The Enterprise Buyer's Guide for Business Process Automation Software
If you're reading this, it’s most likely that your company is taking a look at business process automation software.
With business process automation functionality, you can expedite routine, rules-based workflows. Streamlining these types of business workflows generates more productivity in enterprise resource planning (ERP), greater cost savings, and better operation of your human resources.
While most enterprise companies today have applied some form of automation, digital transformation, or process improvement, many fail to recognize the full capabilities of automation innovations and struggle to terminate remaining time-intensive manual workflows.
While partially automated tasks will give you minimal edge, they can also deterring you in the end.
In this enterprise buyer's guide, we'll shed some light on what business process automation is, how it works, its advantages, and the specifications you have to study when assessing BPA applications.
So let's get to it!
What is Business Process Automation: A Primer
Business process automation (BPA), also known as business process management (BPM), is the action of using technology to establish routine, rules-based tasks such as routing documents, data-entry, sending payments, or organizing documents.
Utilizing automation can substantially enhance an organization's scalability by streamlining processes, establishing competency, and eliminating gruntwork which permits your personnel to focus on tasks that augment the business.
Modern automation platforms, like those you're probably evaluating, implement state-of-the-art technologies like artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning (ML), and robotic process automation (RPA) to take care of repetitive labor on a human's behalf.
Fundamentally, people are still your most powerful resource, but through workflow automation, your colleagues can work quicker on more productive tasks rather than having their time wasted by repetitive manual tasks.
The Benefits of Business Process Automation
The following are just a few of the outstanding benefits of BPA or automated applications.
Prevents Human Error
Streamlines Repetitive Tasks
Decreases Inefficiencies
Deters Malicious Activity
Enhances Cost-Savings
Improves Third-Party Relationships and Customer Satisfaction
Lessens Supplier Inquiries
Enhances Better Visibility into Workflows
Higher ROI
Use Cases for Business Process Automation
Any company that has tedious, repetitive tasks can benefit from process automation software. Some of the most common business and industry use cases include:
HR New Employee Onboarding
CRM Processes
Social Media
Evaluation Factors for Business Process Automation Software
Selecting the process automation tool that relates to your organization starts with examining your current workflow, finding opportunities for automation and evaluating the marketplace for tools.
1. Define Your Business Needs
Before ever assessing technology options, the key thing to do is to determine your organizational goals.
Disregarding this aspect could cause obtaining application that ultimately doesn't grow with your business, or selecting additional features that you really don't need. Gather your department heads to discuss the following:
What workflows are prime candidates for automation?
Do you need the application for one department, or can the software be used by multiple departments?
Are there any dependencies that prohibit you from launching a new system?
How many team members will require access to the application? What are their responsibilities?
2. Conducting Pre-Purchase Research
As soon as you have your foundational needs pinned down, you can start looking for probable solutions. There are various things you can research on your own before consulting with a vendor or entering a high-pressure sales negotiation.
Here are few resources you can frequently find on software websites or through a Google search that will stimulate your initial research.
Recorded demos
Pricing/Licensing Tiers
Product Pages/Data Sheets/Explainer Blogs
Product Comparisons
Peer Reviews
Partner Referrals
3. Submit RFIs to Potential Vendors
After completing some preliminary research, you can begin asking for customized price quotes from the solutions you're eager to learn about.
While many software websites offer pricing, the majority of business process management tools simply offer starting prices and will need more data about your business to arrange a definitive forecast model for you.
If your business uses a more conventional attainment process, this would be the time to commence sending the initial requests for information (RFI) which specifically outlines your requirements for potential vendors.
When talking to potential suppliers, it's vital that you get all of your inquiries answered and verify that the software meets all of your needs. This will help you narrow down vendor options during purchase later on.
4. Understanding Licensing Structures
Among the major important budget considerations for an automation platform is the licensing structure. There is a wide selection of user models that platform vendors use and it can have a significant impact on the total cost of ownership. Here are some of the most commonly used structures:
Per-seat or per-user licensing: means that pricing is set per person. This is why it's imperative to determine your complete number of users.
Maximum user licensing: This is total pricing with the total number of users allotted with additional users available for an additional cost.
Site licensing: Rather than per user, this type of licensing allows you to use the software at a single (or multiple) predetermined locations.
