Added on 29 December 2022
Process automation - the intelligent way to more efficiency
Process automation is the technology-supported automation of complex business processes and is part of the digital transformation in companies. It is used to save costs and time by eliminating manual work, to improve service quality or to reduce lead times in a company. In this article, find out how process automation works and what benefits it has for your business.
What is process automation?
The definition of the term is: targeted transfer of digital and manually executed processes and services into automated processes. This means that, in general, process automation is about automatically executing tasks that employees perform manually in the system and which are usually repetitive and simple. The goal of process automation is to generate various advantages through the automation of processes. However, the biggest advantage is clearly the saving of costs and effort for the individual processes.
However, process automation is exclusively about automating processes; optimising individual processes is not within its remit. The basis for the necessity of process automation is based on a utility analysis. This involves checking for which processes it makes sense to use automation in your company, regarding a cost-benefit comparison. Basically, process automation makes sense for all simple, permanently repeating work steps, but more complex processes can also be automated.
How does process automation work?
In process automation, a value-benefit analysis is first used to determine for which business processes automation makes sense.
Once it has been determined for which processes automation should be carried out, these processes are divided into individual intermediate steps. The intermediate steps are then the tasks that were originally carried out manually by your employees in the various systems along the process. The intermediate steps then result in a so-called workflow, which maps all the work steps of a process. This workflow is then taken over by the automation software and carried out automatically without additional human capacity.
Why should process automation be used?
First, it can be fundamentally stated that process automation makes sense regardless of the size and industry of your company. Every digital process that must be repeated permanently is suitable for automation. Process automation therefore also makes sense in an SME, because there the employees, who may have different areas of responsibility, can be significantly relieved.
Process automation brings numerous advantages for your company:
- With the help of process automation, you can significantly increase the efficiency in your company, this is mainly because your employees have more time for the important tasks again.
Manual tasks and the resulting errors are avoided because the system does not make any careless mistakes, as can happen to humans.
Productivity within the company is increased because employees no longer waste their time on meaningless tasks and are therefore more motivated for other tasks.
Communication and cooperation among your employees are increased because they are more satisfied or less annoyed due to the changed tasks.
Process automation also helps you to scale your operations more effectively, making you and your company more flexible for the future.
How is process automation integrated into the company?
There are different ways to integrate process automation into a business. Common types include SaaS or iPaaS solutions. Both SaaS and iPaaS solutions are used by many automation providers. So, automation is integrated as a standalone tool in an organisation to ensure that it can be changed, monitored, and analysed.
Types of process automation
There are many different types of process automation. However, there are essentially three broad areas:
- Simple process automation
Simple process automation involves processes that have an established procedure and are therefore relatively easy to automate. An example of this would be the automatic sending of an email to customers at certain times.
- Rule-based process automation
Here, processes are considered that are dependent on various variables and decisions and do not have fixed structures. This is used, for example, in the processing of applications, where different conditions prevail each time.
- Intelligent process automation (IPA)
IPA makes use of artificial intelligence (AI), which is applied by means of machine learning or natural language processing to make processes in a company more efficient and effective. IPA independently recognises the optimisation potential of a particular process and offers ways to carry it out.
Examples of process automation
Here we would like to give two examples behind which, in the final analysis, there is nothing more than process automation.
- Automated order processing
Customers place an order with your company. This is automatically forwarded to the warehouse, where the items in the order are collected and prepared for dispatch.
This process can run completely without human interaction, which means orders are fulfilled faster, more efficiently and with fewer errors.
- Automated customer service
This can be integrated into your business in the form of chatbots or similar, helping to answer a certain range of questions and problems from customers automatically. This leaves more capacity for the important problems of customers that cannot be solved in one sentence.