Everything You Need to Know About Business Process Automation

She continues:  

• Strip the process — i.e., remove unnecessary or redundant steps. Start back with the bare bones.
• Simplify the process. Look for ways to merge steps, minimize steps, or optimize the overall process.
• Standardize the process. Make the process repeatable (and hopefully autonomous), and document the best practices.
• Sustain the process. Keep going and improving, because there is no such thing as a perfect process!

Roberts notes, “Streamlining processes is my expertise, so I have a lot of experience here. Here's one high-level example: I worked on a technical risk management process that involved process streamlining and troubleshooting. Process upsets were two to three times more than plan. Staff satisfaction was poor. Annual business targets weren't met. After automating and streamlining that process, the process upsets were reduced to within 10 percent of plan. Staff satisfaction increased 20 percent. The business started meeting targets and saved over $3 million from efficiency gains. Talk about some serious results from automating!

“As for the future of business process automation, I see businesses tending more toward computer-based automation to eliminate human action as much as possible. Human intervention will be needed only for complex troubleshooting, higher-level analysis, oversight, and strategic thinking.”

Kim Kadiyala, Marketing Specialist at Zapier, says: “We're in an exciting time where business process automation is accessible to everyone — even if you're not technically savvy or a programmer. Tools that connect your apps put the power of automation into the hands of marketers, founders, real estate agents, and lawyers. Anyone who is moving bits of information from one place to another can set up an automation and start saving some time. I like to say that there are some tasks that are better suited for computers and some tasks best done by humans. Automating the tedious parts of your work frees you up to spend more time on the more creative aspects of your job, like big-picture thinking and strategic problem solving.

 

 

“I use Zapier to automate my outreach and collect user stories to feature in blog posts. After compiling a list of users to reach out to in a Google Sheet, I set up an automation between my Google Sheets and my Gmail. Then, every time I update a row in my Google Sheet, the system sends a personalized email to the user using a template I created. The email has a link to a Typeform survey with a couple of questions. After users submit the survey, their answers are automatically routed back to the Google Sheet. With this automation, I can spend more time crafting a piece of content and less time manually compiling the information I collect.”

Brady Keller, Digital Marketing Strategist at Atlantic.Net, says, “My favorite type of automation is marketing automation, which was created to help businesses scale relevant, worthwhile digital engagement for a large population of potential customers. No one has the bandwidth to send highly targeted emails to thousands of people at a time. Use the tools you’ve invested in to help you configure that process in the most efficient way possible. Based on the platform you select, you will have a variety of customizable tools and workflows that will work around your specific instructions. You can implement strategies, like autoresponders, transactional emails, algorithmic personalization, and much more.

“The best way to optimize marketing automation is to connect it with a customer relationship management (CRM) platform. If your business brings in revenue by combining marketing and sales campaigns, then your system should be integrated. Connecting your marketing automation platform with your CRM will help marketers on your team connect crucial campaign strategies with the financial outcomes. This will provide your salespeople with better visibility into prospecting and leads. It also allows your marketing team to hand leads over to sales without manually exporting anything.”

According to Nicholas Fedele, President of Lumiola, “I think BPA has serious pockets of underutilization. We are starting to see it become more mainstream, but I think the current state of adoption depends on the industry. Certain industries that are younger (i.e., e-commerce) are a little further along because they have grown up in an environment that is based around cloud tools that are easily integrated.

“I’ve worked with many clients to improve their business process efficiency. The main way I achieve efficiency is through the integration of financial and operational applications. There are many ways to use cloud applications to get rid of redundancies, reduce data lag/availability, and — by eradicating human intervention — improve accuracy in the collection of data. You will often observe that a human entering or moving data through a process is susceptible to inaccuracies and the delays of office life. By automating these processes, you reduce or eliminate the inaccuracies and can significantly cut down on the time it takes to get actionable data.

“For example, one process automation involved a distribution company that sold primarily to big-box retailers. In its old state, the organization had no window into what customers were ordering until after the warehouse fulfilled it. In addition, they would get a report once a week, which required someone to manually manipulate the data and import the data into the accounting software.

“In the new state, every time a customer places an order, it is instantly created in the accounting software. It is then sent to the warehouse to be fulfilled. Once fulfilled, it is automatically converted to an invoice that can be sent out to the client. This gives the executive team real-time visibility into what has been ordered, what is unfulfilled, what has been shipped, and when the company has been paid. All of this data is available on any internet-connected device and requires zero human intervention. Needless to say, the executive team loves the new insights!

“I think we are going to see BPA take a different shape in the near future. We are going to see a more mainstream adoption of AI that will allow for deviation from a binary process. There are applications out there now that can handle a lot of these tasks. However, due to financial constraints, the adoption at smaller companies is extremely difficult. As the technology becomes more developed and the cost comes down, artificial intelligence will be far more mainstream.”

Ashok Gudibandla, CEO at Automate.io, notes, “Automation of business processes is of course constantly evolving. It requires alignment of people, processes, and technology. Each part is a challenge. We are experts at the last part, technology (software/systems/AI). The big challenge here is that with more and more systems (email, marketing, sales, customer service, payments) moving to the cloud, there is a fragmentation of data and processes, with each department using their own siloed tools. Automating processes across departments is a big challenge. 

