In recent years automation has been the buzzword. However, the idea of automation goes back decades, and perhaps even to the dawn of the industrial age. The realization that revenue and profit are closely linked to consistency and efficiency has meant that whenever the opportunity to do things better, faster, cheaper and without errors arises, it must be seized with both hands. In fact, companies that do not automate are outperformed in their markets in the long run.
Business Process Automation (BPA) and other forms of automation processing are not new in today's business world. We have changed filing cabinets, which used to fill an entire office, for databases. Jobs are now data entry jobs done from home. And human resources do much of their work through HR software. H H. that are now powered by artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML).
The automation of business processes allows us to transfer the responsibility of these tasks that reduce productivity to technology. Automating processes in the various business lines helps to reduce bottlenecks, to detect errors in procedures, to improve communication between departments and, ultimately, to achieve objectives more quickly.
Automation is important to improve the competitiveness of a company, since it allows to optimize its processes, reduce costs, increase productivity, reduce errors and achieve greater control of information, among many other benefits.
What is business process automation?
Business process automation is a technology, or rather a set of technologies, used to automate business processes so that they develop autonomously.
It refers to the transformation of business procedures that previously could not be automated due to the processing of unstructured data, which forced them to be carried out manually.
As organizations grow, the number of people, teams, departments, and tasks that need to be coordinated increases. Relying on manual execution and tracking creates bottlenecks and leaves room for small mistakes to become disastrous roadblocks.
Compared to a simple task management platform, BPA helps you create, control and manage complex workflows at scale. The strategy centralizes all the processes that are shaken in your organization in a single portal.
Here are some of the commonly automated tasks within a workflow:
- Content Marketing Approvals
- Incorporation of new employees or departure of personnel
- Review of time off requests
- Preparation of sales contracts
- Autofill agreements and other documents with information from your CRM
- Fill out spreadsheets
- Report preparation
- Submit a query to an online database
- Data validation
- Task assignment
As? In general, business process automation helps organizations:
- Speed up everyday operations
- Make informed decisions faster
- Eliminate process bottlenecks
- Reduce regulatory risks
- Eliminate manual/paper processes
Let's get acquainted with some terms commonly used to describe business process automation.
● Business process management (BPM)
The BPM approach involves the evaluation of the company as a whole. The process helps review all business processes, analyze growth, optimize where necessary, and set a new path to improve efficiency, business agility, and revenue generation. At its core, BPM is a strategy for using both automated and manual processes. It focuses primarily on modeling everyday activities.
● Business Process Automation (BPA)
BPA is essentially a digital transformation of business processes into simpler, more controlled systems through workflow automation solutions. This automation aims to establish error-free, economically viable, open and streamlined functions across the organization with clearly defined, adaptable, efficient and accessible roles. The process focuses on replacing manual tasks with a seamless and error-free automation approach.
● Automation of robotic processes
RPA uses unique and sophisticated robotic programs to automate routine tasks. The difference in this case is that the BPA focuses more on the achievement of instructional codes, but the RPA deals with taking those illustrative steps in the completion of the tasks. These bots mimic human actions like replying to emails, copying and pasting, general administrative tasks, etc. through the use of user interfaces.
How does business process automation work?
BPA occurs whenever an organization automates a process, but workflow solutions are not created equally.
BPA allows multiple applications to "talk" to each other. For example, a member of the marketing team can tie multiple applications together to streamline parts of a workflow, such as adding a new email address to the CRM and a separate email marketing platform.
An effective BPA strategy includes more than a handful of automations that perform tasks scattered throughout your organization. It's a company-wide initiative that extends the benefits of automation to every function and team. When 45% of workers say they are too busy with administrative work to perform the tasks they were hired to do, you can see how important it is to empower every employee with the power of automation.
To manage a large-scale BPA program, organizations turn to business process management.
Automation through software: ERP, BPM and RPA
What automation system to implement? Actually, these softwares complement each other. By automating business processes through ERP software, the most common and standard processes of the value chain are being automated, while from the BPM, more specific management processes are designed that usually respond to particular control criteria of the company.
On the other hand, automation using RPA robot software is compatible with an ERP system. These software robots can interact, just as a human being does, with an ERP system or a specific BPM system.
Of course, all this is not done from one day to the next, the automation and digital transformation of a company is a long and evolutionary process. But it is a process that must be started as soon as possible, a process essential to streamlining business processes and achieving greater productivity in today's competitive business world.
Automation through software: ERP, BPM and RPA
What automation system to implement? Actually, these softwares complement each other. By automating business processes through ERP software, the most common and standard processes of the value chain are being automated, while from the BPM, more specific management processes are designed that usually respond to particular control criteria of the company.
