Your Complete Guide to Business Process Automation

Business Process Automation refers to the use of software to complete recurring tasks that don’t require advanced decision-making. To make it even simpler, BPA software helps you eliminate “busy work.” 

Of course, any time most of us hear the word “automation,” we tend to think about eliminating not just busy work, but also jobs. Those concerns are not entirely unfounded, and when you add advancements in generative AI to the mix, it’s clear that some skills will be less attractive to companies in the future. However, soft skills, critical thinking, specific technical skills, and adaptability will likely be more in demand over the next ten years. 

Will BPA Eliminate Jobs?

That’s hard to say. Over time, technology tends to more than offset jobs that are lost by creating new jobs and new industries, but it depends on how these tools are implemented and where. 

The vast majority of business leaders are hopeful that these tools will allow employees to focus on more important organizational goals. It’s hard to find fault in that. However, some workers’ incomes — at least in the short term — may be negatively affected by automation. Businesses should be sensitive to these concerns when they discuss implementing BPA. 

Here are just a few examples of what BPA software can do: 

• Compose and send automatic email responses 
• Reorder inventory when it gets low 
• Route contracts to the right people at the right time
• Automate invoicing and payroll systems
• Cleanse and deduplicate data 
• Assign and track tasks within a complex project

That’s by no means a comprehensive list, but if you found yourself thinking, “These are also tasks where small mistakes can cause big problems,” you’re right! 

Some human beings have more of an eye for detail than others, but especially as businesses scale up, it’s very easy to forget about renewing an important vendor contract or monitoring inventory. These are tasks that human brains, for the most part, simply aren’t designed to do well. 

It’s also very difficult — even for the most detail-oriented of us — to properly maintain data integrity, which is a problem if you’d like to use your data to improve your marketing and sales tactics. That’s why 88% of data teams have added automation to their data management processes.

Where you have rapidly evolving technology, you will also find interchangeable or overlapping terms. Tech acronyms can make relatively simple concepts sound very confusing, so here are a few related terms and their definitions. 

What Is Enterprise Content Management (ECM)?

BPA refers to the use of software to automate processes. An enterprise content management platform is a type of software that helps a company achieve BPA. In other words, BPA is a goal, an ECM platform is a tool. 

What Is a Document Management System (DMS)?

A document management system (DMS) refers to software that only stores, organizes, and controls electronic documents. Just to clarify — an ECM also does that, but it also does a lot more, and for additional types of content, including images, videos, and social media. 

What Is Robotics Process Automation (RPA)?

RPA software automates a specific, repetitive task, like data entry or file transfers. 

For example, at Marco, we invested in RPA to simplify our invoicing. As part of simplifying our invoicing process, RPA bots were set up to notify our accounts payable department of any anomalies that may need double-checking, enabling them to focus their attention where it's most needed.

What Is Business Process Management (BPM)?

Business process management refers to optimizing processes and doesn’t necessarily rely on software automation. If you’ve helped an organization streamline its onboarding, you’ve participated in BPM! 

What Is Enterprise Automation (EA)?

Enterprise automation is essentially business process automation across an entire organization. 

So just to review, BPA, EA, and BPM are goals. ECM, DMS, and RPA refer to software. BPA and EA rely on software, while BPM does not. 

As more businesses add DMS, RPA, and ECM tools, we have been able to collect more data around exactly how much time and money organizations can save. 

Of course, every business is different, but these stats paint a clear picture of the potential ROI of business process automation: 

• 50% of business leaders believe that they can automate up to 30% of their work
• 73% of IT leaders think automation can reduce overall costs by 10-50%
• In sales departments, automation is associated with more customer-facing time, higher customer satisfaction, and a sales uplift of up to 10% 
• Advertising automation can save businesses $130,000 a year 
• Investments in accounts payable automation tools can improve invoice processing time by 10%, and pay for themselves in 6-18 months 

What could you achieve if you could eliminate 30% of mundane busy work? Again, the data is in on this too, and the answer is quite a lot.

Here are the key advantages of BPA:

1. Increased Efficiency

BPA allows your staff to spend less time on repetitive tasks so they can work on more important things. As a result, more tasks get done more quickly. 

2. Reduced Costs

Time is money, so improvements in efficiency also can reduce labor costs. IT time is expensive, and many internal IT departments are also understaffed. If that’s true for your organization, IT automation tools may be a good place to start. 

3. Fewer Careless Mistakes

We humans tend to make silly errors, forget about deadlines, and let things get lost in the shuffle. Computers aren’t perfect, but they excel at performing mundane, repeatable tasks, and doing so with consistency. 

4. Impressive Customer Service

We mentioned this earlier, but we used RPA tools in our accounts receivable department to process invoices faster and more accurately. Those two things alone were a great improvement, but it also meant that we could catch any errors before they were sent to customers.

Of course, it depends on what tools you use and to what end, but many software solutions associated with BPA can help your staff devote more time to solving complex problems quickly for customers. No company is perfect, but being able to resolve problems in one quick phone call or catch them before they cause additional complications tends to stand out — in a very good way. 

5. Better, Cleaner Data

BPA tools can generate detailed data and keep it clean, consistent, and up to date so you can use it to make quicker, better decisions. 

6. Fewer Growing Pains

Every business that grows from 20 to 200 people will likely encounter the same problems. Inconsistent processes and data silos that weren’t much of a problem before suddenly are impacting everything from your customer relationships to your bottom line. BPA tools allow you to provide the closer customer relationships and consistency that are associated with smaller companies, only at scale. 

