How to Identify Process Automation Opportunities for Business

Think of a world where you do not lose customers or money because of a misplaced document, communication gap, or a delay in acting – all these errors can be easily prevented.

Robotic Process Automation makes it a reality. And, with automated processes in place, your company enjoys benefits like cost reduction, minimized errors, maximized ROI, and freeing your employees from mundane tasks – this list is endless.

The unvarnished truth is that process automation makes life easier for everyone, from customers to suppliers to employees to executives.

So, how about automating your business? Where should you start, what should you consider, how to select the perfect candidates for the automation process and what pitfalls should you avoid ensuring the success of your implementation?

You’ll find answers in this article. Keep on reading! But, first, you need to decide on what type of automation will be an ideal fit for your business process.

What Type of Automation is Available for Your Business Processes?

Considering the complexity of the process that is selected for automation, there are a handful of options:

RPA (Robotic Process Automation)

RPA is a one-stop solution to building more complex automation. RPA helps businesses to connect various tools like databases, CRM, SAPs, etc. and automates data processing and documents.

Thanks to automation platforms like UiPath, the development and integration usually get completed within a couple of weeks and are relatively low-cost. Not to forget, these platforms are also developed with the low-code principle, giving developers more time to focus on their coding skills than on the tool they are using.

Besides, there is also a consideration of user interface – RPA has the potential to automate any application by interacting with it using UI, the same as a human.

Tool-Dedicated Scripting

Tool-dedicated scripting is often used for automating simple tasks inside a specified application. Also, deployment takes a few days and is confined to a single application.

For example, Excel, Outlook rules, SAP scripting, and macros are a handful of them.

Dedicated Automation System

100% customized applications allow automation of numerous processes and tasks of the highest complexity, all in one place, starting from scratch. Besides, there is no limit to what can be accomplished here, but the same holds true for the potential cost.

The complete deployment time can be evaluated in a time frame of months or even years.

Automation Scripts

The automation scripts are written using a specific programming language, i.e. Python or PowerShell. They are used to automate a bit more complicated tasks. Furthermore, this automation still has some limited application interactions.

Though, developing and deploying these usually can take a few weeks.

Also, it empowers businesses to streamline workflows by connecting applications between different departments. By integrating automation, you not only save on man-hours but also boost the overall processes to curate a niche.

Besides, you can use simple tools and software to automate repetitive tasks with specific business logic and data, streamlining the processes and enhancing efficiency manifold.

But, the most frequently asked question remains: How Does Automation Help Businesses?

Here’s the answer!

How Does Automation Help Businesses?

Despite its nature, every business has the potential to automate its processes to accelerate the workflows and maximize productivity. For example,

• The HR department can boost the employee onboarding process.
• Customer service businesses can retrieve data and conversation logs in seconds to escalate concerns.
• Sales and marketing teams can also use automation for marketing emails, track sales proposals, and report hassle-free.
• Also, the finance department can easily manage accounts and payables more precisely.

Thus, it’s right to say that automation has something for each function. Besides, hiring an RPA developer makes more sense for businesses to implement automation across various functions to connect and streamline the business processes, improve compliance, drive better customer engagement and maximize business profitability.

Finally, Everything Funnels To What Processes To Automate?

But, wait!

How will you pick the right processes for automation? There are innumerable processes in an organization that can be automated. Although, the most crucial question at this point is – is it worth it?

Getting Started With Bots:

In the past, we’ve covered numerous aspects of automation in insurance, such as how AI and machine learning can streamline various processes as well as how you can prepare your workforce to automate. But how do you determine where to start leveraging this useful technology, and what can you expect from your first automation initiative?

Identifying Tasks For Automation:

There are likely countless processes throughout your organization that are ripe for automation. Virtually any task that is repeatable, high-volume, and standardized—or can be standardized—represents an opportunity.

Additional possibilities also include processes that:

• Involve a high degree of manual overhead
• Are prone to manual errors
• Have clearly defined business rules
• Are relatively stable and mature (i.e. not expected to go through major change or redesign in the future, such as a system overhaul)
• Are centrally governed and consistently followed
• Are less complex in terms of the number of systems/databases involved (preferably four or less) and number of steps involved

How to Pick The Right Processes for Automation?

For instance, if a manual execution of a process consumes a few hours a month, the development will take half a year.

• So, can this process be automated? Yes.
• But, shall this process be automated? No.

This part of the article will shed light on the factors you should consider before selecting the right process for automation:

Ease of Integration

“Ease of Integration” is an aspect that scales a process on the metric of stability, complexity, scalability and more for a clearer picture of what business activities can be easily automated. Besides, it will determine if a business process is well suited for automation.

• Stability – This focuses on how long the process will be executed in its present shape. How significant can the advancements be? For example, the taxation process changes every year. So, considering this, it’s not advisable to automate existing business logic as it will have to be redesigned again and again.
• Complexity – This consist of the number of different paths of execution and logical rules to address challenges in the integration process of RPA.
• Standardization – This is the process executed according to defined rules or rooted in human judgment.
• Data Accessibility – This focuses on whether required data is structured (pure text vs data tables) or digital (paper invoice vs invoice scan vs digital invoice).
• Scalability –? Scalability defines the capacity to manage many RPA robots to execute several different tasks.