On the other hand, automation using RPA robot software is compatible with an ERP system. These software robots can interact, just as a human being does, with an ERP system or a specific BPM system.
Of course, all this is not done from one day to the next, the automation and digital transformation of a company is a long and evolutionary process. But it is a process that must be started as soon as possible, a process essential to streamlining business processes and achieving greater productivity in today's competitive business world.
BPA vs. BPM: What's the difference?
To better understand BPA, let's take a look at its not-so-distant cousin: business process management (BPM). While BPA is about digitizing and automating a sequence of tasks, BPM is about managing and monitoring those workflows from start to finish.
From a software point of view, BPA does the automation. A BPA platform offers the comprehensive architecture necessary for an organization to consistently manage all the processes it automates. It helps channel tasks across multiple people, departments, and software tools. BPA platforms also give you the ability to cohesively monitor your progress from one central hub.
A process automation platform should be low-code, which means it can be used by workers at all levels. Using drag-and-drop applications that are more like a whiteboard than a coding environment, sales managers and customer service representatives can collaborate on workflow design. These "citizen developers" can easily use advanced technologies such as robotic process automation or artificial intelligence to extend automation beyond basic data collection. Also known as digital process automation, these AI-powered platforms:
- Connect legacy systems with third-party software to improve process automation
- Leverage third-party AI integrations, machine learning, and robotic process automation (RPA) to perform more complex jobs like reading and extracting information from documents
- Making sense of unstructured data
- Learn and improve from experience
- Improve customer and employee experience
- Reduce operating costs and boost revenue
Benefits of business process automation
Minimize costs and avoid errors at the same time. One of the main reasons companies automate business processes is clearly to reduce costs. By automating business processes, some of the available labor can be freed up for other tasks.
Increase quality and ensure consistency in manufacturing, sales or service provision processes. Two factors that ensure that the customer experience is perfect. Everyone wants to continually offer the best products to build trust and loyalty. The automation of sales processes guarantees that all products or services will always meet the same quality standards and the same management and payment facilities.
One of the positive side effects of process automation is the new analysis options. When processing tasks, all processes and their results are logged, so that we get an overview of how many tasks were actually completed and, above all, in what time and with what result.
This data provides a behind-the-scenes look at your business and enables continuous optimization and improvement.
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The rise of AI and machine learning
Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML) are going to play an important role in the future of business process automation. AI-enabled BPM platforms can analyze vast amounts of data in real time, extract insights, make decisions and act without human intervention. This allows them to make decisions faster than humans and with greater precision.
How will AI and ML power automated processes?
Increased efficiency: For example, your organization can use artificial intelligence to automatically route customer inquiries based on their needs, instead of having an employee deal with each one individually. AI-based processes can process endless amounts of data and make decisions faster than is humanly possible. According to McKinsey, AI and ML can increase the value of traditional traditional analytics techniques by between 30 and 128%. This allows companies to streamline their operations while saving money – everyone wins.
Cost reduction: While some see AI as a cutting edge, for many organizations, the benefit lies in strategic planning and analytics investments. A study of the manufacturing industry revealed that 64% of companies that adopted AI throughout the supply chain.
Improving Customer Experience: Among the Top 10 Enterprise AI Use Cases, McKinsey lists four top customer-facing activities: customer service analytics, customer segmentation, product feature optimization, and customer engagement. opportunity generation. With AI, you can deliver personalized experiences that meet individual needs. The best way to do this for companies like yours is to use machine learning algorithms to tailor communications based on tastes or preferences.
Increase productivity: According to PwC, 44% of AI leaders point to "productivity" as the area where they have derived the most value from automation with AI. Companies often need help speeding up project delivery times, especially when projects involve large teams working together on different parts of a project simultaneously across multiple locations or time zones. By automating processes through artificial intelligence, you can track progress against goals over time—and in real time. Be aware of bottlenecks at any stage of the process and let the AI correct the course. Institutional knowledge retention is a point of concern for many organizations: AI bridges the gap by remembering process histories, helping people make decisions about how best to proceed in similar contexts.
When it comes to automating processes, AI-related technologies are transforming every step of the way.
How to know if process automation is for my company?
Process automation is considered a key element in a successful digitization strategy.
In the first step, companies must analyze existing processes, it is important to integrate technologies such as robotic process automation into the existing business process landscape, and develop an automation strategy based on the real needs of each company.
Conclusions:
In short, business process automation can significantly improve a company's efficiency and productivity, while reducing the costs associated with manual work. In addition, it can help free up employee time and resources to focus on more important tasks and strategic.
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