Knowledge-worker-centric organisations today are still looking for ways to do more with less.
Some are in survival mode, trying to ride out the current economic conditions until the storm clears; others may be well positioned to take advantage of competitors' challenges and focus on growth. In either case, initiatives to improve key business processes are often undertaken to root out inefficiencies that can incur unnecessary cost and waste, and negatively impact competitive advantage.
A current approach is business process automation (BPA). While BPM is more of a broad discipline that could be realised with or without technology, BPA actually employs technology (typically software) to execute business processes, real-time, and achieve efficiencies as a result of automating parts of that process. More importantly, BPA is not solely reliant on technology, but instead is best suited for people-centric processes.
A recent IDG research study among IT executives and managers cited that 87% of respondents considered BPA to be a critical, very important, or somewhat important IT priority. The automation of manual or poorly automated processes can offer significant opportunities for process improvement, with benefits that can include improved customer service, reduced processing time, improved quality of work, increased levels of output, and improved audit/compliance support.
Food for thought
With the number and diversity of technology solutions for automating, managing and improving business processes, it's natural to direct energies into finding the right BPA technology solution. However, any technology decision should be only one top consideration when planning or proceeding with a BPA initiative. Today's successful BPA initiatives are based largely on five key considerations as a whole:
1. Defining and aligning clear business objectives
2. Involving the right people
3. Automating the right processes
4. Using the right technology
5. Supporting “quick win” as well as continuous improvement initiatives
1. Align with business objectives
It is not uncommon for organisations go through an extensive technology selection process before finalising the goals they would like to achieve with business process automation. Ideally, however, any BPA initiative should be driven by well-defined business objectives. High-level objectives may focus exclusively on cost reduction or cost containment objectives, or, under the right circumstances, on increasing revenue generating potential. Clear, well-defined business objectives will help ensure that all other key BPA considerations are in alignment, and that a BPA technology solution delivers real ROI.
Look for BPA opportunities that allow the company to start small, expand and continuously improve
Dave Paulding is Interactive Intelligence's regional sales manager for UK and Africa.
2. Get the right people involved
Successful BPA initiatives will involve people with the best practices expertise to execute the process discovery, analysis and design efforts that are absolutely critical, and that are best initiated in advance of technology solution deployment. Having IT management on board is critical to BPA's technology implementation aspects, and the business owner should provide the equally critical process knowledge.
3. Identify the right process for automation
In today's business environment, the real challenge, and corresponding opportunity, remains in improving processes that involve people. With so many potential processes to automate, it therefore is important to find a “good fit”, to ensure identifiable efficiency gains that can generate quantifiable value. In general, BPA is well suited for virtually any multi-step, people-centric process, especially those processes that are:
* Highly manual
* Repetitive
* Based on defined steps
* Utilised across multiple departments or teams
* Dependent on individuals who must handle work tasks and communicate with one another and/or the customer
4. Start small and grow
Demonstrable results matter. Look for BPA opportunities that allow the company to start small, expand and continuously improve. Because BPA can have such a significant impact on process efficiencies, organisations may opt to initiate BPA implementations that focus on a mission-critical business process in its entirety. The trade-off is: the more complex the process, the more complex, costly and time-consuming the implementation. Achieving a relatively “quick win” ROI might mean breaking down a larger process into smaller, more manageable sub-processes.
5. Select the right technology
In all, BPA technology should offer proven capabilities that make people more effective in the way they perform work, entailing a range of other capabilities that include but are not limited to:
* The ability to automate processes end-to-end and to seamlessly incorporate communications associated with those processes.
* Location independence that enables employees to participate in a business process from any location.
* The predictable, flexible distribution of work to an available resource with the right skills, and with the necessary service levels.
* Visibility into the work pipeline by way of real-time monitoring of process activity.
* The ability to capture and track work, as well as customer dialogue, which are part of a business process.
* Dave Paulding is Interactive Intelligence's regional sales manager for UK and Africa.
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