, and resolve incidents by automating critical workflows, alerting, and response actions across complex infrastructure.
Its automation capabilities include workflow orchestration, incident response, runbook automation, and event-triggered actions, helping teams to reduce manual tasks and standardize incident handling from detection through resolution.
IT operations, SRE, and DevOps teams in mid-sized to enterprise organizations that need automated incident response, real-time alerting, and runbook-style remediation workflows.
Advanced automation modules and add-ons (like runbook automation) are expensive or require higher pricing tiers, which can be a challenge for budget-conscious teams.
PagerDuty focuses on automating digital incident response, alerting, and event-driven workflows for cloud and infrastructure operations. Whereas Firstbase specializes in automating the physical IT asset lifecycle: procurement, global deployment, device retrieval, and redeployment, with built-in logistics execution.
What most IT process automation solutions rarely consider is the cost of execution when processes span multiple tools, teams, and physical operations. That gap is where time, money, and risk accumulate.
While most IT process automation platforms automate orchestration and system-of-record updates, Firstbase operationalizes automation by executing downstream lifecycle actions.
Firstbase gives teams:
See what this could mean for your team. Use Firstbase’s ROI calculator to estimate time saved on your headcount and operating model.
In many organizations, IT process automation delivers structure but not closure. Approvals are logged, workflows advance, and records update, yet the real work of moving, recovering, and retiring devices still depends on manual coordination.
As teams scale across regions, that gap becomes costly. Delays in provisioning affect new-hire productivity, missed retrievals inflate replacement budgets, and fragmented visibility turns audits into reconciliation tasks.
This is where Firstbase brings the shift. With operations in 150+ countries, 2–5-day global delivery timelines, and 200,000+ devices deployed worldwide, Firstbase brings consistency to the physical side of IT operations that most automation tools don’t address.
If your priority is to reduce manual intervention and gain dependable control over how IT processes play out in the real world, Firstbase provides the execution layer that turns automation into measurable results. Book a demo to see how it helps with your organization’s end-to-end asset lifecycle management.
