Top 10 Must-Haves of a Business Process Automation (BPA) Platform

In the current digital era we live in, businesses are no longer a collective of people working together to generate revenue but a complex network of business processes running simultaneously to manage the functioning of an organization. Individually managing all these processes is a logistical nightmare. So, to enable effortless and streamlined management of these processes, Business Process Automation or BPA was developed.

BPA is the process of automating complex business processes and functions across an organization through advanced technology solutions. The automation not only manages conventional data manipulation and record-keeping activities but also integrates applications to automate repetitive tasks.

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The Challenges of Integration

Integrating the myriad of business applications and the vast amount of data they generate is no easy task. The difficulties of integrating such vast volumes of data come down to five fundamental challenges.

Data is not available at the desired location

The different departments of a modern business do not operate in isolation. Data generated by the organization needs to be accessed centrally by each department to make proper strategic planning. Without a centralized common source of data, the different departments cannot access it when they need it. So, one of the primary challenges data integration faces is to provide a centralized platform for data accessibility.

Data is not available at the required time

Following up on the previous point, the data also needs to be made available in real-time to the different departments. Manually updating the data across the departments is a very time-consuming undertaking and often leads to the departments not having access to the latest data when necessary. Thus, the integration tool must have the capacity to share and update data across the entire infrastructure in real-time.

The data format is incorrect

The different business applications used by an organization often have their own unique data formats. Data formats that are incoherent need to be formatted and validated. Manually formatting and validating the data is a time-consuming process. Thus, the integration tool must have the functionality to overcome the challenge of homogenizing all the different data formats into a singular format for universal accessibility. The automation tool must have the capability to analyze the base language of the data, determine the needed format language and automatically make the change.

Data quality is poor

Poor data quality is one of the leading causes of revenue losses for businesses across the globe. That is why having appropriate data is necessary for driving innovations, staying compliant, and making effective business strategies. To maintain accurate data across the system, the automation tool needs to validate the data as soon as it is ingested into the system and thus, reduce the amount of bad data entering the database.

Presence of redundant data

Redundant or duplicate data can cause several issues within a company. From multiple data entries for a singular customer leading to inaccurate behavior analysis to lack of business efficiency, redundant data disrupts every step of a business process. To reduce cases of data duplication, the automation tool needs to validate all incoming data and create a singular unified source of information.

Taking the above points into consideration, a BPA solution needs to have a suite of robust features to efficiently enable process automation and help a business grow. With this in mind, the following are the top features a Business Process Automation (BPA) Platform needs to have to provide streamlined automation and help a business grow.

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