When Henry Ford created the first moving assembly line in 1913 to mass produce his Model T automobiles, the first true form of business process automation was born.
When computers first became widely available in the 1970s and 1980s, businesses began automating as many simple operations as they could.
This pattern is still present today, leading to the establishment of more innovative and high-level positions.
What is business process automation?
Business process automation (BPA) automates routine jobs, manual processes, and well-structured systems and workflows for all employees.
The majority of businesses employ business process automation software in various parts of their operations. After all, Forrester estimates that automation may reduce operational expenses by up to 90%.
Automation of customer connections, analytics, planning, sales, and other processes is possible with BPA.
BPA’s three core ideas are: enabling businesses to command, coordinate, and automatically execute plans and tools; centralizing work processes and integrating services across the firm; and minimizing human participation in routine chores.
The objective is to assist your staff, lower operational costs, reduce human error, restructure work processes, and improve customer service.
Business Process Automation Benefits
Because it offers a ton of advantages to your business, business process automation is growing in acceptance and popularity.
Clarity in Every One of Your Procedures
You will learn more about each process as you look for opportunities to automate it, gaining insight into what functions well and what doesn’t.
You generally won’t be able to successfully automate a process if you don’t understand all of its details, including who is in charge of running it.
We advise creating a process map that can be used by the entire staff as a training tool and business resource to comprehend how the workflow functions.
Effortless Work Processes
Business process automation ushers in an efficient workflow free from tedious, time-consuming, and manual processes.
You have more control over who does what and for what. more information on how effectively processes are working. You may also get rid of unnecessary tasks to make room for more productive ones.
Standardized procedures
Human error, which is the cause of so many inefficiencies in your company, is eliminated by automation. Additionally, it standardizes your work procedures and enhances operational predictability, resulting in predictable results.
Customers come to trust you because of this regularity.
The types of business process automation
Basic Automation
Simple tasks like providing a single location to store a variety of linked data are examples of basic automation.
A great example of a project management, collaboration, and communication application that skillfully brings disparate pieces of data into one platform is Slack. All of this data is automatically organized to make it comprehensible and useful.
Process Automation
Process automation is the use of a specialized network of applications and software to record and manage your company’s business operations, including project management or budgeting.
Automation Integration
Automation through integration enables tools and software to observe, assess, and replicate worker performance. You only specify the procedures to be followed.
An illustration would be the integration of your customer support software with your project management software.
When a client complaint is received, the integration immediately delivers it as a task to the person designated to handle it rather than keeping it in an inbox for someone to complete.
Automation using artificial intelligence (AI)
When you use AI in conjunction with your integrated software tools, you can make decisions more quickly and intelligently. With the information it has been given, the system can now make decisions on your behalf.
With machine learning, the AI system’s “intelligence” will increase as it gains more knowledge.
Examples of business process automation
Orientation of New Employees
A significant amount of effort, work, and resources must be devoted to the hiring and onboarding of new staff. Forms must be filled out, meetings must be scheduled, papers must be collected, mentors must be assigned, and many other tasks are involved in hiring new staff.
It may get rather hectic without automation.
However, by adopting business process automation, you can effortlessly switch between tasks, hold training sessions on demand, bring in mentors on call, and automatically send forms.
Purchase Order Requests
Requests for purchase orders (POs) are routine activities that are ideal candidates for automation. You must complete a form and email it to buying if you’re submitting the request. Depending on a variety of factors, the request is authorized or rejected and returned to you. The PO is prepared and copies are sent to the supplier if it is accepted.
If a PO is always the same every time, business process automation may be used to automatically approve parts of them, reducing the amount of time needed to fill out, approve, and submit the forms. Additionally, it may be used to keep track of all data sent among all participants in the decision-making process and manage all communication.
Operations Management
Operations management involves a lot of moving components. Without consulting managers or team leaders, it can be challenging to determine how well projects are moving. Even then, misunderstandings might result in mistakes. Business process automation keeps track of, logs, and stores all the resources, personnel, and operations involved in a project.
This implies that the BPA system will immediately notify the other employee that they have a new task whenever one employee completes their assignment, making room for another employee to complete their task.