Automation has become the buzzword that has taken the global business sector by storm. Businesses across the world, regardless of their size and industry, are seeking to upgrade their manual, unstructured tasks through smart and scalable tools and technology. What’s driving this trend is the immense potential that business process automation holds for enterprises, in maximizing productivity, profitability, and efficiency by streamlining the workflows.
However, the great leap to automation does not happen overnight. It is a comprehensive process that requires extensive planning and skillful execution – and also, time! Yes. As technology takes a toll on your everyday business operations, tasks and procedures in your enterprise’s transition towards digital, other aspects of the business such as strategic goals, stakeholder relationships, and customer experience take a back seat. And this is the biggest reason why some enterprises are skeptical and reluctant in automating business processes and workflows.
If you want to thrive and excel in the game field of competition, digital transformation is the writing on the wall. And business process workflow automation is the first and the most crucial step towards DT. It is the implementation of a framework of tools and technology that drive the digital transformation of your enterprise.
Here we have sorted a step-by-step approach to successful business process and workflow automation for enterprises. Read on.
1. Mark Your Objectives and Set Milestones
Every strategy starts with objectives and goals, as in what returns do you intend to gain through your automation initiatives and what business value would you be able to achieve. Assess the efficiency and productivity of your current processes and identify the extent to which you want them to escalate. These are your objectives. The next step is to set little milestones to achieve your ultimate automation objectives. This involves breaking the process into small, time-bound tasks – the milestones. These milestones will set the trajectory of transition and propel you into a smooth projectile towards automation.
The result – you will be able to achieve maximum business value and profitability through better service, maximum agility, accelerated speed, reduced costs, increased cost-efficiency, optimum usability, customization, scalability, and efficiency.
2. Involve Your Stakeholders
Process and workflow automation is a strategic endeavor on part of your enterprise, and to make it successful, you need to take your stakeholders on board, on the same page. The most important stakeholders are your clients. Make sure you have open communication with your clients about your automation and what value they will receive as a result.
You also need to engage your business partners as well as departmental heads and encourage them to contribute to the design and directions of the new workflow automation process. Aside from that, engage seasoned professionals from the operational side of the business such as sales, IT and management to help lay down a seamless blueprint of your journey to automation, and ultimately to the digital transformation of your enterprise.
3. Research, Research, Research!
Set up agile teams to look into your legacy data and define users’ patterns. Identify the areas where streamlined workflows will deliver most value through maximum efficiency, and reduced costs, malfunctions, and errors. Formulate a blueprint of a customer's journey and highlight the areas and issues automation will optimize and resolve.
4. Choose the Right Technology
The outcomes and value of your business process automation depend by and large on the technology you incorporate. Remember, every business is unique and so do its automation needs. You need to choose the right technology to be able to leverage business process automation to your advantage and for this, start off by focusing on your goals and objectives.
Identify the level of efficiency and scalability you want to achieve and the value you aim to deliver through business process workflow automation. Choose technology that is compatible with your IT and data operations, facilitate your routine unstructured tasks and optimize communication. It is also essential to study the financial model and the costs involved, compare it with the objectives and estimate the value it will deliver as a cumulative result.
Identify whether you will delegate the crucial responsibility of automation to your in-house IT team, or outsource to a third party. Lastly, you need to use iterative and agile business automation methodologies so that you can go back and fix what needs to fixed.
Are you ready to leverage business process workflow automation to your advantage?
At Infowise, we offer a wide range of smart, code-free, and highly customizable technology ranging from Ultimate Forms to scalable SharePoint applications. With a team of seasoned technology specialists and numerous successful business automation to our credit, we facilitate your business workflow automation initiatives and help elevate your business to meet its strategic goals.