7. Improved Employee Satisfaction

Not only can you provide better customer experiences with BPA tools, but you can also give your employees a much more rewarding Monday through Friday. Most people don’t enjoy the types of tasks BPA tools automate and would rather spend their time on more engaging, meaningful work.

In turn, you might see less talent attrition.

8. Smarter Resource Allocation

Do you often find that larger strategic initiatives keep getting put off because more immediate, but less important tasks take up too much time? That’s pretty common in businesses that haven’t invested in some automation tools.

On the other hand, imagine what you could achieve if all of your staff’s talent and expertise were focused on growing your business. BPA tools are a great way to allocate your most valuable resources — your staff — where they can bring the most ROI. 

9. Increased Visibility

BPA systems can offer simple tools that show the status of multiple projects in real-time, so managers can see where projects are delayed and why. 

10. Simplified Compliance

If your organization is heavily regulated, these tools can provide audit trails and documentation while also reducing the risk of non-compliance due to human error or inconsistent practices. Many can also integrate with regulatory databases, so you can make sure your processes remain compliant as regulations evolve. 

Even these powerful, game-changing tools aren’t perfect, and they certainly aren’t the answer to every problem. 

If companies fail to do their research ahead of time, here are some of the problems they might face: 

1. Staff and management may be resistant to change 
2. It’s not always clear which processes are the best candidates for automation
3. New BPA tools won’t always work well with legacy systems
4. These tools can be expensive, and their implementation can be time-consuming
5. Using these tools sometimes may require additional technical expertise
6. It can be difficult to standardize processes across different departments
7. You’ll need to balance automation with human oversight
8. Your staff may be tempted to become over-reliant on automation 

It’s important to remember that these tools are designed to free up human beings to do more critical thinking and complex problem-solving, not less. BPA tools shouldn’t be an excuse for your staff to go on autopilot.  

Businesses that deal with high volumes of data, repetitive tasks, complex workflows, and strict regulatory requirements would stand to benefit most from BPA software. That could be any large business, but smaller businesses within certain industries are also ideal use cases. 

Typically, those industries would include: 

1. Finance
2. Healthcare
3. Manufacturing
4. Retail
5. Telecom
6. Legal
7. Government 
8. Transportation/logistics
9. Higher education

If the list of potential benefits of BPA outweighs the challenges, and especially if you’re in any of the industries listed above, you’re really going to love what ECM, RPA, and DMS platforms can do when they’re integrated with other office equipment… 

Copiers and Printers

When paired with print management software, DMS and ECM tools can transform your printing equipment into workflow-optimizing machines. Many also incorporate AI technology, which can capture key information contained within documents, and then label and file them automatically.

Of course, that’s just one example. One of our print experts wrote an entire blog around this pairing alone! 

Communication Systems

Need to improve your customer service? You might want to focus on BPA possibilities that pair with your cloud voice or UCaaS technology. 

Depending on the combo, your tools could: 

• Automate call routing based on predefined rules
• Prioritize calls from certain customers or customer types
• Initiate calls, messages, or emails based on specific “trigger” events
• Automatically log call details and outcomes in your CRM system
• Suggest helpful knowledge base articles to agents during calls based on the current conversation 

There’s more. But you get the idea. 

Audio/Video Systems

Meetings get a bad reputation, but it’s often because they’re unproductive, it’s hard to ensure equal participation, and one person is often stuck taking notes. But those problems — plus a few more — can actually be minimized with the right tools. 

Here are just a few things that these tools can do: 

• Set up video conferences based on calendar events, and automate equipment on/off accordingly
• Adjust room settings based on the type of meeting or attendees
• Share relevant documents or presentations during video calls
• Take attendance and initiate follow-up actions for absent parties 
• Provide real-time transcription or language translation 
• Enforce recording policies for certain types of meetings

There are many types of BPA solutions out there, but enterprise content management (ECM) platforms are some of the most widely used. Some also cater to specific industries, like healthcare. 

At Marco, we find most of our clients are served well with either OnBase by Hyland or M-Files. OnBase by Hyland is especially popular with larger healthcare, government, and financial institutions as it integrates well with healthcare systems and has strong case management features. 

However, M-Files is well suited for a wide variety of small to midsize businesses, it’s easier to implement and use, and it integrates well with more common business software.

If you’re not sure which tool would work best for your business, ask a business technology provider that specializes in BPA tools and has also worked with organizations like yours.

Looking for a technology partner, or not sure that your current provider has the skills you need? The right provider can make a huge difference in the ROI you can expect. These tools are incredibly advanced, and many tend to be user-friendly, but getting expert service and support will also be important. 

Because many of these tools are designed to integrate with a variety of other equipment and software, look for a provider that has: 

• Professional certifications across multiple technology types 
• A wide range of services 
• Ongoing free training available for end users 
• Advanced abilities to implement, support, customize, and secure these tools
• More interest in cultivating a long-term partnership than a one-time transaction
• Strategic partnerships with top ECM, RPA, and DMS developers

It’s natural to assume that purchasing software directly from a developer is the best way to get a good price. But that’s frequently not the case with business software.

Many top software developers would rather focus their attention on what they do best rather than having to provide ongoing customer service. They often offer volume discounts to providers like Marco, who have demonstrated that they can provide world-class support. 

So, if you’re curious about the value an ECM platform might bring, click the link below to browse our solutions!