Contact us anytime to know more — Amit A., Founder & COO CISIN
Let's return to the invoicing process: by documenting this process, you can identify all the activities leading up to invoicing and find ways to streamline it even further.
Once your workflow is mapped out, you may discover ways certain processes can be automated or eliminated, leading to an easier billing experience.
IT automation processes are an effective way to boost efficiency and streamline business operations.
By using technology for time-consuming or repetitive tasks, IT professionals can focus on their strategic objectives instead. Below is an outline of some automated procedures which may improve operations.
Automated Ticketing Systems
Automated ticketing systems (also referred to as IT Service Management or ITSM software) can streamline the handling of IT support requests.
Users can submit tickets easily through an intuitive web portal when encountering problems or needing assistance, with tickets automatically assigned based on predefined parameters like the nature of the issue, affected system or user location; thus improving response times, eliminating bottlenecks and guaranteeing that no ticket goes unattended.
Automated Monitoring & Alerting
IT infrastructure monitoring software allows IT teams to monitor critical metrics, including server performance, network health and application status.
Should issues such as network delay or server being down arise, an alert notification will automatically go out to relevant team members via this proactive system allowing teams to quickly detect and resolve problems without incurring costly downtime or service disruptions.
Automated Patch Management
Automating the patch management process is essential to creating and maintaining a secure, up-to-date IT environment.
Patch management software searches servers, workstations and applications for missing updates or patches and deploys them automatically if any are identified patching critical security teams flaws quickly can reduce risks such as cyberattacks or data breaches.
Automated Provisioning & Deprovisioning
Automated provisioning, de-provisioning and onboarding processes simplify employee onboarding and offboarding processes.
Automated processes can create new user accounts for newly hired employees with access privileges granted, install hardware software as necessary and create user accounts when leaving an organization through de-provisioning automated processes.
These processes also prevent sensitive data from being left behind when an employee leaves a company through de-provisioning processes that deactivate accounts and erase sensitive information stored on devices.
Automated Backups and Disaster Recovery
Data protection and disaster recovery depend upon regular data backups being made using automated solutions that can be scheduled at predetermined intervals to run automatically and store backups either on-premises, in the cloud, or securely offline these backups allow IT teams to quickly restore services in case of data loss or system failure.
Automated Reporting and Analytics
Automation tools that produce reports and analytics provide valuable insight into system performance, resource usage trends, incident trends and more providing decision-makers with accurate information for informed decisions regarding IT infrastructure and processes.
Automated Configuration Management
Configuration management software allows IT teams to define, enforce and maintain consistent configurations throughout their IT environment.
Automation enables changes to be made safely while mitigating risks of error while meeting compliance obligations.
Automated software deployment
With automated software deployment, IT teams can efficiently distribute new software or configuration changes across multiple devices simultaneously, saving time and reducing human error.
This method reduces downtime by centralizing deployment activities.
Automated Network Provisioning
Automated network provisioning allows the automatic allocation of resources like VLANs and firewall rules based on predefined requests or rules, making new services and connections faster.
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Robotic Process Automation in IT Operations
Robotic process automation refers to the use of software bots that automate repetitive tasks normally completed by humans.
RPA is an invaluable asset in IT operations; it can help automate tasks such as data entry, log analyses, and maintenance duties, thus increasing efficiency and decreasing human error rates.
Though automation can quickly accelerate operations, balancing automated and human procedures is vital. To ensure automated processes remain in line with changing organizational needs and comply with evolving organizational strategies, they should be monitored and improved upon continuously.
Furthermore, to maintain an efficient IT environment, audits will also need to occur regularly.
Process Automation: Benefits
Businesses employ process automation solutions to cut costs, comply with standards, increase return on investment and streamline workflows - among other benefits.
Here are a few.
Digital Transformation
A digital transformation allows an organization to make the transition from analog/paper processes to digital processes.
It utilizes automation tools powered by artificial intelligence to streamline processes and create digital workspaces.
- Overtime HVAC: No need for days-in-advance work order submission, as tenants can request Overtime service on their smartphones.
- Its Submeter billing: Teams can record every meter read via an app instead of manually inputting readings into spreadsheets, saving time and effort!
Return on Investment
Intelligent automation can be used to increase productivity and cut costs. Automation has the ability to cut business process costs up to 40% on average and boost revenue through micro-segmentation, targeted marketing, and accurate payment processing.
An AI-powered building automation system can lower costs for property management companies and security firms by alerting authorities immediately in an emergency, providing real-time energy consumption data on energy consumption, occupancy levels and traffic in a building, scheduling maintenance activities ahead of time and decreasing risks from criminal activity.
Scalability
Scalability is determined by the capacity of an organization's workforce. Instead of hiring additional workers in order to create a scalable environment, organizations should leverage existing staff members as best possible and maximize their abilities.
