Contact us anytime to know more — Abhishek P., Founder & CFO CISIN
Planning is crucial when implementing, so allocating both time and resources wisely.
As your business expands, so will its processes and tasks that must be managed, creating more work each day, leading to errors, stress and burnout.
This unfavorable situation should not continue unchecked.
In this article, we'll outline eight approaches for automating business processes. Additionally, we will share some personal stories highlighting successful solutions built for clients by ourselves and other experts in this space.
Let's get going!
Why Automate Processes In The First Place?
The buzzword of the day is automation. Everybody wants to automate their processes, but they don't know the benefits.
Business process automation has four major benefits.
Productivity Increased
Automate all repetitive and laborious tasks. These tasks include data entry, calculations by hand, and routing requests according to rules.
Automation is possible for any step that follows a set of rules. Automating repetitive tasks allows you to spend more time doing tasks that require human interaction and decision-making.
Reducing Errors
Human error is the most common cause of errors. The fact that systems can make mistakes but do so repeatedly indicates a faulty human setup.
Automation reduces errors to almost nothing. The system can pinpoint errors, even if they do occur. The machines can perform repetitive tasks with maximum efficiency and zero error.
Better Planning
Data is a great advantage to automation. Data is a great way to get detailed data about your process. You can see how much time you spend on each task, which areas have the highest error rates, and what requests are most frequent.
This data will help you better plan and budget resources for the future.
Transparency, Data Security and Improved Transparency
All activities are performed in public when a process has been automated. Everyone better understands the process.
Automating data access also allows for better control. You can hide or show specific information for certain users or groups. You can increase data transparency with a single click and gain more control.
What Is Streamlining?
Streamlining processes aims to identify and eliminate repetitive or unnecessary activities and steps in a procedure to improve its efficiency and effectiveness.
Streamlining processes aims to improve productivity, reduce waste and boost efficiency. This includes using modern technology in place of manual work.
Tips for Streamlining Processes in Your Company
There Are Many Ways To Automate A Process
Companies often rush into automating processes without first carefully considering them and without prior analysis of every step involved in each procedure.
Start by visualizing all steps involved and eliminating redundant or redundant steps or steps. If your accounting team works harder than expected on certain days each week due to following outdated processes which can be automated; this also provides an excellent opportunity to study processes from all departments; the key to successfully automating business processes efficiently lies in breaking them down before using software tools for automation.
Applications First and Tech Later
When people dream of automating and streamlining processes, they often try to create workflow automation applications and fit them into problematic processes or tasks.
It is better to take the exact opposite approach. Find a process that is overly complex or redundant and study it.
Then, develop a solution for that particular problem.
Check Out The ROI of Automation
Automating business processes can save you time and money. Traditional BPM software can cost between $250,000 and $500,000 for companies.
It would be a waste of time and money for your HR department to invest thousands of dollars in automating the background check process only to save a fraction.
Streamlining is supposed to be more efficient and cost-effective. Make sure it is.
Think long-term
Consider your return on investment (ROI) and long-term impact when making business decisions. Implementation may take more than one year - start planning with five-year goals as an indication.
When dealing with multiprocess organizations, use the 80-20 Rule whereby changing 20% of processes could yield up to 80% in potential benefits; assign someone as champion during implementation efforts which can persuade managers who resist change to see through this project successfully.
Your business process must always allow for expansion and modification. If you spend six months streamlining purchase order processing only to discover that finance plans on outsourcing it as your company expands, that time would have been wasted on process optimization.
When Available, Use Pre-made Solutions
Your business process is likely similar to those that other organizations have automated. If you can access such automated business processes for your company, look into them.
Using preloaded app libraries in some workflow automation software, you can create process automation applications.
You can visualize the processes as you automate them and create apps for each process. It is extremely affordable, so ROI worries are not an issue.
Also Read: Automating Business Processes with Machine Learning
Steps to Automate Business Processes
Step 1: Identify The Main Goals for BPA
If you automate your business processes, it's like going on a trip with no destination. You can certainly jump in your car and begin driving.
You could end up wasting resources and time if you put the excitement of an adventure to one side.
It is important to identify the main business objectives to achieve your goals. What do you expect to gain by implementing an automation strategy for business processes? These are possible answers.
- Reduce labor costs.
- Reduce human errors and improve output quality.
- Reducing the amount of time required to accomplish tasks.
- Improve visibility with real-time analytics and data to optimize and monitor processes.
