Business automation is the use of technology to automate processes and functions within an organization. Also known as business process automation, business automation can deliver massive productivity gains by helping a business transform traditionally manual processes into automations across the entire organization.
An automated business process takes a multi-step, multi-system or cross-departmental process and gives the task to software to simplify and manage. There are countless processes that are capable of automation to support the specific goals of an organization. For example, sales orders, customer relationships, vendor management or employee onboarding are traditionally manual processes suitable for automation.
Benefits of business process automation
Manually running repetitious tasks greatly disadvantages an organization. Manual tasks leave room for human error, time-sensitive processes are susceptible to delays and employees are often forced to juggle multiple applications and communication channels in order to carry out everyday duties.
However, business process automation eliminates these issues.
Automated and streamlined business processes are standardized, ensuring complete accuracy and consistency. All employees inside an organization are granted a more efficient and enjoyable experience as they are freed from tedious, time-sensitive and resource-intensive duties, allowing them to focus on higher value work.
On a wider scale, business process automation is a major step in an organization’s digital transformation. Implementing a strategic approach to business process automation allows organizations to operate with agility, adapt to new requirements and introduce new processes faster and more successfully.
Examples of business process automation
Here are three examples of core functions that can be improved with business process automation.
Customer experience
Manual, customer-facing processes hamper an organization’s ability to provide their customers with the best experience possible. Automated processes, such as an automated response sent to a customer inquiry or automatically directing support tickets to its relevant department, will ensure customers’ needs are handled as efficiently and quickly as possible.
Inventory management
Automated business processes involved with inventory management allow an organization’s operations to be more resilient and less vulnerable to disruption. Examples of inventory related processes to automate include supplier and distributor communication, inventory monitoring and order placements.
Sales processes
Speed is a crucial factor in securing a successful sale. The ability to quickly follow up on a lead is important, and business process automation can be utilized to improve the chance of a sale by automatically classifying leads, following up on initial contacts and reaching out to a prospect within a set amount of time.
Here are 5 benefits to using business process automation
1. Increased efficiency
Challenging and laborious tasks can be automated so that they are handled sequentially and quickly—allowing employees inside an organization to focus on what they do best.
2. Guaranteed accuracy
Humans make mistakes. Automated processes don’t. Errors inside an organization are eliminated when you can make the specific rules for how business is handled.
3. Better workplace experience
Employees won’t need to spend time sifting through resources spread across multiple platforms to complete a task. They will be able to communicate and collaborate effectively, as processes can be set up for reminders or team updates. Business process automation fosters a more enjoyable work experience when employees can focus on the work that they were hired to do—not the frustrating tasks that can be automated.
4. Save resources
Business process automation reduces the time, effort and expenses associated with the repetitive activities crucial to operations. It eliminates costs associated with errors and time-consuming processes and enables businesses to make better, informed decisions by providing valuable data.
5. Better risk management
Automation technology allows organizations to optimize risk and compliance management processes, like meeting compliance standards and audits. By optimizing these processes, organizations are able to ensure they are compliant and informed on any areas of their operations that need revisions.
Additionally, with the right business process automation platform, organizations are gifted further benefits from tools that support the entire process improvement lifecycle. For example, a platform that offers management and analysis capabilities gives organizations transparency into their business operations. Stakeholders can acquire newfound clarity in various business processes with the ability to assess the processes through operational visualizations and determine new opportunities for further improvements to implement. They can measure the organization’s performance, for example, by tracking specific KPIs.
How to automate business processes
If you’re ready to get started with business process automation, here’s how to begin your strategy and implementation process.
1. Identify your processes
Identifying the bottlenecks and potential improvements in how your business runs is the foundation for automation opportunities. Considering what tasks are repetitive, frustrating for employees, time-consuming, time sensitive or involve many elements of your business is a good place to start.
Process Mining
The process identification step could require a massive amount of manual work considering the amount of process data that needs to be reviewed. This is where process mining software can help.
Process mining software is a tool that quickly and easily analyzes all of your process data and then identifies bottlenecks and opportunities for automation. It can help identify so-called “happy paths” across supply chain, customer service, procure-to-pay or order-to-cash processes.
With process mining, detailed data is captured and translated, allowing you to fully understand your processes and their dependencies. This allows you to find patterns, anomalies and opportunities for improvement—transparently revealing the landscape of your business operations.
2. Identify your goals
It’s crucial that you determine the goals that you hope to achieve through your business automation implementation. Identifying your specific goals will allow you to assess your processes with clarity, measure success and analyze further improvements.
3. Find the right business process automation tool
After assessing what functions and processes need improvement and identifying the goals your automations should accomplish, the next step is to find the right tool that can help nurture your process transformation. You’ll need a business process automation tool that’s easy for your organization’s members to learn, is capable of adapting to operational changes, monitors your goals and offers the greatest ROI for what you wish to accomplish.
For example, according to a Forrester Total Economic Impact (TEI) study, enterprises that deploy Software AG’s ARIS for business processes see a 301% ROI, and when enterprises use ARIS to improve risk and compliance management processes, the ROI can climb as high as 457%.