Business Process Management tools (BPM) play an essential part in scaling business environments by helping to reduce worker requirements to manage growth.
Software robots can automate repetitive and exhausting tasks so employees can focus their energies on more critical work, increasing capacity by 27%.
Know That Compliance
Organizations that experience non-compliance issues annually lose approximately $14.82 Million due to penalties, disruptions in business operations, productivity losses and revenue losses.
Businesses must abide by laws such as the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, Employee Retirement Income Security Act and General Data Protection Regulation.
Automation of compliance processes enables organizations to streamline time-consuming and complex procedures without human involvement, helping ensure better compliance through automated reporting, monitoring, and process control tools within IT.
IT teams looking to comply with compliance standards on security may need to update passwords on server administration every 90 days.
An organization can automate this time-consuming task using software designed specifically for this task and meet compliance standards without manually intervening.
Building owners may struggle to meet COVID-19 compliance standards, requiring building maintenance teams to monitor all entrants on their properties and record details about them.
Automating activities such as pre-registration, custom health questionnaire completion, and QR code virtual key generation can assist building maintenance teams with reaching compliance standards more easily and improve workflows.
Improved Workflows
Manual workflows consume time. Manual processes such as data entry, approvals and updates take time away from other important activities in an organization's daily operations.
As a result, 66% of survey respondents who took part believe automation can reduce human error and boost productivity.
Automation presents an incredible opportunity to streamline workflows to the point that they can recover lost time due to repetitive manual tasks.
Manual workflows can lead to costly human mistakes. At the same time, standardized processes created using low-code automation tools can help businesses reduce errors.
AI/ML, integrated access control solutions also offer property teams a powerful way to streamline their operations.
Companies often combine access control systems and building automation systems into one seamless system that will start heating cooling upon entry, creating a workflow that automatically starts HVAC heating/cooling units.
Read More: Streamlining Business Operations: The Power of IT Automation Solutions
How To Streamline Workflows And Processes To Increase Efficiency
Although streamlining processes and workflows is an ongoing effort, taking small steps at a time will allow your organization to meet its efficiency goals more quickly.
Businesses can find success streamlining by looking closely at how their processes deal with various challenges.
Take Stock Of Current Processes And Workflows
An effective approach to streamlining areas begins by taking an honest inventory of current workflows and processes.
Writing down the benefits each process brings for individuals and stakeholders can help accelerate this effort.
The Rank Process
You might be shocked to realize how many processes or workflows you rely upon to reach goals or complete tasks, some interdependent and less significant than others.
By ranking each process in order of importance, it will become easier to assess which ones need streamlining first.
Assess Results
Once you've evaluated the processes and workflows, you should analyze their outcomes or results this way, you can quickly identify inefficient, unproductive or expensive processes.
Your assessment could reveal that five bins are being shredded daily and thrown away, requiring you to consider costs such as toner and paper use as well as time spent by employees printing and shredding documents. Furthermore, you could compare how implementing new software could impact a particular process or workflow within your department or organization.
Seek Feedback
Employees, colleagues or coworkers may provide valuable insights into your workflow process or chain. Hearing their insight could reveal areas for improvements that could streamline operations that would otherwise go overlooked unless colleague feedback is solicited.
As part of your assessment, consider meeting with staff to explore potential areas for improvement or creating a survey to ask about various processes and workflows.
Automate And Streamline Procedures
Modern workflow software streamlines business procedures. Business process software (BPMs) have many different qualities and specializations that may prove helpful for different companies and professions; their benefits generally include data collection in one central place, automated business workflow processes and increased visibility with graphs, charts and reports.
Research the software your competitors use to streamline their processes and see if anything suits your company.
Modify And Refine
Your workflow or process will likely need to be constantly refined or adjusted as results from streamlining are assessed; training employees on new processes may take longer than planned, and not everyone may pick it up immediately; to ensure smooth refinements, it is important to obtain client and employee feedback and remain patient when refining processes and workflows.
Assuming we have made the decision to automate business processes and workflows and understand our goals for this process, creating a project roadmap can be done once we know where our efforts need to lead us.
When doing so, it is important to take several factors into consideration: Produce workflow and business process maps.
Determine which processes and workflows need to be digitized for digitalization to occur. Business Process Automation Platform or Business Process Management Platform: Determine your requirements before choosing suitable software to fulfill them.
Choose software to meet process automation according to predetermined requirements and define KPIs to measure its success against digitalization milestones.
Utilize pilot processes or workflows before monitoring, implementing, and improving business processes - let's expand on these points further.
1. Establish Workflow Maps and Business Processes
In order to successfully automate workflows and processes in an organization, it is crucial that we first understand them.
While we likely already know which processes and workflows need automation, it is wise to start by explaining these in more depth. Business process mapping provides a solution. This involves business people, rather than engineers, visually representing business processes to depict them in various forms from textual descriptions or diagrams to sophisticated tools that help identify and visualize them.