 

“We help our customers address the technology issue. Once they have their automation processes identified, we let them implement those processes on top of the cloud systems they use. For example, automating marketing across email, social, and mobile channels to engage prospective customers, automating the sales process on top of the customer’s CRM, implementing collaboration software, and using documents to shorten the sales cycle and convert more prospects. From a technology perspective, there are a lot of BPA enablers: AI, bots, and automation/integration tools (like ours). There was a lot of buzz around the same in 2016. This will make it increasingly simple to achieve BPA once the people and process parts are taken care of.” 

According to William Mayben, Principal and Consultant at Wm Mayben and Associates, “Those on the inside are concerned with the rapid advent of AI in the field of business automation and its accelerating effect on the erosion of middle-class jobs. Every technological breakthrough comes with its benefits and costs. We appear to be better at technical progress than we are with the social displacement, which that progress engenders. This is also true in manufacturing, communications, and finance, all fields of human endeavor. 

“So I ask myself the question: What happens in a consumer-based society when the consumers are progressively displaced from the job market by AI-driven technology? And the corollary: Who is working on that end of the equation as fast as the evolution of the displacement? In other words, Where are new jobs being created at a rate that even remotely approaches the losses? What we are seeing now is that lower-paying, part-time gig economy, and service-industry jobs are replacing careers.

“Unfortunately, nobody, at least as far as I can see, is addressing this fact. Fewer and fewer people are required to provide goods and services for many. Extend this trend out a decade, two decades. See what you come up with!”

Steve Pritchard is a Marketing Consultant for dreambooth, a company that provides interactive photo booths for special events. He says, "Photo booths have become very popular features for both parties and corporate events in recent years, so to cope with the sudden influx of orders, we have massively streamlined the process by automating the sales,” he explains. “Aside from being more cost-effective, it provides a smoother and more efficient method of processing sales than doing it manually. Because this automation process helps to speed up the order process, more orders than ever pour in. This means we’re able to create more jobs and hire more people. "

Jennifer Thomé, Business Development and Marketing Manager at Plustek, believes, “The current state of business process automation is pretty abysmal for many companies, especially well-established ones that have to bring years of old processes and documents into the modern age. Doctors, accountants, and many government agencies are slowed down by the fact that they don't have the resources to update their systems and complete their work simultaneously.

“We have introduced the Plustek eScan stand-alone scanning kiosk to several companies where people need to quickly convert paper documents into digital ones. This scanner allows them to log in and send the information to preset locations at the touch of a button. This not only saves a ton of time, but also provides the ultimate secure solution because the user cannot send the files to another location, either intentionally or by accident.

“Many companies are also using zonal OCR and barcode scanning to automate document filing. Zonal OCR lets the user set a predefined area from which information is automatically captured, indexed, and added to a specific database. Many companies employ Zonal OCR on their purchase orders so that scanning the document will transfer the invoice number and shipping and billing information directly to a database. Adding barcode recognition to a document automates the filing process by telling the computer where and how to file a document and its content. These capabilities help these large, established companies compete today.”

 

Ajay Prasad, Founder and President of GMR Transcription and RepuGen, says: “There are two major ways that I have been able to improve my own businesses and my clients' through automation and systematization. First, I have developed an automated software solution called RepuGen to automate the difficult process of gathering customer and client feedback and managing online reviews. We all know the importance of online reviews, but typically we can never find the time to manage them. My clients and I were facing the difficulty of getting our happy customers to write reviews, and all manual processes were taking up much of our time.

“As a solution, we automated this outreach through our RepuGen software, getting customer feedback and turning the positive comments into reviews. The second way I automated to improve my business was when I created an online portal for my online transcription services company, GMR Transcription. This online portal eliminated the manual process of receiving and uploading audio files, and instead made it possible for the clients to do it themselves.”

 

Sid Bala, President and CEO of alligatortek, notes, “For us, a process that used to take up to a week has now been reduced to minutes, meaning that fresh produce gets into the hands of those who need it faster than ever before. In just one year, a national nonprofit connected 128 million pounds of fresh produce to Americans facing hunger — an increase of 9 percent over last year’s produce donation. alligatortek developed the Produce Donor Portal, a cloud-based site that gives a national nonprofit more automation and quicker workflow.”

 

Ethan H. Goodman, Digital Marketing Manager of DubSEO Limited, says, “All business growth is directly or indirectly tied to your ability to automate your business. The advantage of business automation is the ability to increase efficiency and productivity. People generally function well when they are put in positions that motivate them. The reality is that most routine activities aren’t motivating or exciting. This means that your employees will simply go through the motions without putting in 100 percent. The best part of business automation is that you spend less time on routine tasks by letting your software or outsourced agency handle that part of your business while you focus on growth and expansion.

“With the use of automation tools like CRM software, it is easier to quickly resolve customer complaints. Automation helps you deliver excellent products and services with robotlike efficiency: quick order fulfillment, faster service delivery, and seamless logistics. As a digital marketing agency, we always use SEO software, such as Screaming Frog or Xenu, for BPA. This helps to reduce our effort and increase our on-page optimization. Most companies spend a significant amount of time, effort, and money training new employees on their way of doing things.

“In the future, BPA will allow organizations to define their own processes and process flow. It will endow employees with the ability to have a single sign-on to a complete solution, providing the unprecedented access that people want. Adopting business process automation will remove the guesswork of delegation and responsibility almost completely in that everyone’s direct responsibilities will be clearly defined and integrated within the platform.”