What Is Business Process Automation (BPA)?

Understanding Business Process Automation (BPA)

Business process automation (BPA) is a game-changer for organizations looking to streamline operations and reduce manual workloads. It involves leveraging technology to handle repetitive tasks or workflows, freeing up time and resources for teams to focus on higher-value activities.

At its core, BPA is a subset of the Business Process Management (BPM) discipline, which aims to optimize how processes are executed. A business process is a series of repeatable activities designed to achieve a specific outcome. For example, closing a sales deal, creating a proposal, drafting a contract, and securing approvals often follow the same sequence each time. Automating these motions can significantly improve turnaround times, reduce the risk of errors, and ensure no critical steps are missed.

By adopting BPA, businesses can enhance efficiency and empower their teams to focus on strategic goals and innovation, as well as deliver better results.

Key Components of Business Process Automation

Business automation is about using technology to make processes faster, smarter, and more efficient. Its underlined components include:

• Software Integration: Connecting various tools to enable seamless data flow and automation.

• Workflow Orchestration: Structuring automated tasks into a cohesive and efficient process.

• Artificial Intelligence (AI): Adding intelligence to automation for smarter decision-making.

The Importance of BPA in Modern Businesses

By automating routine tasks, business automation boosts operational efficiency, reduces manual effort (and the mistakes that come with it), and saves money. It also frees up your team to focus on more meaningful work, making BPA a key driver for success and growth in any organization. Both large enterprises and small businesses should be able to benefit from the power of process automation.

Benefits of Business Process Automation

✔️ Enhanced Efficiency and Productivity

• Streamlined Operations: Reducing bottlenecks and accelerating process completion.
• Resource Optimization: Allocating people to more value-added activities.
• Transparency: Brings clarity by clearly defining who is responsible, what needs to be done, when it should happen, ensuring all participants understand their roles.

✔️ Improved Accuracy and Consistency

• Error Reduction: Minimizing human errors through standardized, automated processes.
• Quality Assurance: Ensuring consistent output quality across operations.

✔️ Cost Savings

• Operational Cost Reduction: Lowering expenses related to manual processing and error correction.
• Scalability: Enabling businesses to grow without proportional increases in operational costs.

✔️ Enhanced Compliance and Auditability

• Regulatory Adherence: Ensuring processes comply with industry standards and regulations.
• Audit Trails: Maintaining detailed records of automated processes for accountability.

Types of Business Process Automation

Business automation isn't a one-size-fits-all solution - there are various types, each serving a unique purpose. Let's break down the key types of BPA and how they contribute to streamlining operations.

Task Automation

This is the simplest form of BPA. Task automation focuses on individual, repetitive tasks, such as sending reminders, updating records, or generating reports. It's perfect for handling small-scale, repetitive activities that waste valuable time.

Workflow Automation

Workflow automation takes things a step further by automating entire sequences of tasks. It ensures that processes, like onboarding new employees or managing approvals, flow seamlessly from one step to the next without delays or manual intervention.

Robotic Process Automation (RPA)

RPA involves software bots that mimic human interactions with digital systems, making it ideal for handling high-volume, rule-based processes like data entry or invoice processing. And it's growing fast - according to Gartner, the RPA market surged by 22.1% in 2023, outperforming the global software revenue growth rate of 11.1%.

IFTTT Rules

Short for "If This, Then That," these rules provide a lightweight, event-driven approach to automation. IFTTT rules excel at connecting apps and systems, automating straightforward actions like "If a new file is added to a folder, then send an email notification."

Intelligent Automation and AI

This is the future of BPA, combining automation with AI and machine learning. Intelligent automation can handle complex tasks that require analysis, decision-making, or predictive capabilities, making it a powerful tool for advanced business scenarios.

Business Process Automation Examples

Automating Contract Management

Managing contracts can be a complex process. Here's how BPA can streamline it effectively:

1. When a contract request is initiated, the system automatically generates a customized contract template based on predefined parameters, such as client details and project specifics.
2. Automated notifications are sent to the legal team for review and any required modifications.
3. Once reviewed, the system sends the contract to the relevant stakeholders for e-signatures using integrated tools, eliminating the need for manual follow-ups.
4. After signatures are obtained, the contract is automatically stored in a centralized repository, and expiration and renewal reminders are scheduled in the system.

This automation ensures faster contract cycles, reduces human error, and provides better compliance tracking.

Automating Vacation Approval Process

In a manual vacation approval process, multiple steps can be time-consuming and prone to errors. Using business automation, this workflow can be streamlined:

1. When an employee submits a vacation request, automated notifications are sent to the team manager and team members for approval.
2. Once approved, the system automatically generates and fills out the required form, notifying HR of the vacation request.
3. HR reviews the request and sends an e-signature-enabled form for personal authorization, eliminating the need for paper-based approvals.
4. After the employee authorizes the form, it is automatically submitted to HR, and the system finalizes the approval without further manual intervention.

By automating these steps, BPA reduces delays, eliminates paperwork, and ensures a seamless approval process, saving time for employees and HR.

Automating Customer Feedback Collection

Collecting customer feedback is crucial for better customer service and satisfaction, and BPA can make this process seamless:

1. After a service interaction or product purchase, the BPA system automatically sends a feedback survey to the customer via email or SMS.
2. Using AI-powered sentiment analysis, the system tracks survey responses and categorizes feedback based on sentiment, such as positive, neutral, or negative.
3. If negative feedback is detected, the system triggers an alert for the customer service team to follow up, ensuring prompt resolution of issues.
4. All feedback is automatically logged into a central database and summarized in reports for management to review trends and insights.
5. For customers providing positive feedback, the system sends a thank-you message and, if applicable, offers a discount code or loyalty reward.

