Business process automation solutions promise to make your business a much simpler, convenient, and efficient operation. But, you may be skeptical of those cliched promises every new piece of technology claims to fulfill.
But consider this.
Most organizations around the world are scrambling to find ways to embrace automation technology at some level. Business Process automation solutions promise to do for workplace efficiency what big data analytics has done for sales and marketing in the recent past, and ignoring them would be a mistake.
Let’s break down business process automation solutions, and see what they can do for every business, irrespective of size, revenue, or industry vertical.
What Are Business Process Automation Solutions?
Business process automation solutions are tools designed to automate the rule- or logic-based parts of business processes like approvals or the flow of data in a particular process. These software tools can boost the efficiency of business process management by cutting down manual errors and increasing process speed.
Automation can:
- Help you transition from cumbersome, slow, error-ridden paperwork to seamless digital forms
- Remove the manual element from repetitive rule-based tasks, speed things up and minimize errors
- Free employees to focus on tasks that require human intervention and intelligence
- Ensure that data from disparate systems and sources is all stored securely and is easily accessible
- Help you tweak processes quickly as market changes and trends demand
Business process automation solutions are useful for everyone from major enterprise corporations to small businesses. Business process automation solutions are also not limited to a single type of business, as the following examples illustrate.
3 Real-World Business Automation Examples
1. Leave Applications
Ask any experienced HR executive, and they’ll tell you which process can be tricky to keep an eye on: leave management, also called time-off management.
Why? Because usually, more than one person needs to sign off for an employee to get time off–usually their immediate superiors, department heads, stakeholders of any projects the employee may be involved, and people from the HR team. Run this through clunky email chains, phone calls, and text messages, and it’s easy to see how there can be gaps in communication.
A business process automation solution for leave management sorts this right out. You simply design a form to collect the relevant data, and design the process to include all the staff members involved. It’ll run smoothly, and it can be linked to the payroll and employee attendance databases as well!
2. Purchase Orders
With purchase orders, the key is in eliminating errors. Missed and unfulfilled purchase orders might lead to direct financial losses. This is something organizations face constantly because there are generally multiple POs active at any given moment.
This is where automation comes in, eliminating the cracks through which POs slip through. With an automated purchase order system, you can make sure that every last purchase order gets fulfilled or denied, but never lost in the process. You can keep track of all active and past POs and sort any disputes even before they arise.
When a rule-based business process automation solution enters the picture, you can give POs some bonus functions. You can, for instance, set POs above a certain value to pass by the finance department head for approval.
3. Sales and Marketing
It doesn’t matter what product or service your organization offers–sales always boils down to finding good leads, nurturing those leads, and then converting them into successful sales, sign-ups, or contracts.
It’s a recurring grind, and that’s why a business process automation solution is important here–otherwise, unorganized CRM systems can easily lose you good leads before you can convert. Instead, you can take advantage of a convenient process automation system, building dedicated apps for Sales Invoice Approval, Discount Approval, or updating the details of some top clients in the master CRM. What’s more, you can incorporate a constant feedback loop into your marketing process, making campaigns more effective and agile.
Putting Business Process Automation Solutions to Work
Kissflow Process is a tool designed to make workplace automation possible, even easy. All these solutions we discussed are actual apps available as customizable templates on Kissflow’s easy-to-use visual interface.
Business process automation solutions aren’t limited to any industry vertical. Whether you work with industrial mergers across the globe or sell rustic farming goods, you can be sure that some processes in your business can be taken over by automation. And kissflow’s design means that you can easily design a purpose-specific app. Try Kissflow workflow yourself today at absolutely no cost!
Related Resources
