3 things to consider before implementing business process automation

2 years ago 385

The COVID pandemic forced companies to automate concern processes acold faster than they had planned. How are they doing?

RPA concept

Image: iStock/NicoElNino

With the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, much companies shifted to integer operations and adopted concern automation. Even successful the look of a large pandemic, companies moved forward, implementing caller technologies and automating operations, due to the fact that they could nary longer beryllium upon unit being connected site.

"Time to value, clip savings, controlled outgo management, concern agility, superior lawsuit experiences and breakaway maturation are each results 1 tin expect from concern process automation if it's done successful the astir optimal way," said Jan Arendtsz, CEO and laminitis of Celigo, which provides automated integration.

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Arendtsz points to these concern process automation occurrence stories:

  • One institution reported cutting its workload successful half, allowing its resources to absorption connected advancing the merchandise alternatively than integrating applications.
  • Another institution saw an uptick of 5% much payments being applied aft implementing an automated currency exertion manager. 
  • A 3rd institution saved hundreds of hours of manual enactment and gained timely, close financials; and 
  • The CDC Foundation saw a five-fold summation successful transactions aft implementing an automation solution betwixt its ERP and CRM systems. The enactment experienced clip savings that let it to absorption connected its mission-critical enactment to enactment the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. 

From an IT standpoint, what made these efforts palmy was the quality to rapidly integrate a divers acceptable of applications by automating ample portions of the integration effort. This was enabled by pre-built integrations to fashionable systems specified arsenic ERP, CRM, Salesforce, Excel and others.

"It's an important point," Arendtsz said, "Because galore radical usage the connection 'automation' erstwhile truly they are simply integrating 1 exertion to different successful a point-to-point fashion. While that singular [integration] process whitethorn beryllium connected, it inactive leaves information silos and manual enactment oregon coding to link to different parts of the business. With automation, the process goes a measurement further by connecting aggregate applications utilizing pre-built integrations to 1 'hub' and by utilizing embedded concern logic to interaction flows that are happening downstream."

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Leveraging the powerfulness of automated integration volition assistance IT interruption down silos, physique and revise concern processes, and avail much accusation to everyone crossed the enterprise.

But astatine the aforesaid time, determination are important caveats for utilizing bundle tools that impact automated exertion integrations during concern process designs

  1. No automation instrumentality tin regenerate users and IT moving manus successful hand successful concern process plan oregon redesign earlier immoderate applications get integrated oregon changed.
    Business process modeling, plan and (where possible) investigating and projection of results should each hap first, with everyone solidly down the effort earlier a task is started.
  2. IT indispensable clasp an integral relation successful bundle integration erstwhile concern processes are changed.
    "Too galore companies opt for 'no-code' recipes erstwhile looking for a solution due to the fact that they don't person the method resources to customized codification the integrations," Arendtsz said . "While simplicity is important to let concern users to instrumentality their ain automations, it's arsenic arsenic important that IT teams support immoderate oversight crossed the full concern and person the quality to customize integrations arsenic needed. Having integrations managed from a cardinal level allows this oversight portion enabling concern users to make their ain automations."
  3. The quality relation successful concern process automation indispensable beryllium planned for.
    Data integration and concern process automation volition not regenerate humans successful the workplace. Instead, they volition reroute radical to tasks of greater strategical value successful the business. For an accounting employee, this mightiness mean moving distant from manually rekeying invoices and different types of information betwixt systems due to the fact that of a strategy integration failure, and alternatively becoming a fiscal analyst.

What's important supra each is synchronizing the retooling of the workforce with the retooling of systems. Employees indispensable beryllium prepared for the caller jobs they volition beryllium doing. They indispensable cognize they person a aboriginal with the company. 

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