Business process automation or BPA is an increasingly popular form of Digital Transformation project, with more and more companies turning to automation in an attempt to improve productivity, increase efficiency, reduce the rate of human error and boost overall profitability. But timing is crucially important for achieving a maximum ROI for your process automation development project. This begs the question: how do you know when to use business process automation to overhaul your company’s operations?
When to Use Business Process Automation: Boosting ROI With Tangible Benefits
When executed properly, a BPA development project can generate a significant ROI in a few ways.
Optimized Processes: The steps in the process must be analyzed prior to the start of the Business Process Automation development project and in doing so, the steps will be streamlined and modified in a manner that improves the overall efficiency of your process flow.
Improved Accuracy: Accuracy and precision increases dramatically because humans are eliminated or largely eliminated from the automated process. As a result, human error is no longer a factor when BPA technology is deployed.
Increased Speed: An automated process can be performed at a much faster rate (versus the speed at which a human could perform that task), which improves productivity.
Greater Productivity: Humans who previously performed the now-automated process are freed to work on other higher-value tasks, which brings a positive benefit to a company’s bottom line.
Business process automation can serve as a very effective option for any company that is seeking to boost productivity, profitability and accuracy. The ROI tends to be greater for a business that is looking to achieve multiple goals — such as improving the speed that you can perform specific processes, in addition to increasing accuracy and productivity.
How Do I Know if it’s the Right Time to Automate Company Processes?
Knowing when to initiate a Digital Transformation project is an important element in the recipe for success. This is absolutely true for business process automation projects, which begs the question: How do you know when the time is right to automate company processes?
Here are a few questions to mull over as you consider whether now is the ideal time to develop business process automations for your organization.
Question: Would a Specific Workflow or Process Flow Benefit From Business Process Automation?
It can be tempting to automate for the sake of automating, but will it really bring a tangible benefit? (See the benefits mentioned above.) The smart home movement offers a great example of how automation for the sake of automation can fail to bring a tangible benefit. Homeowners spend lots of time and money on technology such as smart lights. And while smart bulbs are great in theory, many are very glitchy and they regularly disconnect from the smart home network. Homeowners are left to re-network and reconfigure their lights and their Alexa devices on a regular basis. When all is said and done, maintaining these smart bulbs can suck up far more time, money and effort than simply flipping an old school light switch. The same concept can be true of process automation. You need to automate the right processes in the right way in order to see a return on investment.
Question: Is Our Company Almost Ready to Scale and Grow in Size?
It’s best to engage a business process automation development company before you up-scale and expand your company. Ideally, the process automations should be developed and deployed before you begin upscaling and expansion efforts so the technology is in place and ready to support your efforts right out of the starting gate. If the horse has already escaped the barn, so to speak, and you’ve already started your upscaling and expansion efforts, you may consider postponing your BPA deployment until you’re in a more stable position. This is due to the amount of effort that’s required to ensure that your business process automations are a success. In fact, that leads us to our next point…
Question: Does Our Company Have the Time to Thoroughly Evaluate and Assess Our Current Processes?
In order to maximize ROI, you must take the time to perform a comprehensive analysis and evaluation of the steps that comprise the process that you’re automating. You will also need to consider parallel or related processes and workflows, because a BPA project can have a fairly broad impact. It’s also not uncommon to combine multiple processes into a single automation, so this is another point of evaluation that you’ll need to consider as you outline the steps for each process automation. If you don’t have the time to collaborate and engage with the BPA development team, then this project may be one that’s best postponed until you have sufficient bandwidth. You must be in a position where you can invest an appropriate amount of time and effort into the analysis of your processes. Business leaders will need to be involved in this collaborative effort, along with the individuals who are directly involved in the processes and workflows that are being automated.
Question: Do We Have Time to Engage in the BPA Development Process?
As with any Digital Transformation project, business leaders and leaders from the department or division that performs the processes and workflows in question must be available to collaborate and provide feedback throughout the course of the project. The timeframe for a business process automation project can span weeks or even months, depending upon the complexity and size of the automations in question. A good developer will hold weekly touchpoint meetings to discuss progress, collect feedback, set expectations and to gather important information from stakeholders, business leaders and others who are involved in the project. You must be available to collaborate and engage with the BPA developers; otherwise, the project will suffer. A lack of client engagement is one of the most common causes of failure for process automation projects.
Achieving Maximum ROI With Business Process Automation
When the timing is right and you automate the right process in the right way, the ROI can be significant since you’ll see a host of process automation benefits: better productivity, improved profitability, reduced error rates and increased speed. You also need to partner with the right business process automation development company; one that takes a collaborative approach to Digital Transformation projects such as this. That’s exactly what we do here at 7T.
At 7T, we take a collaborative approach to enterprise development projects, including business process automations. We engage the client from the discovery phase to deployment. Our many Digital Transformation service offerings include process automation solutions, enterprise software development for ERP and CRM systems (among others), along with SaaS development for web apps and mobile apps, amongst others. We work extensively with cutting-edge technologies as we strive to help clients solve pain points, improve efficiency and achieve their business goals.
We’re guided by the approach of “Digital Transformation Driven by Business Strategy.” As such, the 7T development team works with company leaders who are seeking to solve problems and drive ROI through Digital Transformation and innovation. We then provide collaborative, multi-phased and impactful Digital Transformation solutions.
7T has offices in Dallas, Houston and Austin, but our clientele spans the globe. If you’re ready to learn more about Digital Transformation and how business process automation can benefit your business, contact 7T today.
