No matter what your organisation does, one thing is for sure: it executes hundreds of processes daily. For example, if you work in Finance, there are specific processes related to your market. Moreover, each department inside your organisation runs different processes: HR, Customer Success, Sales, Administration, etc. So the question is: are they being done as efficiently as you need them to be?
What is business process automation?
Let’s start by defining what is a “business process”. It’s the series of activities that must happen to achieve your organisation’s objectives. For example: when an employee requests time off from work. First, they usually need to speak to their supervisor, then to the HR department, which needs to be approved or denied. Then, the decision must be communicated to the employee. Now, imagine if you could automate most of those tasks instead of doing them manually.
Business process automation is replacing the manual execution of tasks with a BPM software that automates them for you. It may sound complicated or too “tech,” but it is incredibly simple. For example, a cloud BPM software that is low-code / no-code allows you to model, design, and execute your processes without knowing anything about coding or programming.
How to automate your processes:
Define the process:
What process will you automate first? Once you make this decision, define each task that it involves. It basically means knowing who does what, and in what order.
Model the process:
Once you know the tasks that you need to execute in order to carry on the process, you need to define it visually by creating the workflow needed. Here is an example of the workflow for a reimbursement request process:
An employee completes a public form detailing what they need to reimburse. An email with the information is sent to the person in charge of revising it. This person has to decide to approve the request, ask for more information, or reject it. Once a decision is made, it automatically sends an email to the employee notifying the decision. If the decision is to reimburse, it creates a task for the employee in charge to carry out this action.
Automate:
After modelling the workflow, the process is ready to go! Just launch it with a simple click and start making decisions.
Monitoring and improving the process:
Make sure everything is running smoothly, and figure out quickly if it has any bottlenecks. You can introduce changes and improvements anytime.
Benefits of business process automation:
Automating your processes means digitalising your organisation, and taking this step results in numerous benefits:
Optimise internal management, and achieve greater productivity and efficiency by automating repetitive tasks. By using BPM software, you can automate tasks that one person previously handled but could actually be done automatically.
Monitoring: By automating your processes, you can access real-time information on each process, providing complete traceability.
Save time and money: By automating processes previously done manually, you save on resources. Stationery and printing, transfers between offices, waiting times, storage, and preservation of paper will no longer be necessary.
Obtain customized reports: Get daily and historical reports. Use the valuable data to evaluate the performance of your processes and make the necessary decisions with agility, without the need for analytical tools.
Be scalable: You can be sure that every one of your processes will execute as you planned them. Moreover, integrations between systems reduce human errors. Let your team focus on the tasks they really need to execute and not on repetitive tasks that can be automated.
Now is the time to digitalise your organisation. As you have learned, starting by automating your business processes is a simple and beneficial place to start!