Business Value

The Business Value of RPA is productivity, customer satisfaction and efficiency. To achieve this, it’s crucial to focus on everything from execution time costs to error costs. Let’s have a look!

• Execution Time Cost – This outlines the cost a company faces because of any delay in executing the process. Furthermore, delay in a specific process gushes the time of the employees and other processes related to it.
• Process Execution Cost – This aspect includes the cost and time required for the manual execution of the process.
• Process Error Costs – This includes how many errors happen during the manual processing, how crucial it is to confine the mistakes, and the company’s loss due to them.
• Other Inescapable Elements – SLAs, limited workforce availability and execution time, dynamic process growth, and other business KPIs.

The Add-Ons You Should Not Miss

• The? Economy Of Scales – With several processes using the same application or logic, some specific parts of automated processes can be reused, making other automation easier to create.
• Ice Breakers -” When you hire an RPA developer, ensure the initial processes automated in the organization shouldn’t be complicated and optimally inspired by employees.?

Process simplicity will help you avoid deadline violations, arguments, and other concerns, therefore making change management easier”.?

• Optimizers – Creating automation is an excellent opportunity to standardize the current process, develop process documentation, and optimize it.
• Enablers – Automating one process probably generates data that another process needs, i.e., uploading scanned invoices data to the database.

Now, without any ado, let’s uncover the business processes that are ideal for automation.

Development, Deployment, And Maintenance:

Automating a bad process will simply result in bad results being delivered faster.

Once you’ve identified a task you wish to automate, you must then standardize and streamline as many steps in the task as possible. Very few tasks can be automated 100%, so it is critical to determine which parts can be automated and which still need to be performed by a human.

Once your development team has mapped out the standard steps of the task, they will begin the process of building a bot—or multiple bots—capable of performing it. Depending on the complexity of the task, this could take anywhere from 2-3 months, and sometimes more to complete.

However, even once the bot is fully built and ready to be deployed, your journey isn’t over. Staff often need to be trained to interact with bots, and the amount of training required can vary based on factors such as your team’s comfort level with digital tools and whether the bot is attended or unattended.

In addition, you will need to start assessing the bot’s impact on your production systems as well as establishing methods of monitoring, reporting, incident handling, robot governance, information security protocols, and more. These processes will ensure bots remain an efficient part of your operations and will need to be carried out on a regular basis.

Hire Dedicated RPA Developers from India

RPA can help you automate a number of processes in your business like predictive maintenance, data entry, customer service support, remote healthcare, account reconciliation, Insurance claim management, KYC, and fraud detection.

Being one of the leading companies for dedicated RPA developers, we offer flexible hiring models that enable you to onboard remote RPA developers according to your business’s requirements.

RPA developers from Your Team in India can speed up the time-to-market of your automation solution. Our team of certified RPA developers have a proven track record of helping businesses boost productivity, streamline processes, and reduce overall operating costs by as much as 60%

Top Business Processes to Automate and Increase Efficiency

Are you still sitting on the fence about evaluating what processes to automate?

The answer to this question is tricky regarding your unique business needs and industry-oriented needs. Nevertheless, here are actionable process ideas which can be automated using RPA.

Remember, identifying business processes to automate is easy. Start with the most common and repetitive workflows that consume more time. Furthermore, even complicated workflows that require connected workflows or integration between different apps can also be automated.??

Especially for businesses planning to hire RPA developers to automate business processes, here’s the list of processes to consider.

1. Employee Onboarding/Offboarding Process

Employee onboarding/offboarding is a crucial function that businesses can easily automate.

Since employee onboarding and offboarding is a repetitive processes in companies and big enterprises, they can be automated by integrating HRIS and Active Directory platforms. In addition, businesses can save time in resolving other critical HR processes by automating the employee onboarding and offboarding process.

In addition, with quicker onboarding and offboarding, businesses can also save on operational costs and simultaneously manage employee access and provisioning with ease.

2. Inventory Fulfillment/Order to Cash

This is among the most complicated processes as it needs managing customer orders, processing invoices, order shipments, receipt of payment, and updating compliance documents.

However, no concrete reason will define that it’s complicated to get the complete process automated. From generating a sales order in CRM to updating the final payments and inventory management in ERP, you can easily automate everything.

Considering the cash automation perspective, you can easily track the complete process without much flipping between excel sheets, emails, and documents. This ensures timely order fulfillment, improved customer experience, and optimal cash flow.

3. Customer Service Management

Customer service management is another domain that can be easily automated to expedite the customer resolution cycle. From creating incidents to recording conversations and escalating issues, businesses can track the complete customer support process in real time, leading to efficient customer service management and customer satisfaction.

4. Financial Reconciliation

Tracking finances and expenses are among the vital areas for business undefeatable success.