Ongoing vs subscription licensing: Ongoing licensing is typically pay once and use indefinitely, whereas a subscription price will need to be renewed
The pricing model that works best for your organization will come down to the budget, the number of users or site locations, as well as the level of flexibility you want. For example, if you'd rather not be latched into a long-term investment, you might go for a subscription model that you can revoke should you feel the need.
5. Deployment Models
The deployment model is one more crucial consideration as your organization might have certain legal or compliance-related requirements that dictate you use simply one type of infrastructure.
For instance, many businesses in the healthcare and government section have precise codes which demand they keep all computing and application infrastructure on-premise and that any new application be accredited in compliant in a specific groundwork like HIPAA or FedRAMP.
A lot of vendors present several deployment options because of this. These can be partitioned into two main groups: on-premises, off-premises, or hybrid deployment.
On-premises (Data Center): This hosting option compels your business to deploy the software via your on-premise data center environment. Accordingly, your business keeps complete control over the installation, architecture, administration, maintenance, and data security.
This restricts the scope of risk involved with outposting deployment to a third party, but it also increases your duties and includes its own level of risk.
For instance, disregarding routine updates and backups might risk putting your organization in a dangerous place if a data breach or tragedy were ever to occur. But as aforementioned, for some in a compliance-heavy business, there may not be any other options here.
Off-premises (Cloud-based): For companies that are not bound by legal demands, or have regulated standards that a cloud option can meet, this choice can be a lot more tantalizing.
This is due to the fact that cloud deployments give your organization the chance to offload much of the administrative and maintenance burdens it would usually be obligated to.
Moreover, most enterprise-level technology is incorporated on best-in-class infrastructures like AWS or Azure and offers redundancy, reliability, not to mention service level agreements (SLAs) if you desire an uptime guarantee.
Hybrid (Mixed) Deployment: The third alternative, for those that want to exploit cloud innovation but operate in a compliance-heavy enterprise, is a hybrid or mixed deployment.
While a tad more troublesome, a hybrid environment would handle all your sensitive data and related phases in an on-premise environment while your non-classified data and processes can be implemented in a cloud environment.
6. Implementation Requirements
Another important deliberation is the implementation requirements, on behalf of the software vendor, for your organization. Just because you might feel like using a certain tool, doesn't mean your current capabilities are enough to run it. Thus, it's crucial to look at the following:
Configurability. Does the software come with all necessary functionality when acquired, or will it demand some adjusting once installed? This is essential to recognize to ensure you can maximize your investment and hit the ground running.
System requirements. In theinstance of an on-premise deployment, do you have all the necessary hardware to handle the platform properly? If not, your whole investment could be at risk.
Elasticity. Can the platform scale to fulfill higher demand as your company grows, if the maximum number of simultaneous users are online, or if your infrastructure acquires a utilization load spike? It's imperative to choose an automation software that can scale to handle a growth or a utilization flux. A large number of SaaS and cloud options offer auto-scaling as the need develops, because majority of on-premise deployments compel that auto-routing under load spikes is implemented beforehand.
7. Integration capabilities
One more essential consideration is integration potential. While the concept of a packaged-deal solution is a wonderful concept, it usually doesn't work that way. Especially with automation, the automation tool has to communicate with multiple systems and other tools in accordance with how many business units are taking advantage of it.
For this reason, you need to supply your potential vendors with a full list of all systems and tools to ensure that your automation tool can properly incorporated with each.
On the other hand, if a distinct tool is not listed under integrations, does the tool vendor offer an application programming interface (API) so that a developer can bridge your systems his or herself?
If there isn't a preconfigured integration in qualified for your other systems, and the API either is nonexistent or is tremendously difficult to use, it most likely isn’t the finest fit for your organization.
8. Customer Support
Another critical, yet often disregarded feature is convenient customer support. Often, companies don't realize the significance of great customer support until they desperately need it and it's inaccessible.
Every single software vendor has its own particular customer support offering which can be 24/7/365 or restricted to specific hours. They typically also have leeway for their customer support services - issues they will facilitate and issues they won't.
Most often, basic customer support is provided for issues linked to the platform itself, however, problems that are customer-centric (i.e. implementation issues, best practices, etc) may solely be available at a premium, if at all.