BPMN (Business Process Model and Notation) is an efficient way of visualizing all processes and workflows, from sales approval and credit limit validation to product lifecycle.
This diagrammatic view of what might happen next lets you see how even complex processes operate. Below is an example BPMN diagram depicting this process of approval/validation of sales approval orders and credit limits.
Step one is critical since our actions going forward will depend on it. Therefore, it's vital that we put in some work here in particular, ensuring that whoever is assigned this problem within an organization possesses a comprehensive knowledge and analytical approach to how processes interact and work with one another.
A consulting firm may assist in mapping circuits and processes according to goals and assumptions.
2. Select Workflows for Digitalisation
Once we have completed all steps in point 1, process maps and descriptions should now be available for us to consider which processes would make ideal candidates for pilot digitization/automation projects.
Why it matters: Reorganizing processes within an organization can be an enormously daunting challenge, both from a technical and human point of view. Change is difficult for most of us, and many will likely resist it at every turn.
Digitization is undoubtedly a process, and to ensure its success in an organization, it must occur gradually rather than overnight.
What makes a pilot process ideal?
- The results should be visible - we see some organizational effects, but not all. We should choose processes that have clear results.
- The process must have a straightforward flow with few exceptions. This will make it easier to demonstrate its benefits and ease of use. It will then be easier to introduce change into more complex processes.
- We should set goals before implementing automation or digitization and reflect on our progress.
3. Outline Business Requirements As Well As Software Essential For Automation Or Digitization Efforts
Once we have identified, mapped, and selected our pilot process, we must select an IT solution or set to digitize and automate it.
To determine your platform type requirements, you must outline them. Sometimes this means gathering multiple sets of requirements that might even be unfamiliar. Sometimes, we want everything, but doing so only drives up costs further.
Explanation:
- Each solution must provide certain functionality that facilitates and automates predetermined business processes; for us at SAP ERP, this integration with SAP is integral - therefore, any solution not providing this feature won't even be considered!
- At present, the solution should be capable of performing its function without needing it immediately. We may not require this feature immediately, but having the option to add it later is important - in particular, as we will implement OCR for automatic text recognition and need an OCR platform or module that can be purchased.
- Though it would have been ideal, including this functionality in our solution was not essential to reaching our digitization goals. Though ideally it should have been included, its inclusion can still be removed easily if desired.
- These requirements should be given low priority since they offer little value. A solution might offer electronic signature capabilities; if our company already uses one of these systems; however, this feature won't add much.
4. Select Software That Enables Process Automation Based On Predetermined Requirements
There are various platforms available for business process automation on the market. Here's a link that will take you directly to ranking these systems on an international scale: Best IT Process Automation Software.
As well as our previously discussed specifications, it is also crucial that we keep these elements in mind:
- It should be possible to map processes internally using, for instance, a Lowcode approach.
- It should have a graphical user interface that is easy to use and based on blocks for managing processes.
- Integration capabilities should be extensive with internal systems and other automation tools such as RPA.
5. Define Kpis To Measure The Progress Toward Digitalization Milestones
KPIs (key performance indicators) are measures designed to assess whether digitalized and automated processes meet their predetermined objectives, providing us with insight into whether our automations are functioning as intended.
Here are some indicators you could use:
- The duration of a process cycle or the amount of time required to approve a document.
- The number of errors per task carried out
- Cost of process implementation
Think of processes as being like an iceberg; their costs and benefits may be hard to identify at first as they remain hidden beneath the surface, like an underside.
Once we have defined all requirements, the next step should be implementing a pilot process or workflow. This initial automated or digitalized process is known as Proof-of-Concept or Pilot. It serves only to test our initial hypotheses.
6. Implement A Pilot Process Or Workflow
Assuming, for instance, that an electronic process will be implemented to approve cost invoices, testing this assumption allows us to identify any unexpected challenges along the way, refine assumptions, and improve processes accordingly.
Every process should be tested at regular intervals.
At this point, the testing shouldn't significantly impact business operations; however, those carrying it out should be aware that such tests are being undertaken and that results could affect its final form and efficacy.
We can shift our procedures directly into production after successfully testing our procedures or information flows. Create a new operating model based on this new system.
7. Implement, Monitor And Improve
Implementing automation and digitalization of processes and workflows within an organization is an ongoing journey to pursue if we're serious about digital transformation.
We must seek ways to automate processes as well as refine those already automated.
Firms would benefit greatly from creating an organizational culture focused on digitizing processes and gradual enhancement.
Modern companies are creating teams dedicated to automating operations, known as CoE or Center of Excellence teams.
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Conclusion
Automation can help automate employee onboarding, performance evaluation, inventory control and order fulfillment tasks.
Automated technologies also track employee and supplier data to reveal preferences and behaviors among both groups of workers. If your firm needs an edge over competitors or to simplify life for all involved, consider business automation today.
