What is process automation?
When software programs are used to automate business jobs and processes, this is called process automation.
It can range from simple automated emails to more complex robotic process automation (RPA) systems set up with machine learning technologies to do specific jobs or follow specific workflows when certain events happen.
Process automation replaces manual work, giving workers more time to do essential business tasks like problem-solving, developing new ideas, and answering complicated customer service questions.
It also lowers the chance of mistakes people make, making things more accurate and dependable.
Synonyms
- Business Process Automation (BPA): Using technology to automate repeatable, time-consuming activities and workflows.
- Sales automation is an element of digital sales transformation in which sales activities such as lead generation, marketing, and customer relationship management are automated.
- Billing Automation: The use of technology to automate billing processes such as invoicing, payment processing, and accounts receivable.
Ways that process automation is used
For 67% of companies, business process automation is vital to their digital change plans because it streamlines processes and cuts costs.
Their tech stack and automated tasks will differ depending on the type of business, how it is set up, and the exact methods they use daily.
These are some of the most common causes of process automation:
Help with Customers
Process technology in customer service can help companies answer customer questions faster and better.
Companies can quickly answer frequently asked questions or point customers to valuable resources using chatbots and automated email responses. This cuts down on wait times and raises total customer satisfaction.
Companies also use automation to wisely send customer questions to the best department or agent based on the type of question. This ensures that the questions are answered quickly and in a personal way to the customer.
People Resources
Using a cloud-based Human Resources Information System (HRIS) to automate HR chores like onboarding new employees, managing time-off requests, enrolling new employees in benefits, and performance reviews makes the HR department’s work easier.
Automating work processes can help ensure new employees get information like orientation schedules, business policies, and forms to sign up for benefits on time and consistently.
Automated data collection and analysis can make performance reviews easier and give managers helpful information for improving employees’ skills and keeping them on board.
Money and Accounting
Automation helps the finance and accounting departments keep track of their income and report it correctly on financial statements. It does this by automating tasks like accounts payable and revenue recognition.
Order-to-cash software and similar tools cut down on the need to enter data by hand and speed up the billing process, ensuring that bills are paid on time.
Automated credit decisioning software can help finance teams quickly determine if someone is creditworthy and make intelligent choices about loan requests and other financial transactions.
Process automation solutions help finance teams track and balance company payments, ensuring that vendors are paid on time for processing invoices and billing for subscriptions.
Getting sales and leads
Intelligent process automation helps with lead creation, nurturing, and scoring in sales and marketing.
You can set up automated marketing campaigns to send prospects personalized content based on their hobbies and how they interact with the brand. This will increase the number of conversions and keep buyers interested.
Automated lead scoring algorithms can find the most likely prospects, which helps sales teams focus on high-potential leads and set priorities.
Automation can also be used to monitor marketing efforts and determine which strategies work best to increase sales and return on investment (ROI).
All of these things cause the lead-to-order or quote-to-revenue loop to go faster, resulting in more sales and more money.
Logistics and the supply chain
By automating jobs like inventory management, order fulfillment, and shipment tracking, process automation helps companies improve their supply chains and logistics.
Companies can avoid running out of stock or having too much of it by using technology to monitor inventory levels in real time. This cuts down on waste and makes customers happier.
Order fulfillment methods can be automated to ensure that products are delivered on time and correctly, with as few mistakes and delays as possible.
Real-time shipment tracking can also be done automatically, giving companies and their customers the most up-to-date information on where their products are at all times.
Management of Data
It can be hard to keep track of sales data, customer insights, and financial records, especially at the corporate level, where millions of records need to be tracked, analyzed, and kept across the whole organization.
Businesses can better handle their data in real time using a cloud-based data management tool to automate these tasks.
Automated data management allows Businesses to quickly get important information about their customers, goods, and market trends. This helps them make better decisions.
Process automation can help simplify data management jobs, which is good news. For instance, automated workflows can be set up to keep track of contacts with customers and store the data in one place.
Process automation has many benefits.
Businesses in many fields can benefit from automating processes in many ways. Here are ten critical reasons why process automation is a good idea:
1. Better efficiency: most IT workers say process automation saves them between 10 and 50 percent of their time. Companies can handle more work with the same or fewer resources because they are more efficient. This saves money and makes them more productive.
2. Fewer mistakes: Automation lowers the chance of mistakes people make, leading to more accurate and regular work. This can be especially helpful when entering data, handling finances, or fulfilling orders since even small mistakes can significantly affect the business, its customers, and the number of people who stay with the business.
3. Better compliance: Automating processes can help companies stay in line with rules and laws by ensuring that processes are carried out consistently and according to set rules. Automated systems can also create audit trails, making it easier for companies to show officials and auditors that they follow the rules.
4. Better decisions: Automation speeds up and improves the accuracy of data collection, analysis, and interpretation, which helps people make better decisions. This means better processes that bring in money, happy customers, and a lasting competitive edge.
5. Cost savings: By automating tasks, you can cut down on labor and other costs that come with running a business. Businesses can also save money and make more money by automating chores that used to be done by hand, like data entry and processing documents.
6. Increased scalability: When sales efficiency and internal processes are streamlined, it’s easy for businesses to grow. When workloads increase, automation software can usually handle them without spending much money on more people or equipment.
7. Higher customer happiness: Businesses can raise customer satisfaction by shortening the time to respond to customers and using AI and data to make experiences more personalized for each customer. Automating customer service tasks is an excellent way to ensure that questions are handled quickly and correctly.