- Improve compliance with policies and regulations.
Step 2: Identify Areas That Could Benefit From Automation
It's now time to identify areas that can be automated. You may have decided to cut labor costs. Do any departments in your business completely depend on manual labor, for example? Customer service or accounting are two examples.
These are the obvious candidates to automate.
Below are some examples of how business process automation could improve certain areas:
Reduce Labor Costs By Reducing Customer Service: Imagine that you run an online store, and your representatives are constantly busy with thousands upon thousands of tickets.
The time has come for automation. You can kill two birds using an AI chatbot for your client's questions. Your customers will get answers to their queries in seconds, and your staff will save time on repetitive tasks.
Hiring to Speed up Recruitment: Imagine your IT department expanding, and your recruiters are struggling to fill all the new jobs.
You're losing out on the best candidates because they already accept other offers before you can even invite them for a technical interview. It seems like your competition has found a faster way to hire. After checking out the market, you will find that there are software tools for automatically screening job applications to filter out non-qualified candidates.
Automation is another important point.
Increase Sales: Imagine you are a marketing manager in an online bookshop. You noticed one day that, after analyzing data from customers, those who previously purchased novels under the category "books made into films" were no longer purchasing books in other categories related to that (such as "modern authors").
You decided to send an automated campaign via email to encourage customers to browse the other books available at your bookstore. Sales from returning customers increased by 25%.
Step 3: Visualizing Selected Processes
Your business goals and the areas where automation offers maximum potential are clear to you, so how do you detect bottlenecks, gaps and latency within them? Visualization provides the answer.
Say you want to reduce errors in online sales. A flowchart can help pinpoint where errors arise by breaking down each step in an online sale processing system into individual links; adding information such as the time required to complete tasks can reveal where any slowdown or blockages lie.
Other methods of visualizing business processes are available:
- Swimlane Diagrams are flowcharts that show who is doing what during a particular process. Imagine it as lanes on a swimming pool. This diagram divides each process step into vertical or horizontal "swimlanes", which are assigned to specific workers, teams or departments. It's easy to see who is responsible for what and how.
- Diagrams of the flow of materials and information through a particular process, called valFOR EXAMPLE, are stream maps. FOR EXAMPLE, a VSM of a manufacturing rs can illustrate how the parts arrive from suppliers at the assembly line.
- They are very similar to flowcharts, but they focus on more detail. Often, they're used to record standard operating procedures. A coffee shop process map might show symbols representing the various steps needed to make a latte. This includes the milk, espresso, and foam quantity at each stage.
- It uses symbols and notation to describe process flows, decision points and, FOR EXAMPLE, other elements. FOR EXAMPLE, a BPMN chart for ny might illustrate how the code is created, tested and then released to clients.
- SOPs are documents describing how to carry out a particular process in detail. These are often used in complex and critical processes. Include step-by-step directions, process diagrams, and quality control measures.
Step 4: Identify Repetitive And Time-Consuming Tasks
Visualized processes should be straightforward to follow. Automating repetitive tasks which consume significant resources and time may also prove effective.
Imagine discovering that customers typically take three days to review inventory levels on every order, giving them ample time to decide.
Don't forget about shipping delays or any subsequent complaints about customer service that need handling as a result; therefore, it seems appropriate that inventory checks should take place automatically.
Step 5: Choose Inputs Required To Completing The Processes
Imagine that a hospital wants to automate its check-in procedure. To achieve this goal, they must specify which information each patient must provide - such as name, birthdate and purpose for visiting - otherwise, their automation system won't be able to verify arrival without this data, leading to unnecessary delays for hospital staff and patients alike.
Data may be either structured or unstructured. You must differentiate these two forms as they require different processing technologies for proper management.
Structured data refers to information organized in such a way as to be easily searchable. Think of structured data like an Excel spreadsheet with columns dedicated to specific kinds of information - names of customers, addresses of clients and phone numbers being just some examples.
Unstructured data, on the other hand, is less organized and more difficult to search through; for instance, emails, social media posts, blog articles, or news articles are examples of unstructured data that is hard to search through and analyze without advanced image recognition technology.
Unstructured data also includes audio/video recordings and security footage, making searching through these media more complex than it should be.
Step 6: Determine the Best Solution for Your Needs
It is now time to select the best solution for your business. When it comes to automating business processes, you have three options: pre-built software, BPA platforms with low code, or custom software.