Regardless, it's important that you recognize what the degree of your customer support provides, its accessibility, and the options available to you (i.e. ticket service, phone, email, chat, etc). Additionally, as your staff is learning to use automation software, it's key that they have training resources conveniently attainable, whether live or pre-made.
The following are examples:
Webinars
Guides
Training Labs
Tutorial Videos
Instruction Manuals/Documentation
Community Help Forums
9. Security
One more important consideration is the software security measures. With an automation platform, it's probable that it will get in touch with sensitive data, for this reason, you need to be confident that any data utilized is secure against unwarranted access. Ensure that your tool offers the following security features:
Access management to manage who can have contact with the software.
Permission controls to distinguish what a user can and can't have contact with while using the platform.
Compliance certification (if [required) to ensure that the seller has met all its obligations to adhere to any legal regulations that your business is liable for.
10. Ease-of-use
Finally, it's of the essence that the platform is intuitive and easy to use for your coworkers. An overly complicated user interface can result in lost productivity as you allocate time and valuables toward having your staff train on how to properly operate the tool.
Offerings same as a free trial can help to ensure your teams appreciate the software before purchasing. In addition, demos, training resources, and process templates can do a great deal for the rate of learning over time as all software, even intuitive ones, will oblige you to have some sort of adjustment period.
The Procurement Process
After your business has reviewed the entire evaluation criteria and you distinguish what you're in pursuit of, it's time to start taking into account your options, pegging your choices down, and ultimately buying and actualizing the product.
The following is a step-by-step guide to help you with the procurement process.
Step 1: Compare Your Options
It's presumable that you've already arranged a list of potential suppliers during the evaluation process. Now’s the time to take off any that don't satisfy your needs and taper down your short-list. Once your short-list is prepare, compare your options based on the following characteristics:
Price
Features
Free Trial Options
Security and Compliance Capabilities
Customer Support
Step 2: Schedule Demos
With likely only 2-3 options standing, it's now time to find out what the tool's capabilities are. Not only will this help you measure functionality, but it will also give you some perspective of the product's ease of use. If it has an extremely complex user interface or seems as if it will require a precipitous learning curve, it most likely isn’t the best fit.
Step 3: Making the Purchase
When you've finalized your choice, don't just pay the full asking price. There may be leeway for negotiation, and if not, there might be a prolonged free trial you can use before monthly or annual fees.
Moreover, pay attention to hidden pricing loopholes such as flat-rate vs per-user pricing, or paying for unnecessary extra functionality.
A vendor that is completely unwilling to negotiate, or offers suspicious pricing with a lot of hidden fees is in all likelihood not going to be a good long-term partner for your company. Think strongly before proceeding as you may regret your decision in the course of time.
Step 4: Implementation
Once you've purchased, it's time to bring about your new system. Contingent upon how deeply ingrained your previous platform was, or how complex the integration is, this process might be a bit complex. Here are a few tips to help you ease the transition.
Inform your team on the new automation platform, advise them to view demos, or acquire some training. It's important for long-term scalability that each of your teams use the tool in line with best practices instead of implementing their own individual uses.
Consult with customer support when needed for technical difficulties.
Enlist the help of a solutions partner like Wave.
While a bunch of software businesses have technical support for issues] relating directly to their tool, regularly, problems around best practices and implementation optimization are out of their range.
We can give you a hand in rolling out new tools in an incremental approach that makes the most sense for your organization and results in as little dead time as possible while ensuring that everyone knows how to use the platform according to best practices.
Start Your Organization’s Digital Transformation with Wave
Manual business processes impede your business, which leads to bottlenecks, disjointed workflows, misplaced information, and human error. This decreases productivity, leads to upscaled expenses, loosens your control over the business, and can ultimately hinder your long-term feasibility and scalability.
Wave assists your business to execute automation solutions and content management systems (CMS) that facilitate your processes end-to-end, automate tedious, repetitive work, and can incorporate with any ERP system of your choosing.
While we work predominantly with ECM systems like OpenText, M-Files, and SharePoint, we're pleased to work with any system you're currently utilizing.
Instead of tearing out deeply-rooted legacy tools, we can go hand in hand your system and implement supportive tooling that can complement and greatly improve your present systems.
We can also deliver our automation platform as an on-premise or cloud-based solution to work with your compliance requirements and budget.
If you'd like to learn more about how Wave can assist digital transformation and business process automation in your organization, contact us today.