Business process automation (BPA) involves the use of technology to automate repetitive, often manual business processes in order to streamline workflows, improve efficiency, reduce errors, and ultimately boost productivity. This article will focus on the benefits of BPA, the processes it automates, and how to implement it.
What Is Business Process Automation?
As the name suggests, business process automation refers to the use of technology to automate finance, supply chain, sales, marketing, and other business processes that were once accomplished manually.
Introducing BPA technology not only can streamline processes and make them more efficient, but it can also help to remove human error from processes. A major goal of BPA initiatives is removing low-level tasks from employees' workloads so they can focus on higher-value decision-making, problem-solving, and creativity.
BPA often involves integrating various IT systems and applications to automate complex, multistep processes.
BPA technology can be purchased as a standalone software application, or it can come as a feature in business process management (BPM) suite. BPA systems may also include mechanical technologies such as robots.
What Distinguishes BPA from RPA and BPM?
It’s common to hear BPA and BPM used interchangeably, but they’re not the same thing. Business process automation sits somewhere in between BPM and robotic process automation (RPA), which uses virtual software robots to accomplish tasks autonomously. In contrast to BPA, BPM offers a structured approach to discover, analyse, change, and optimise end-to-end business processes. It’s important to note that BPM does not always include automation.
The following table shows some of the key differences between BPA, BPM, and RPA.
| What it is | What it does | Key use cases | |
|---|---|---|---|
| BPA | Software-based technology that automates repetitive, multistep processes that would otherwise be done manually. | Automates tasks at scale to optimise and streamline entire business processes to increase efficiency across operations. |
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| BPM | A management approach that uses various methods to discover, model, analyse, and improve business processes. | Analyses and improves entire business workflow cycles using any number of tools, including software. |
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| RPA | A kind of BPA technology that uses virtual software robots to accomplish simple tasks without human intervention. | Software robots follow user-defined rules to interact with business applications and data, automating basic tasks. |
|
What Are the Benefits of Business Process Automation?
The key benefits of BPA include:
- Productivity improvement. Workforces can focus on what they do best and trust machines to do the rest. For example, Australian bridal brand Grace Loves Lace uses NetSuite ERP to automatically generate sales leads, giving its salespeople as much as 20% more time to serve customers or potential customers.
- Cost reduction. Automated processes require minimal human intervention, lowering personnel costs and/or letting companies redeploy employees to higher-value activities.
- Cost reduction. The very act of creating automations for workflow processes forces businesses to look closely at them to identify unnecessary or inefficient activities.
- Greater operational efficiency. Automations replace error-prone, manual tasks with consistent processes, saving businesses time and resources.
- Improved customer service. Automation can enable faster response times for customer queries and engagements, while also providing more accurate service delivery.
- Increased employee satisfaction. Using automation to take care of repetitive, manual processes can make employees’ workloads more appealing.
- Process standardisation. With automation, it’s possible to introduce strict steps into business processes, helping with standardisation, which is useful when complying with regulations.
- Assisted communications. Automation can be used to track communications between teams or with customers and trigger relevant messages at critical times. This is especially useful in marketing settings
The Key Areas to Automate in Any Business
Companies can benefit most from automating processes in the following areas:
- Finance. Finance is well-suited for automation because the nature of the work—whether it’s creating financial reports, invoicing customers, or managing accounts payable—is structured. Finance process automation can be combined with automated processes in other areas, such as supply chain and manufacturing.
- Sales. Examples of sales tasks that can be automated include contract management, customer communications, and proposal development.
- Supply chain. Ordering, receiving, and paying for goods are all supply chain functions that companies can automate to boost efficiency and lower costs. For example, new purchase orders can be generated automatically when inventory levels fall below a certain threshold, helping to prevent stockouts while letting supply chain workers focus on higher-level responsbilities.
- Marketing. Marketing automation has the ability to increase marketing and sales productivity as well as reduce marketing overhead costs. Examples include tools that automate the scoring and nurturing of leads, online chats with customers, A/B testing of campaigns, and customer surveys, as well as automated texts and emails to ping customers after they’ve abandoned a cart, to follow up after a purchase, or re-engage customers who haven’t purchased in awhile.
- Manufacturing. Manufacturing automation entails the use of software applications, machines, and other technologies to assemble, produce, and package goods. It not only can help lower production costs (by reducing human intervention) and boost output, but it can also improve assembly line safety and reduce expensive and reputation-damaging recalls by detecting product flaws.
- Customer support. Automating service ticket routing to deal with complex customer queries and using chatbots to help answer basic customer queries can reduce costs and save humans for more complex problems.
- IT. To improve efficiency and cut costs, companies can automate a wide variety of IT processes, including setting up and configuring servers and networks, planning capacity, testing software, managing mobile devices, and backing up systems, as well as administering patches, detecting security breaches. and sending alerts.
BSA Implementation Steps to Consider
Organisations should implement BPA through a structured approach that identifies the highest-value processes, maps existing workflows, and selects appropriate tools based on integration capabilities and scalability. A successful implementation of BPA will typically follow a phased approach with cross-functional collaboration, comprehensive testing, and employee training. It’s important to communicate the benefits of the automation initiative to get everybody onboard.
A well-planned BPA implementation plan typically includes the following steps:
- Establish clear goals and objectives.
- Review current processes.
- Identify the best BPA tools.
- Create an implementation plan.
- Test and iterate with a trial pilot
- Roll out more broadly across the business.
- Monitor performance and tweak as needed
Automate Business Processes With NetSuite ERP
NetSuite ERP is a comprehensive, AI-powered cloud solution that can automate core business processes such as accounts payable, marketing, warehousing, distribution, and order management while providing real-time visibility into performance.
For organisations implementing BPA strategies, NetSuite delivers end-to-end process integration.
BPA FAQs
How does business process automation work?
Business process automation involves the use of technology to automate repetitive tasks and workflows. BPA will typically sit within a business process management suite and helps to reduce errors and give workforces more time to focus on strategic work.
What is the difference between RPA and BPA?
Robotic process automation (RPA) automates repetitive tasks within existing systems, whereas BPA takes a holistic approach, automating end-to-end business processes. RPA tackles individual steps or tasks, such as generating a report or processing data. BPA is better suited to streamlining a customer onboarding process or automating invoice processing.
What are examples of business process automation?
Examples of BPA include a healthcare provider automating patient data entries and appointment scheduling, a company onboarding new employees by automating document retrieval tasks and benefits enrollment, and automating invoicing from receipt to payment.
