Do you look all the time for ways to improve productivity and reduce net running costs? If your company is always trying to keep up, Business Process Automation (BPA) can be the solution. BPA is the method of using technology to reduce costs and improve productivity by automating business processes.
The success of business process automation is such that the market is expected to go from $6.77 billion in 2018 to $12.61 billion in 2023.
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In Australia, the local market doubled since 2018, as companies accelerated their digital transformation efforts. Companies such as MSA National took on automating processes and saved 40,000 hours a year, increasing customer and employee satisfaction.
At Ample Tech, we help Australian small and medium companies speed up their digital transformation with BPA. There are reasons to invest now in digital transformation. According to Gartner, even though the Australian market for BPA is small compared with the rest of the world, it is growing fast.
What’s the secret behind this popularity? Automating business processes is a key part of digital transformation, and companies today need to transform digitally to survive. In this post, we give you an overview of business process automation and essential tips for successful automation.
7 Benefits of Business Process Automation (BPA)
BPA helps you optimise your workflows, managing information, data, and processes. BPA uses Robotics Process Automation (RPA), a software that can handle repetitive, high-volume tasks, reducing the time of processing. What it can take hours to a person, the software does it in minutes.
This results in reduced costs and resources. Therefore, the long-term benefits make the initial investment worth it. What benefits do you get when automating business processes? Let’s explore:
1. Increase in Productivity
When you automate routine tasks, the productivity of such tasks increases since it doesn’t depend on a human schedule or capability. In addition, the team is free to attend to other activities. For instance, they can take care of improving customer service or tasks that generate more revenue.
2. Reduced Time and Costs
Manual tasks are usually time-consuming, costing hours of staff work. Automation frees your team’s time to work on innovation and adds value to your business. You’ll save costs since the employees’ time is not occupied with repetitive and routine tasks. Also, when the employees are focusing on revenue-generating tasks, it results in an increase in sales and profits.
Automated tasks are also free of human error, preventing costly mistakes such as late payments or approvals.
3. Better Communication
The sheer amount of internal and external communications in any company can lead to misunderstandings and mistakes. Chat conversations, emails, phone calls, videoconferences, you name it; the information has every chance to get lost in translation.
Automating communications gives your staff visibility with a centralized platform. The dashboard gives them access to the last updates in documentation and information. Moreover, an automated system helps control access permissions, ensuring internal security, and preventing internal threats.
4. Efficient Task Management
Automated workflow enables all departments involved in a specific task to access it efficiently. All team members are on the same page and can see the current status of the process in real-time. You can avoid unfulfilled tasks by adding reminders and monitoring the process.
The improvements also apply to remote work. These times of COVID-19, with most employees working from home, it’s difficult to coordinate everyone’s work. Taking your organisation online and automating tasks can solve working from anywhere, anytime.
5. Fewer Errors
Automated tasks are all performed identically. Therefore, you can avoid manual errors and inefficiencies from humans. That results in consistent service and an improved quality overall. The consistency also drives innovation and development without increasing production costs.
6. Improved Operations
Along with the improved quality, the consistency of automated systems brings an improvement in operations. Usually, business process automation systems have guidelines to control documents and actions. Your staff need not verify information and tasks, since the last updates are built into the system. This increases the agility and stability of operations.
7. Better Customer Satisfaction
With automation comes improved services and products, resulting in happier customers. The quality becomes more reliable, the streamlined processes are more efficient. Business Process Management Software (BPM), manages internal tasks, simplifying customer journeys. For instance:
- giving an email alert to give refunds or modify customers’ data.
- helping sales representatives upsell products by giving reminders and having all info at hand.
What Processes Can You Automate?
Search in your organization’s processes and see what repeatable tasks can be automated. We brought a few examples in the table below:
| What Can be Automated? | How? |
|---|---|
| E-commerce | – follow up shopping carts with emails and messages – use online payment technologies – adjust prices and stream deliveries |
| Customer Service | – develop a customer knowledge base – automate workflows to attend tickets |
| Human Resources | – payroll reporting, enrollment and licensing. – use time tracking apps. |
| Sales | – Collect leads by integrating with the CRM tools – Track sales operations – Send follow up emails after purchase |
6 Tips for a Successful Business Process Automation
#1. Use scalable solutions.
While you automate processes, you should be sure the solution can handle when demand peaks. At Ample Tech, we ensure the process automation can accommodate whatever volume of operations you have.
#2. Use automation in your marketing campaigns.
Automation can be a game-changer for marketing strategies. You can automate social media tasks, scheduling posts, and tweets automatically. An automated system can help you respond to a message, texts, and comments with a single click. You can also identify influencers and leads and get metrics analytics.
#3. Take your lead generation a level up
Automated tools extract valuable information from your visitors’ interactions. This helps you generate leads and cultivate them, converting them into customers.
#4. Streamline your Accounting
- Track expenses
- Manage payroll
- Generate Financial Reports
- Track Inventory