8. Employee empowerment: By automating tasks that are done repeatedly, workers can focus on more critical tasks that require them to think strategically, solve problems, and be creative. This improves job satisfaction, professional growth, and general engagement among employees.
9. Agility and new ideas: Automating processes can help companies be more flexible and develop new ideas. Companies can react faster to changing market conditions, find new opportunities, and develop new goods and services to meet customer needs when they have more resources and valuable data.
10. Data security: It’s safer for the company and the customer to save data in an automated system with built-in security. Automated threat detection solutions built into automation software also help quickly find and fix potential security problems.
Problems that come up when you try to automate processes
Putting technology to use in a business setting can be challenging. Here are some of these problems:
1. Resistance to change: Employees may not want to use new software because they fear losing their jobs or power over their work. To solve this problem, businesses should let their workers know about the benefits of automation and give them training and support to help them get used to new technologies, get ready for sales, and gradually get used to using software.
2. High initial investment: Sometimes, automation costs are very high, especially for large businesses moving to new ERP or CRM software. Before committing, organizations should carefully look at the return on investment (ROI) and think about the long-term rewards.
3. Task difficulty: Not all jobs are simple enough to be done by a machine. Some may need human help, creativity, or empathy, making it hard to develop good automated answers.
4. Integrating with current systems: Adding automation might need integration with business applications, which could require special coding or connections through an application programming interface (API). Companies need to ensure that the new technologies can work with their current systems and don’t cause any problems.
5. Updating and maintenance: For automated systems to stay safe and effective, they need regular maintenance, updates, and improvements. Businesses need to consider these ongoing costs and set aside money to ensure their automatic systems work well.
6. Data privacy and security: Automation helps keep data safe, but it often requires handling private data, which makes people worry about data privacy and security. Businesses must have robust data protection methods to keep customer and employee information safe.
7. Choosing the right technology: Many automation tools and technologies are out there, so figuring out which is best for your digital transformation project can be challenging. Before choosing sales technologies, automation platforms, or process management tools, businesses should study, talk to experts, and look at their options.
8. Skills gap: Putting automation into place might require specialized IT skills that a company doesn’t have. Companies might have to pay for employee training or hire outside experts to handle development and ongoing management.
9. Monitoring and measuring success: Once automation has been implemented, companies must set up metrics and key performance indicators (KPIs) to see how well their automatic systems work.
10. Legal and regulatory compliance: Automation can sometimes cause problems with the law and rules, especially in fields with many rules. Businesses must ensure that their automated systems follow all laws and rules. This could mean adding more people to the compliance team.
Steps for Setting Up Process Automation
To get the most out of their attempts to go digital, businesses should follow these six steps when setting up their new automation software.
Set goals for your business.
Set clear, measurable goals for automating tasks, like increasing revenue, making things more efficient, or making complicated jobs more accessible.
Make sure that these goals align with the organization’s general strategic vision to ensure that the journey toward automation helps the company reach its larger goals.
Find Out What You Need
- Find out the wants and expectations of different stakeholders, such as employees, customers, and management.
- Find out how big and how many people will be involved in the automation project by looking at the company’s current processes, technology, and skills.
Describe and write down business processes.
- Carefully look over and write down the processes that will be computerized. Figure out the steps, the inputs and outputs, the relationships, and possible bottlenecks.
- This documentation will be used as a starting point to create and use automated processes.
Picking the Best Tools for Automation
- Look at the pros and cons of different robotic technologies and platforms, such as how well they work with current systems, how easy they are to use, and how much they cost.
- For operational excellence, choose the best tools that fit the needs and goals of the company.
Dealing with Change
- Make a detailed plan for managing change to deal with possible pushback and ensure the switch to the new automated processes goes smoothly.
- This could include programs for training, communication, and engagement, as well as ways to help workers get used to the changes.
Analysis and Making Things Better
- Using set metrics and KPIs, keep an eye on and rate how well the automated processes work.
- Find ways to improve things and adjust the processes as needed to ensure the automation project achieves its goals and helps the company reach its business objectives.
Tech for automating processes
- Automation technology is based on software robots or bots that can do complicated jobs with little help from a person.
- These bots use artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) to look at data in real time, find trends and relationships, spot outliers and fix them automatically, and even start conversations with customers.
AI, or artificial intelligence,
- AI is a field of computer science that focuses on making machines that can do things that require intelligent people to do them.
- Intelligent technology works by constantly collecting data and learning from it to get better at what it does.
- AI is essential to processing automation because it lets bots do complicated jobs that humans would find challenging and time-consuming to do by hand.
RPA stands for robotic process automation.
- RPA is an automation technology that uses bots to do repeated, rule-based tasks.
- Robots can be designed to do tedious tasks like entering data and processing documents so people can work on more creative and vital tasks.
Set up, price, and quote (CPQ)
CPQ software makes selling complicated goods and services more accessible by automating things like managing quotes, setting up products, etc.
CPQ systems help businesses speed up the sales process by creating accurate quotes instantly based on customer needs, pricing rules, and product configurations. This cuts down on manual work and improves the whole experience for the customer.
Automation of billing
Billing automation uses software to make the billing and invoicing process more accessible and automated. This software allows generating invoices, figuring out taxes and discounts, and handling payments.
By automating billing chores, companies can reduce the time and work needed to handle financial transactions, improve cash flow management, and follow rules like ASC 606.
