When it comes to automating important processes in your company, you have a multitude of options. Business process automation is often offered as a feature or function in commercial software. Sometimes it’s a stand-alone product, sometimes it’s a component of a larger software package. In other cases, automation is something specially designed for your business by your own or external developers.
BY KEVIN DEVOTE
But no matter how you use BPA, here are some tips to make it work for you.
1. Artificial intelligence
Take a look at Accounts Payable to illustrate how machine learning and AI can automate business processes.
Machine learning algorithms examine large amounts of data and learn from them. In the case of accounts payable, a company could feed all of its electronic invoices into the system to teach it what is “typical”. The more AP data the system has to examine, the better it can identify anomalies that indicate fraud or price increases by suppliers that are affecting profitability.
The difference between ML and AI is that AI adds context to the existing data, while ML examines existing information and learns to spot anomalies.
Try to understand what types of insights a particular system provides and whether those insights are worthwhile given the cost of the system. The aim of automation is to largely dispense with manual intervention and monitoring.
2. Tools for automation
There are numerous instruments on the market for automating company processes. They are classified based on the objective of the process they are intended to automate, the level of Python static analysis or the IT skills required to operate them, and whether they are general process or cognitive tools.
Social networks, workflow and project management, e-commerce and marketing are examples of general process automation applications that do not require coding.
Most companies should look for automation options that don’t require programming skills. Make sure the user interface is simple enough for non-technicians to understand. Make sure processes are visible so your team can dictate and understand how the system wants to carry out a task. Bots should be easy to control and operate.
3. Identify repetitions and develop processes
Switching to commercial software that has pre-automated optimal processes for you is one of the easiest ways for small businesses to avoid duplication and introduce simplified processes.
When common software delivers the processes you need, developed by professionals with decades of experience, and often offered in a practical software-as-a-service model, you don’t have to start from scratch.
If you need to set up processes, e.g. For example, to personalize connections between different systems, you can use Zapier and IFTTT to link platforms and automate repetitive processes in your workflows.
4. Use document sharing
Document sharing is critical to a successful business. BPA and especially RPA can retrieve and exchange complete documents or data from certain areas across many documents with team members or other applications. Not only does this save time, but it also reduces non-compliance issues caused by errors and oversights of key regulations in papers.
When exploring business intelligence, sales automation, conference calls, batch email, and other business tools, look for options to easily distribute documents across a range of dashboards.
5. System integration
To integrate software, some systems use application programming interfaces, which are essentially universal connectors. Other solutions that automatically sync data between devices are available to keep information current and accessible. An example of this is an email service that synchronizes your email across your work desktop, tablet, and phone. Advanced synchronization and integration can often reveal and eliminate some repetition of business processes.
6. Build a culture of automation
Automation initiatives are more likely to be undone by culture than technology. Managers need to tell employees that business process automation is meant to simplify, not replace, their jobs. People are more inclined to adopt new processes and even help discover significant improvements in traditional processes if they feel that their employment is not at risk.
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