This automation ensures timely feedback collection, improves customer satisfaction, and provides actionable insights for continuous improvement.

Business Process Automation in Real-Life Scenarios

Reducing Stress and Boosting Predictability Through Automation in Construction: The BMWC Case Study

BMWC Constructors, a U.S.-based industrial construction firm, faced challenges managing complex workflows, ensuring effective communication, and maintaining transparency across job sites. To overcome these issues, BMWC implemented a series of specific automation to address their unique needs:

• Visual Signals for Communication: They used blockers and stickers, such as "Missing Material" or "Documentation Issue," to signal potential delays. They introduced priority stickers for emergency tasks, ensuring all team members were aware of critical items.

• Automated Notifications: Business rules were configured to notify responsible team members when blockers or specific stickers (e.g., "Missing Material") were applied to a task. This eliminated the need for manual alerts and ensured timely action.

• Time-Based and Triggered Policies: Policies were set to automate actions, such as blocking initiatives when its sub-task encountered an issue or sending notifications when the walk-down checklist was completed.

This approach improved workflow predictability, reduced stress by automating routine processes, and enhanced team collaboration. By implementing 15 custom business rules and visual management tools, BMWC achieved greater efficiency, minimized delays, and fostered a culture of continuous improvement. (BMWC Case Study)

Transforming Engineering Operations with BPA: The Somabe Case Study

Somabe, an industrial engineering firm, faced challenges like unclear task visibility, inconsistent capacities, and reliance on verbal task assignments. They adopted Businessmap's digital work management boards and the Business Rules Automation Engine to overcome these. Key automation included:

• Automatically marking a feature started when a work item began to ensure real-time tracking.

• Marking an initiative as complete once all associated tasks are finished reduces manual oversight.

• Highlighting newly assigned tasks in red to improve prioritization.

These changes enhanced project visibility, streamlined task management, and fostered collaboration, leading to more predictable deliveries and higher-quality outputs. Somabe's success showcases the transformative power of automation in complex workflows. (Somabe Case Study)

Automating Contract Management with AI: UScellular

Managing over 10,000 contracts and their associated metadata can be daunting for supply chain and procurement teams. At UScellular, AI has proven to be the right solution for tackling this challenge.

• Metadata Extraction: The AI tool scans contracts to extract critical metadata, such as contract terms, renewal dates, and payment conditions, eliminating the need for manual data entry.

• Automated Population: Once extracted, the AI automatically populates the contract management platform with the relevant information, ensuring accuracy and saving time.

• Enhanced Reporting: With structured metadata readily available, the platform can generate comprehensive reports and provide insights for decision-making and compliance tracking.

This real-world implementation highlights how UScellular uses AI to streamline contract management processes, improving efficiency and reducing manual workload. (The Wall Street Journal)

How to Automate Business Process: 6 Essential Steps

Implementing automation to improve your workflows is more than just choosing a tool - it's about aligning strategy, people, and technology. Below are the critical steps to ensure a successful BPA deployment and essential factors that can make or break the initiative.

1. Identify Automation Opportunities: Map current workflows to spot inefficiencies and bottlenecks. Simplify, standardize, and re-engineer processes as needed. Engage subject matter experts (SMEs) to ensure readiness for automation.
2. Choose the Right Tool: Select a tool that aligns with your business goals, is manageable by operations teams without coding expertise, and has a proven track record for handling complex processes - vet solution providers for long-term support.
3. Pilot Testing: Test automation on a small scale, starting with relatively complex processes. This validates the tool and provider while identifying potential challenges before full-scale deployment.
4. Full Deployment: Roll out automation organization-wide after a successful pilot. Ensure alignment with enterprise goals and involve operations leadership to minimize structural conflicts.
5. Management of Change (MoC) Program: Run a robust change management program to build employee confidence in automation. Highlight benefits like reduced repetitive tasks, ensure employees see automation as an enhancement - not a threat - and provide necessary training.
6. Monitoring and Optimization: Always track the performance of automated processes, gather feedback, and refine as needed. Regular updates keep automation relevant to evolving business needs.

Identifying the Right Processes for Automation

When determining whether a process is a good candidate for automation, consider these key criteria:

• Repetitiveness: Focus on tasks that are repeated frequently and follow the same patterns.

• High Volume: Target processes that handle large datasets or numerous transactions.

• Rule-Based: Ensure the tasks have clear, predefined rules and predictable outcomes.

These guidelines help prioritize processes where automation can deliver the most significant impact.

Trends Driving Intelligent Automation

Integration of AI and Machine Learning

Integrating AI and machine learning is revolutionizing industries by unlocking smarter, faster, and more reliable processes. In finance, machine learning proactively protects against fraud in real time, while healthcare harnesses AI to save lives through more accurate diagnostics and personalized treatment plans. Agriculture is transformed with AI-driven precision farming, ensuring sustainability and higher yields, while manufacturing leads the charge with smart factories automating production and optimizing maintenance. With the smart factory market expected to skyrocket from USD 100.6 billion in 2024 to USD 164.0 billion by 2029, this wave of innovation is changing the game for industries worldwide.

Rise of Low-Code/No-Code Platforms

Low-code and no-code platforms empower businesses like never before, allowing non-technical users to build applications quickly and effortlessly. These platforms reduce development time and spark creativity and innovation to tackle unique challenges. Projected to reach USD 65 billion by 2027, they are rapidly becoming a must-have for companies aiming to stay competitive and fuel growth in today's competitive landscape.