This audio was created using Microsoft Azure Speech Services
In order to maximise efficiency and guarantee seamless operations, Business Process Automation (BPA) focuses on automating routine IT procedures and business functions. Business Process Automation is mainly focused on automating repeated tasks that would otherwise require manual intervention, such as hiring new employees, file transfers, producing and disseminating reports, approval procedures, and more. BPM, therefore, became the tendency toward standardising tasks and streamlining those processes evolved into business process management in the 1980s and 1990s when organisations started to computerise their operations and automate simple, repetitive jobs[1].
In other words, it is the discipline of assessing, improving, and standardising business processes to align with organisational goals. Business Process Automation has emerged because of the proliferation of those processes over the past 20 years, which have produced complex, high-volume environments that are impossible to manage without automation.
Why Is Business Process Automation Important?
BPA implements control to a business to reduce fraud and theft within a corporation. This increases compliance so businesses don’t break rules and must pay significant fines and penalties. Additionally, it helps quicken procedures so that work is finished more quickly and with fewer repetitions. Consider a software programme that keeps track of each management’s permission for a purchase order as opposed to a worker requesting each manager for their consent one at a time. BPA also uniformizes company procedures, which might assist in removing prejudice and biases that workers could bring to a particular activity (e.g., an HR employee choosing which candidates to interview vs. an automated system making the choice based on pre-set requirements).
It greatly avoids errors and improves efficiency (such as when an HR employee forgets to email an interview invitation). Furthermore, BPA improves the experiences of both customers and employees by freeing up staff from tedious duties (like sorting through applicants’ online job applications). Automation ultimately increases a company’s ability to compete and, thus, its likelihood of being profitable.
Examples of Tasks Automated Via BPA
Here are a few typical business processes and examples of how firms used automation to make progress:
-
Easy documentation
Moving documents between programmes and folders can take a lot of time and be prone to human error. Most businesses use batch scripts or file transfer management programmes to automate their file transfers to speed up this procedure. Because of this, managed file transfer (MFT) software and activities are frequently managed separately from the wider automation environment, adding complexity to regular business operations. By combining MFT operations into a single solution, business process automation software removes this complexity from the situation. Additionally, BPA supports secure file transfer protocols and encourages secure data mobility and file sharing between end-to-end workflows (including SFTP and FTPS).
-
Convenient onboarding procedures
Onboarding new employees frequently entail a long list of tiresome administrative activities, which leaves space for human mistake and compliance issues. This adds to the effort of the IT staff as well as the human resources team. By removing the need for manual intervention, business process automation streamlines the employee onboarding procedure, saving time and resources as a result. For instance, by automating workflows, businesses can promote user accounts through directory services like Active Directory, add accounts to the appropriate new groups, change security preferences, and then update data in databases like SQL Server.
-
Back-Office Operations
Support for back-office tasks is typically provided by the IT team, help desk personnel, and administration. In order to quickly give help desk teams and business users the real-time data they need to finish daily tasks like billing, purchase orders, expense reports, approval processes, customer support, data entry, and so forth, BPA streamlines end-to-end workflows between frequently used back-office applications and cloud-based infrastructures.
-
Data integration
BPA eliminates the need to spend excessive amounts of time, money, and resources manually scripting connections between applications and infrastructure and ERP solutions like Informatica PowerCenter, Oracle PeopleSoft, SAP BusinessObjects Data Services, or Microsoft Dynamics AX. More importantly, the seamless integration of apps, databases, and computing resources reduces lag time, allowing for instant access to crucial information and insights.
Additional Benefits of BPA
By automating business processes, bottlenecks that waste time and money are removed. Every aspect of the firm benefited from the increases in productivity and compliance, which also led to enhanced customer service and performance[2].
-
Lower expenses
It is a wise investment, even though increased investment may not always result in greater earnings. The returns are substantially bigger when you consider the investment invested in automating. By minimising physical labour and utilising fewer resources, it lowers many expenditures, including labour costs.
-
Enhanced effectiveness and quality
Even after doing every step manually, there is no assurance that the data will be error-free. By preserving consistency and producing accurate, dependable outcomes, automation increases efficiency and reduces errors. The productivity rate is greatly increased by this mix of effective and high-quality work, which spurs expansion and higher earnings.
-
Ideal communication strategy
Through calls and emails, information is shared and passed between employees, which might lead to omitted or misunderstood elements that get lost in translation. Automation in the company provides a structured platform where all employees may see the same information. All the information is controlled and recorded to keep it current.
-
Exceeded consumer expectations
The validation that every company strives for is customer happiness. Customer satisfaction is a result of the company’s services and products’ increased efficacy and quality in the data processing. It helps you win their confidence and convince them to come back. The efficiency of the goods, services, and client services increase with business process automation. The organisation and accessibility of all the information make it simple and quick to respond to consumer confusion or questions.
What Does Schneider Think of BPA?
Industrial automation is becoming more popular as the world drastically shifts toward digitalization. The use of control systems, such as information technology, robotics, and tools for managing various types of machinery and processes used in various industries is referred to as “industrial automation goods.” Automation goods are crucial because they successfully cut manufacturing costs and raise product quality, which boosts sales.
Digitalization’s contribution to industrial automation has greatly enhanced the industrial sector. By using robots, computers, and other control systems to oversee numerous complex operations, it streamlines processes. Cost-cutting, productivity-boosting, communication-improving, better equipment oversight, and increased traceability are all benefits of industrial automation rendered under Schneider Electric.
Footnotes
[1] ActiveBatch – What Are The Top Benefits Of Business Process Automation?