Tools
These tools automate business processes using pre-built, ready-made software solutions designed specifically to automate particular processes.
As pre-built tools require less customization than their counterparts, these pre-built solutions may best serve businesses that employ relatively straightforward processes that don't necessitate extensive adjustments or personalization.
Pre-built tools have quickly become a hit within the recruitment and HR industries. Automation tools such as the CV scanner Chrome plugin by Flaps for GlossaryTech are an example of already created tools to expedite hiring processes.
Natural Language Processing (NLP), which uses natural language analysis techniques to extract information from CVs, was utilized by their Chrome extension so recruiters can read and process CVs within minutes - this enabled recruiters to find candidates within minutes by distinguishing between JavaScript and non-JavaScript candidates and identify talent who specialize in backend programming even when this term does not explicitly appear on a CV resume.
Recruitment firms can now quickly review job applications with more in-depth reviews, speeding up review time while increasing the information provided about each candidate.
Low Code BPA Platforms
Low-code business-process automation platforms enable developers to quickly design customized automation solutions without writing large amounts of code.
Low-code platforms feature both visual user interfaces, as well as building blocks tech experts can use in creating integrations and workflows tailored specifically for each business process - this makes these platforms ideal for companies requiring greater customization than is provided by pre-built software but do not possess sufficient resources or time to develop something from scratch.
Businesses can utilize Airbyte for automated transfers.
Your marketing department, for instance, wishes to analyze customer data to develop an improved marketing strategy.
They utilize multiple data sources - social media platforms and CRM systems - which require their data engineers to compile all this information into one data store to analyze it effectively - but this task may prove quite time-consuming and require plenty of code writing from tech specialists to complete.
Airbyte allows your engineers to automate data transfer by creating data connectors, specifying transformation rules and scheduling transfers - an operation that would have previously taken several days or weeks can now be accomplished in just 30 minutes!
Airbyte is one of the leading open-source platforms for data integration, with over 300 connectors. We built it using Python, a popular programming language among data engineers (Airbyte's target market).
Quality control measures were implemented to verify all community-built connectors match Airbyte protocol and configuration specifications correctly before being added to its catalog. In doing this, we assign reliability grades before verifying them for inclusion in the Airbyte catalog.
Customized Software
At this stage, an entirely tailored solution to meet your company's requirements will be developed from the ground up.
Such software provides optimal functionality for complex processes that demand high levels of customization; however, its implementation may prove more challenging.
Custom solutions have long been a mainstay in telecom. Each enterprise has individual requirements that ready-made products cannot satisfy; here is one example from us.
NetSpark IP & Telecom was a consulting firm without an automation solution before working with us. However, as their business expanded, they began struggling with manual work when determining the appropriate tariff plan for each of their customers - this involved up to 10 people simultaneously working on one project!
NetSpark launched the initial version within three months and quickly achieved goals such as reduced manual labor, increased team productivity and increased revenue growth.
Step 7: Predict Outcomes In Terms Of Efficiencies And Return On Investment (ROI)
It is now time to determine what you want to achieve after implementing your strategy for business process automation and to evaluate its success.
- Define Your Goals: Decide how much money you will save and what additional revenues you can expect.
- Measuring Current Metrics: The processes you're about to automate are clear regarding their metrics. It is important to measure the metrics of your current processes, such as the amount of time required to finish the task, its cost, and any delays or errors.
- Calculate The Costs: Calculate the cost of implementing an automation solution. This includes any hardware, software or personnel required and training.
- Calculate the Expected RoI: Calculate the expected ROI using the differences between the costs of automation solutions and the savings or revenue you expect to receive over a certain period.
Step 8: Apply the Solution
Once you have identified an automated business process solution and the desired outcomes, its implementation becomes possible.
Integrate it into other processes within your company for ease of use; train employees on how best to utilize this new system;
Your company might be installing a CRM to simplify customer management, which means integrating it with existing processes like sales and marketing systems, billing/payment systems etc.
Staff who use the software must also receive proper training on entering customer data efficiently while creating reports/tracking progress and keeping everything efficient for maximum efficiency.
Conclusion
Assuming you've decided to implement a workflow for business process automation requires making many choices and decisions; without sufficient knowledge or expertise, you could spend months making choices without support - don't fret - we are always available.
CIS specializes in custom software development.
With extensive experience creating automation tools across industries, our team can assist in every stage of this process for greater time savings and less effort for you. Contact us if you are ready to transform your business today - send us a quick note today and transform your future!
