Business process automation, much like AI, is transformative technology that gets a bad rap for supposedly taking jobs away from people, when it is really to the contrary. If anything, it helps people focus on more impactful and meaningful tasks.
At this point, it is safe to say that business process automation has disrupted numerous industries for the better. In many cases, it is also stepping in to help businesses rebuild and scale in the post-pandemic world.
For the uninitiated, business process automation is the utilization of technology to optimize or replace repetitive tasks that require manual effort. A 2020 survey of business leaders from a wide sample of industries found that 66 percent were already using automation to pilot at least one business process, up from 57 percent in 2018. Companies have many standardized processes in place for employees to ensure internal compliance and disrupting these workflows are detrimental to productivity. Business process automation assures that employee effort can be placed accordingly.
We may not even realize in our work when we are using business process automation software. In fact, 31 percent of businesses have already fully automated at least one function. For example, within a distribution/logistics scenario, business process automation would take care of shipment routing, labeling and tracking, which employees can then focus on getting the right product to the customer. Other examples of business process automation in our everyday work and lives include:
- IT and technical services – maintenance and status reports, problem ticketing handling, and helpdesk support
- Data management – data aggregation and migration, data backup and restoration
- Employee management – leave requests, time and attendance tracking, and payroll
- Administrative duties – HR functions such as employee benefits and tax withholding calculations
- Marketing and sales – sales proposals, invoicing, product launches, sales tracking, as well as marketing emails
Newer industries benefiting from Business Process Automation
Most any industry can benefit from business process automation. Since the onset of the pandemic, it became clear that the technology made its way into some unexpected areas as well.
Hospitality
Within the hospitality sector, many of the tasks involved are tedious, time consuming, and barely contribute to the experience for guests. One of the biggest challenges presented to a hotel, for example, is the management of bookings. How does one organize and plan the rooms of hundreds or thousands of people without headaches? While it can be managed with an excel sheet, it becomes an issue when scaling up. A website becomes necessary, which brings along the hassle of designing it plus integrating a booking system. Luckily, business process automation has now allowed for all these tasks to be integrated into easy to use suites, such as Eviivo. These packages automate booking and advertising on all major online travel agencies and can even build and host an entire website. If a website already exists, a booking button can simply be integrated. What’s more, elegant, automated communications can be sent at predetermined intervals against expected arrival and/or departure dates. Such a solution enables team members to focus more on what matters, providing exceptional service that has the potential to convert a one-time guest into a lifetime repeat guest!
Virtual events
We as a cohort have witnessed significant changes to how large-scale events have been managed. Through the course of 2020, social events were canceled and during the following year, events were made to be virtual only. This has brought about a meteoric rise in virtual events, and the sudden interest has forced companies to realize that the tools at their disposal were lacking. The tools at hand barely replicated the experience of being in an in-person event. Virtual events were more like webinars—live streams of a presentation with little-to-no interaction with the audience. With new digital platforms such as Allseated, it is possible to easily create interactive conventions with complete floor plans, meeting halls, and more. The service also offers collaborative planning tools so parties can come together to satisfy clients and grow businesses.
Stock market research
The stock market has been extremely volatile recently, making investing risky for novice traders and investors. Having risk management strategies and protocols are extremely important, yet keeping up with scores of financial analysts and hedging their advice against one’s own findings can be exhausting. Fortunately, platforms like TipRanks can automate the process, evaluating public stock recommendations and ranking them based on their accuracy and performance. This gives investors the information needed to make educated investment decisions.
Growth marketing
User acquisition has been difficult for growth marketers since the pandemic, due to limitations and changes within ad networks. The main issues that crop up during campaigns is that user acquisition managers are not able to reach their full potential, due to ad networks such as Facebook not factoring in the long-term lifetime value of users. Fortunately, there are platforms such as Voyantis available, which uses machine learning to predict each user’s future lifetime value. Based on these predictions, ad networks have a new signal to optimize on—the true value of users. This empowers growth and user acquisition teams to automatically optimize their growth campaigns based on LTV predictions, using a codeless approach without having to rely on R&D efforts.
All in all, business automation processes can minimize costs, reduce downtime, and improve efficiency for any and every industry. It allows for more transparency, while simultaneously providing insights into shortcomings and mistakes that can be prevented in the future. Business process automation serves to bolster the workforce by automating tedious processes, and enabling employees to focus on meaningful work that will improve their own experience, in addition to that of customers and clients.