With a history dating back to the 1950s, Black Friday is the most global commerce event of the year, with consumers spending an estimated $8.9 billion in 2021 alone. With the addition of Cyber Monday, many companies and organizations are bracing for heavy traffic, even going so far as to “freeze” their infrastructure to halt production changes for days or weeks on end to keep their operations as stable as possible in preparation. However, this becomes a competitive disadvantage to companies that may not fully understand the need for risk management, and instead try their best to avoid it completely.

IBM, for example, recommends an “observability” platform for Black Friday to gain insight into the state of running systems and all of its components, from browser/app/device monitoring to response tracing and other health-based website metrics. Similar information technology (IT) automation applications are available to keep performance challenges at bay during these seasonal spikes.

In this fashion, automation has undoubtedly revolutionized how consumers typically experience Black Friday today. This is particularly true when it comes to artificial intelligence (AI). By predicting demand and personalizing services, pricing, inventory, and distribution management can be made more efficient based on regional trends, recommendation engines, and other “big data” architecture. In the future, the continuous improvement of these technologies will reduce delays, errors, and other supply chain issues that operational technology (OT) professionals may come across from these major shopping events.

The International Society of Automation (ISA) is kicking off its Black Friday Week sale! From midnight ET on 21 November through the end of 28 November, you’ll be able to save big on training courses, books, standards, and ISA merchandise when you use the coupon code BFCM22 at checkout.

These savings are in addition to the discounts you can already receive when you become an ISA member. ISA members save 20% on ISA products daily!

So, what products can you save on during ISA’s Black Friday Week sale?

• Training courses, including cybersecurity; technician and engineering; certification and licensure; and intensive boot camps, are all 30% off! To learn what specific training courses are on sale, please visit ISA’s Black Friday week website below.
• All ISA-published books are also 30% off! Written and reviewed by experts in their respective fields, you can browse our entire library to find the process automation resources you need.
• Select ISA standards are also on sale for 30% off! Redeem your coupon code on over 150 standards that reflect the expertise of 4,000 global industry experts. Please note that this discount applies to individual purchases of ISA standards, not licenses for ISA standards.
• As a bonus, during ISA’s Black Friday week sale, browse the ISA merchandise store to get special savings on adult and children’s apparel, accessories, stickers, and more!

Visit ISA’s Black Friday Week Sale site and take advantage of savings today.