6 Ways to use Process Automation and Streamline your Business

Technology has gradually taken over more of our lives, and it’s no different in the business environment. Over 53% of organizations have automated their business processes to reduce manual tasks, maximize workflow efficiency, and eliminate human error. 

Streamlining operations removes complex or unnecessary steps, simplifies the management of large amounts of data, and decreases the time employees spend on tedious, manual work. Businesses manage workflows better, reduce wastage, thrive and achieve greater success. 

Process automation establishes a proper structure that ensures employees perform essential processes right every time. It creates a culture of continuous improvement and helps businesses address challenges, make informed decisions, and run the business profitably. 

What is BPA

Business process automation (BPA) uses structured workflow systems to define, organize, digitize, and enhance tasks, streamlining business operations. It reduces manual work, improves communication, increases transparency, and eliminates bottlenecks, accelerating efficiency. 

BPA is best for automating high-volume, repetitive, and time-sensitive tasks that hugely impact other processes or systems. It gathers and manages data from a central location, connects and incorporates data sources, and digitizes repetitive tasks.

Importance of BPA

• Increases productivity: BPA clarifies processes, which improves productivity. When employees know their tasks and expectations and have fewer unnecessary tasks, they can focus more on quality, and complete work faster with fewer errors.
• Promotes process visibility: Automating processes helps organizations view workflows more closely, increasing process transparency and clarity. Process owners can choose which processes to eliminate, retain, or improve and how. 
• Streamline communication: Inefficient workplace communication costs organizations up to 15% of work hours. BPA simplifies communication and helps organizations track activities, so everyone knows the progress of the project they’re working on. 
• Reduce costs: Automating processes is less expensive than paying employees to perform similar work. It helps organizations save time, produce more products, offer more services, and enhance profitability as they allocate funds to other pressing areas.

6 process automation hacks to streamline your business

1. Identify tasks to automate

Know and clearly document your processes. Assess your current processes, lay out what each looks like, and its benefits, and list each person involved in the process. You’ll understand how things run, identify your pain points, and define how best to automate those processes.

Also, reorganize processes based on their importance. Prioritize processes from most critical to least essential and decide which process to automate first, second, and so on.

Use a dedicated workflow management system or flowchart software to map processes, share with team members and collaborate. BPA software is easier to use and offers useful features like tracking work in real-time, enabling you to make large-scale modifications.

2. Select the right tool 

While modern workflow automation softwares have unique features and capabilities, most are designed with similar benefits. But, don’t settle for the next tool you come across. Conduct thorough research and analyze their advantages and drawbacks.

Choose an intuitive workflow builder with a simple interface that provides detailed insight into business operations. Ensure the tool has all the features you require, your employees can use it easily, and it’s great for general company use, and specific departments. 

To grasp industry standards, review what tools your competitors are using to streamline their processes. With the right tool, employees will decrease their workload drastically and perform higher-order tasks.

3. Consider your long-term business needs

Every business owner or manager wants to capitalize on their technology. Automation technology costs money, so consider the business’ future needs when picking BPA tools. Plan for the long term, but leave room for growth and future changes. 

Avoid incredibly expensive tools with little utility. Pick a flexible tool that offers a good ROI, and allows you to scale easily. It’s regrettable to spend time streamlining processes only to realize minimal to no results, and yet you don’t have the resources to make adjustments.

4. Maintain documentation

No person can remember the steps or procedures of every process workflow, no matter their experience or level of understanding. Outline every step employees need to perform their tasks effectively. 

Clearly documenting the steps helps you capture what’s occurring within workflows and makes it easy to correct unexpected errors in the workflows. It also improves accountability and simplifies employee onboarding. 

Documentation minimizes non-compliance issues from human error because everyone in the organization can view the key rules. BPA saves time and makes it easier to retrieve entire documents automatically. 

5. Analyze the outcomes

Analyzing automation results identifies which processes are still unnecessary, tedious, and not budget-friendly. It provides a clear picture of workflows and helps organizations compare how the situation was previously, and how the new solution has improved processes.

To determine if process automation is working, and you’re getting the expected ROI, weigh how satisfactory the outputs are. Some processes may need a complete overhaul, but others only need a little fine-tuning.

6. Monitor and measure 

Once everything is ready, test out your new automated workflows in a live business environment. Measure the effectiveness of your improvements, adjust and refine to ensure the tool works appropriately, and modify processes accordingly. 

Evaluate how well the tool integrates with other systems and if it allows you to customize based on changing business needs. A flexible solution doesn’t remain static and often shifts to match organizational needs, helping users effortlessly manage change. 

Long after implementing process automation, your processes and workflows will still require refinements. Get periodic feedback from employees and clients; they have great feedback on whether your automation is working, and how you can improve processes. 

Insight Investment case study

Insight Investment is a global asset management company that develops highly customized investment solutions for corporate clients. The company wanted to make process improvements and optimize end-to-end business process transparency. Insight used BPA to identify, document and digitize its business processes. It mapped the processes and used dashboards to visualize data and create a reporting system that makes transferring work more reliable, reduces complexity, and provides greater visibility.

Exploit process automation to streamline your business

Automation makes a huge difference in how you run your business, small or large. But it’s overwhelming to automate all business processes, so overhaul processes in small steps that increase your organization’s efficiency. Focus on those processes or tasks where your organization creates the most value.