After all, a small mistake in calculating and interpreting financial reports can lead to incorrect insights leading to wrong decisions. So, automating financial reporting and reconciliation will help outline correct insights and help track budget and transactions, managing expenses once it reaches a predetermined level.

5. Supply Chain Management

Undoubtedly, automating order and supply chain processes can help businesses get a better and clear view of the movement of goods and expedite order fulfilment. This eventually results in better planning, execution, and management of all the underlying processes to uphold the customer value chain.

6. Insurance Claim Handling?

Often, insurance claims are registered through web apps by clients. And, web applications are not integrated with the claim handling system, so the claims must be copied to the targeted system.

This is done because of the voluminous connection with high error vulnerability that generates hefty process execution costs. Although business rules are clearly defined, there are multiple execution ways like claim types and defined exceptions, making it a high value and a high development process.

Is there enough momentum for it?

Before implementing the use case, make sure there is support for it in your organization.

• Advocate the benefits of automation with interested stakeholders. Before starting the project, identify the key stakeholders in the process and advocate the benefits of the process automation with them. Including them in the process will not only help to identify potential pain points, and ensure there will be enough assistance during the project implementation but also help ensure support from management.
• Get buy-in from upper management. Automation may require spending considerable time, human and financial resources (depending on the process, of course) before the positive effects of the automated process will be visible. Make sure the company’s management supports the implementation of automation and are aware of potential costs.

Neglecting these factors might result in a failed automation attempt even if the potential of process automation is very high.

Find more useful information about whether you need automation in your organization or how to identify the right business process for it in Automation Academy’s free Automation Essentials course.

Factors to Determine if a Process is Well-Suited for Automation

When considering what processes to automate, it is helpful to address and assess these factors:

1. Employee Involvement:

If employees spend a lot of time on repetitive tasks that are manual by nature, then automation can free time so it can be spent on more higher-value tasks. Many pivotal functions within an organization are well-suited for automation, such as data migration, data cleansing, claims processing and data manipulation, for example.

2. Complexity:

You can define a process’ complexity by the time it takes to complete, the need for human intervention or the number of steps involved. When automating complex jobs, a good rule of thumb is to start small and simple. First, automate simple tasks, see the results, and if all goes well, use that ROI to gain buy-in from stakeholders to invest in automating more complex processes.

3. Standardization and Stability:

Automation works best with repetitive tasks. These types of functions tend to take place in the back office, such as claims processing, accounting opening and transaction duplication, for example. While it is possible to automate front-office processes, they generally require more human intervention.

4. Volume:

Automation doesn’t sleep, and neither does business. Large quantities of processing and transactions can happen when your employees are off the clock. For this reason, automation can stand in and help to continue doing the work behind the scenes while the business is technically “closed.”

5. Outsourcing:

When it comes to outsourcing, businesses take on compliance risks, especially within the financial industry. However, replacing outsourced processes with automation can mitigate such risk and automation will log all of its work. Therefore, when it comes time for audits or regulatory checks, everything is available to be reviewed.

Finally, Rome Was Not Built In A Day!

So, before you step on the mission to integrate RPA in business, have a quick rundown of which processes can be automated to offer the most benefits. Then, brainstorm with the right RPA consultancy firm like YTII to evaluate RPA’s impact on policies, procedures, and people.

Notably, check several verticals and functions that would do good with automation.

Not to forget, do a little homework in selecting the best RPA developers that would offer a holistic solution to your business needs. You can easily mark the subtle difference by listing the strengths and weaknesses of each provider and then making a strategic decision.

Get in touch with industry experts to learn more about RPA integration in business processes that will help you stay ahead in your industry.

FAQ’s?

What processes can be automated through RPA?

Below are a handful of actionable ideas where integrating RPA in 2022 and ahead proves beneficial:

• Customer Service. Modern customers are accustomed to quick responses and effective solutions.
• Invoice Processing
• Sales Orders and cash process
• Payroll
• Price Comparison
• Employee onboarding/offboarding
• Storing Customer Information
• Processing HR Information
• Processing Fast Refunds
• Insurance claims
• Supply chain management

Which processes are best for RPA?

The right candidate for business processes to automate are as follows:

• The voluminous processes with manual handling
• High Volume Transactions – The processes or tasks that are repeated again and again at high volume.
• Rule Based Processes – Check for the processes if they can be described using a flowchart.

How does RPA increase efficiency?

There’s no doubt that RPA increases business processes efficiency manifold. Let’s have a look!

• Automate repetitive tasks
• Develop and deploy bots
• Rule-based process automation
• Create customized bots
• Extract data using bots
• Hassle-free data management
• Build and automate untold workflows
• Keep track of workflows effortlessly

What are the benefits of RPA??

There are endless benefits of RPA in business processes. But, here’s the significant one’s:

• Achieve accuracy goals with reliable consistency
• Boost productivity across the board
• Build a better customer service engagement
• Generate data for crucial analytics
• Improve efficiency to produce savings
• Capture opportunities for scale
• Enhance business data security