Business Process Automation Examples

Introduction

Business process automation (BPA) is the technology-enabled automation of activities or services that accomplish a specific function or workflow. Business processes can be determined for many different segments of company activities, including sales, management, operations, supply chain, human resources and information technology.

A business process is often started by a trigger, such as the filing of an expense report, which initiates a set of predefined workflow steps, or processes, that conclude with the employee receiving reimbursement. The goal of BPA is to not only automate business processes, but to simplify and improve business workflows as well. BPA can be a standalone initiative or part of a larger, overarching business

What is business process automation?

BPA is a type of software or systemized method that takes difficult, redundant or otherwise complex tasks and simplifies them into a streamlined, hands-free process. In plain English, that means BPA uses less technology to get the same job done, making your operations a lot less complicated and a lot more efficient. The goal of BPA is to save businesses time and money by completing tedious tasks automatically, which then increases productivity by allowing your employees to focus on their core areas of talent.

Examples of business process automation

BPA can be used in virtually any aspect of a business. From document management and workflow automation to email alerts and other repetitive tasks, BPA can help reduce costs and avoid wasted manpower in a wide range of operational areas. Three chief examples are client management, marketing and customer support.

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Reducing errors

“Reducing errors” is a frequent goal of clients exploring business automation.

In this example, a company that develops large and complex information systems (medical, aviation, military), worked with a partner to build a system that would facilitate change requests to the Medical Directory for Regulatory Activities (MedRA).

The old process was clunky and complicated where data was passed through various different systems manually in a hodgepodge way. While in some cases this process was fine, in this one particular process, any error (and the potential was extremely high) could lead to non-compliance.

By centralizing this process through the installation of a single end-to-end system, the company contained the entire approvals process, making it easier to track and prevented errors caused when information wasn’t transferred between systems properly.

While not everyone works on compliance and highly technical problems like this example, most organizations do have processes that are unrefined. Processes that:

• Rely on shifting information from one system to another (usually via email)

• Tend to bottleneck at key approvers

• Require multiple manual steps (any of which could be forgotten in a busy