About Business Process Automation (BPA)
Business process automation refers to the use of software to minimize and enhance human effort within a particular business process. Since each process is made up of a series of tasks and workflows, the main goal of BPA is to automate as many elements of the process as possible. According to one study, 30% of work activities could be automated for more than half of US workers. In short, BPA is software used to automate and optimize various processes. BPA software is sometimes called no-code/low-code automation
Automating business processes provides the following benefits:
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Efficient processes improve operational efficiency.
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Easily meet security and compliance requirements.
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Consistently improve customer and employee experiences.
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Easy reporting and monitoring of processes.
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Reduce errors and delays.
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Improves predictability.
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Processes can be coordinated across departments and teams.
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You can extend the functionality of existing apps.
Standardized processes can be easily extended and consistently performed using the same procedures and data. And standardized processes are efficient. Business process automation provides control, consistency, and coordination across processes.
How to automate business processes
To automate a business process, it is important to understand the process and have access to tools that can automate it. Many companies choose low-code automation software. Low-code allows business teams to build, modify and monitor processes with a visual user interface without IT teams needing to create tickets every time.
What business processes can be automated?
Any business process can be automated. The real question is 1) how far is the automation and 2) what is the best solution for automating a particular process.
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Core Process
Core business processes are those processes that generate revenue for the business and are related to the primary business activities of the organization. Core processes are often automated by key components of the tech stack such as ERP and CRM.
Examples of core processes are:
- Sales process
- Marketing process
- Customer service process
- Production process
- Distribution process
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Support Process
Support processes support core processes and ensure that your business has the resources it needs to function smoothly. These processes do not generate direct revenue and primarily provide value to internal customers. Support processes are typically department-specific software such as HRIS, accounting software, ITSM
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Finance and Procurement
Finance and procurement teams can leverage BPA (business process automation) to automate the processing of incoming items (such as refunds and purchase approvals), expedite credit approvals, and easily enforce security and compliance requirements. Process standardization becomes possible. Common finance and procurement processes include purchases, receivables, and expense reimbursements.
For example, Samsonite was able to integrate BPA with its traditional ERP, standardize purchasing processes, and ensure tax, legal, and internal requirements were met.
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Sales & Marketing
BPA helps your marketing and sales teams become more efficient and accelerate your bottom line. This reduces response time to marketing requests and expedites the customer onboarding process. BPA also integrates with your existing CRM to automate sales, eliminate process gaps, and centralize data.
For example, financial startup Vindi used BPA to reduce new customer onboarding time by 73% (from 120 days to 33 days) and the lead time for the certification process by 50% (from 6 days to 3 days). .
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Human Resources/Human Resource Management
One of the key goals of HR teams is to provide a seamless user experience throughout the candidate and employee lifecycle. BPA accelerates the time to hire and the employee onboarding process and supports these efforts through integration with multiple HR apps and systems. HR automation optimizes common processes such as recruitment, onboarding, and employee request management.
How is BPA different from RPA?
Business process automation (BPA) is often confused with robotic process automation (RPA), but there are important differences between the two.
RPA refers to the use of programming code (bots) to perform specific actions at the level of keystrokes. Each bot is designed for a single specific task, usually in a way that mimics human activity. For example, you can create a bot that logs into a system, copies data, and pastes that data into a spreadsheet or form in another app.
On the other hand, BPA differs from RPA in several ways.
BPA is designed with an end-to-end process in mind, rather than RPA focusing on individual tasks. BPA software uses a no-code, no-code, low-code framework that minimizes the amount of coding required to optimize and automate processes. In fact, no-code, no-code, low-code BPA provides a visual user interface that does not require users to code.
Additionally, BPA offers a variety of features that RPA does not. This includes the ability to support process modeling, enhance collaboration, and provide data and insight into process performance.
The easiest way to tell the difference between RPA and BPA is to assess the extent of automation. When automation affects individual and specific tasks, it can be an example of RPA. If automation affects multiple steps in a process, it's likely BPA.
Is BPA the same as BPM?
Another term synonymous with BPA is business process management.
Business Process Management (BPM) refers to the area of business process modeling, monitoring and improvement, or the comprehensive strategy associated with it. BPM also focuses on coordinating different kinds of processes, ensuring that they work together efficiently in ways that are meaningful to people, systems and data.
One way to think about the difference between BPA and BPM is to think in terms of goals. BPA's main goal is to create a more consistent and optimized process layer through automation and integration. The goal of BPM is to ensure that the process layer helps the business achieve its goals.
In short, BPA is part of a larger BPM strategy. However, many BPA tools have advanced features to support BPM. For example, BPA software may provide customizable reporting and process modeling capabilities required for a BPM strategy.