Effective and streamlined execution of business processes contributes to the success of business operations and growth. Every step in a business process describes a task that is pre-assigned to a participant. It is a building block for many related ideas, such as business process management and business automation process.
Business process automation is currently one of the technologies with the greatest growth rate. According to statistics, it was worth $8 billion in 2020 and is expected to increase to $19 billion in 2026.
With the growing popularity of this technology, companies are trying to implement automation approaches to streamline their work processes. Implementing AI and automating business processes is not an easy task, but the help of strategic partners and approaches makes it simpler. Let’s learn more about how to streamline the implementation of intelligent process automation.
What is Business Process Automation?
Business process automation (BPA) is technology or software to automate repeatable, day-to-day tasks. These tasks may include everything from customer service to HR processes. In short, BPA optimizes various processes and is sometimes called low-code automation.
BPA minimizes and enhances human effort within a specific business process. The business process includes several tasks, such as:
- Fulfilling and invoicing a customer purchase order
- Approving a loan application
- Completing data entry
- Onboarding a new employee
- Additional financial services
- Human resource tasks
- Simplify business operations.
The primary goal of BPA is to automate as many elements of the process as possible. It makes the process cost-efficient, error-proof, and transparent. Therefore, with BPA, organizations save time and ensure significant practices to improve overall operational efficiency.
Types of Business Process Automation
These are the five types of business automation process that you need to know to minimize human intervention:
- Task Automation: Task automation is performing a task with technology instead of manually handling it, like sending emails, generating documents, capturing signatures, and updating statuses.
- Workflow Automation: Workflow automation uses software to perform a defined series of tasks and activities, like product manufacturing and information processing.
- Process Automation: Process automation is the use of software or technologies to automate business processes and activities to accomplish pre-defined goals, like producing a product, hiring and onboarding an employee, or providing customer service.
- Robotic Process Automation (RPA): Robotic process automation (RPA) handles repetitive business tasks by using software robots to automate tasks performed by humans in industrial settings.
- Intelligent Automation: Intelligent automation, or cognitive automation, is the use of automation, such as artificial intelligence, machine learning, and other cognitive technologies, to collect, process, and analyze data continuously without any manual need.
Seven Robust Strategies to Streamline the Automation Process
The following are the top 7 best practices to streamline and automate business processes:
- Identify Areas for Improvement: First, you need to identify areas for improvement. This may entail assessing and evaluating current business processes to identify those that are ineffective, obsolete, or susceptible to failure.
- Find Repetitive Tasks: In the next step, you should find out which areas need to be automated. With the proper analysis, you can discover which area is time-consuming or manually dominated. You should consider the needs and abilities of the workers who will be using the software and then suggest the right software to get the most out of it.
- Select the Right Automation Tools: There are several automation tools available, each with unique features, functions, and costs. You should pick the one that meets your requirements and budget. Common automation tools are robotic process automation and business process management.
- Design and Test Automated Processes: After selecting the automated tools, you now have to design and test your automated processes before incorporating them. You should involve your stakeholders in the design and testing phases and ask for their suggestions and feedback.
- Monitor and Boost Your Automated Processes: Automation is a continuous process of improvement. You need to monitor and analyze the outcomes of your automated tools using key performance indicators (KPIs).
- Refine and Fine-Tune the Processes: The analytics and data can help you better understand your automation tools, your customers’ behavior, and market trends. You can also experiment with them by adding new features, functions, or integrations and optimizing the process. These experiments also help remove unnecessary costs and risks.
- Train Users: Employees need to be trained on the new business processes. Trained users know better how to save their time by using these automation process in their day-to-day tasks. It will eliminate duplication, prevent errors, and reduce the money involved in the development and training of employees.
Conclusion
Overall, business process automation software is used to plan, implement, and analyze automation process. It also refers to low-code automation when combined with a low-code development framework. By implementing this technology, organizations can streamline their processes and enhance work efficiency in less time.
By choosing the right technology digitalization partner, you can streamline the process and hand over the burden of transformation to experts. Take a sigh of relief by collaborating with SBL experts to introduce AI in your operations. Visit our website and share your requirements today.
