The word automation was coined in the early 1940s but it was not completely implemented and the early adopters of this term were the automobile industry which started using it to move material from manufacturing stations to other in the assembly line. Later many industries started accepting the term with more robotic arms replacing the manual labor. Industry had to go through the nostalgia on how this technology can really help companies to improve productivity and its impact on the bottom line.
Ideally, automation helped enterprises to do repetitive tasks while ensuring accuracy and quality. Automation also boosts productivity (as measured in output per man-hour), even as it reduces the number of workers required for certain mundane repetitive tasks. This helps your critical resources to act on core activities than chores.
To ensure employees don’t overlook details, repeated task or abandon task before completion, businesses establish a certain workflow to standardize processes. The business process, therefore, needs to remain consistent over repetitive cycles. This is where business process automation (BPA) software is considered the buzzword in the 21st century. During the Pandemic, many Industries faced acute delays due to short of resources and managing their supply chain. It eventually hit the bottom line, it continues to effect the businesses and automation has become the buzzword for many companies starting to realize the need for automating the process with their digital assets either through on-premise or on-cloud.
Most companies use Business Process Automation (BPA) to manage projects, assets, supply chain, self-service portals, workflows, and much more. The industries that heavily use BPA are manufacturing, retail & consumer goods, IT & ITes, healthcare during this pandemic, supply chain, banking (BSFI) and telecommunications. Based on function within the organization it is noted that automation is widely used in Human Resource, Sales & Marketing, Supply Chain, Accounting and Finance, Customer Service Support, Legal and Compliance, insurance and R&D activities.
A typical example of business process automation in different functions can help industries improve their productivity, cost and transform operational efficiency. We have identified automation processes by function.
Human Resources (HR)
- Hiring process
- Employee on-boarding
- Employee analytics & retention
- Employee leave and vacation requests
- Employee Claims processing
- Employee Asset management
Healthcare
- Simplifying patient appointment scheduling
- Speeding up account settlements
- Streamlining claims management
- Implementing discharge instructions
- Recording audit procedures
- Managing healthcare workflows
Sales & Marketing
- Providing automated sales reports (Sales Forecasts, sales activity, forecast versus actual etc..)
- Designing and managing sales territories
- Analyzing marketing and sales programs (based on criteria)
- Checking inventory and order status
- Tracking leads
- Entering orders
- Reporting expenses
Accounting & Finance
- Core bookkeeping
- Invoicing and accounts receivables
- Account payable
- Tax compliance and reporting
- Payroll
- Expense management
Customer Service Support
- Customer self-service
- Ai-powered chatbots
- Password reset
- Case routing
Insurance
- Insurance processing
- Claims handling and billing
- Mortgage processing
- Loan applications
Retail
- Returns processing
- Customer support management
- Marketing and consumer behavior marketing
- Demand and supply planning
Manufacturing
- Parts request from customers
- Inventory and quality checks
- Material gateway
- Weighbridge
Though we have listed them by function it is not limited to. Automation is making strides in many developed countries in the US and Europe and the rest of the world is catching up fast to optimize the overall operations to see direct influence in their bottom line.
Enterprises are expected to be driven by the need for optimized resource utilization through automated business processes. This will enable companies to connect with heterogeneous environments within the organizations, improving data quality, and reduce data entry efforts through standardized workflow automation. Furthermore, they reduce the time required to create and modify business rules. Majorly there is increase in cloud-based adoption from SMEs due to its benefits such as lower costs, no requirement of manpower for hardware maintenance, faster and efficient results, and complete flexibility and scalability, which results in reduced operational expenditure. Lower maintenance costs and less workforce are key drivers to boost the adoption of cloud-based BPA across multiple segments.
Bautomate is easy to use and customization requires minimum training. Businesses may find it extremely convenient to own and use its components. Bautomate is a unified solution that supports entire business process automation, besides functions within a enterprise including invoice automation, form automation, cloud-based content extraction, production order automation, capex approval automation, medical form automation, document automation and much more. Why settle for one function of automation solution when you can do more with Bautomate.
