Finding The Best Business Process Automation Software Guide For Enterprise Buyers
If you're reading this, it’s probably that your business is examining business process automation software.
With the capabilities of business process automation you can streamline tedious, rules-based tasks. Automating these types of business tasks creates more yield in enterprise resource planning (ERP), larger cost savings, and improved operation of your manpower.
Even though most enterprise companies today have applied some form of automation, digital transformation, or process optimization, many fail to recognize the full scope of automation functionality and struggle to terminate remaining tedious manual processes.
While partially automated processes will deliver some edge, they can also costing you in the end.
In this enterprise buyer's guide, we'll clarify what business process automation is, how it functions, its advantages, and the criteria you have to study when assessing BPA applications.
So let's dive right in!
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 simplify routine, standards-based tasks such as transmitting documents, data-entry, processing payments, or organizing documents.
Utilizing automation can substantially enhance an organization's scalability by streamlining workflows, improving productivity, and eliminating gruntwork which permits your personnel to focus on tasks that develop the business.
Up-to-date automation platforms, like those you're presumably assessing, implement innovative technologies like artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning (ML), and robotic process automation (RPA) to perform repetitive work on a person’s behalf.
Fundamentally, humans are still your most powerful resource, but through workflow automation, your teammates can work faster on more growth-focused tasks rather than having their time monopolized by routine manual tasks.
The Benefits of Business Process Automation
Written below are just some of the formidable benefits of BPA or automated software.
Eliminates Human Error
Streamlines Tedious Tasks
Reduces Inefficiencies
Deters Fraudulent Activity
Creates Cost-Savings
Betters Supplier Relationships and Customer Satisfaction
Lessens Supplier Inquiries
Delivers Better Visibility into Tasks
Greater ROI
Use Cases for Business Process Automation
Any company that has tiresome, repetitive tasks can benefit from process automation technology. Some of the most prevalent business and industry use cases include:
HR New Employee Onboarding
CRM Processes
Social Media
Evaluation Factors for Business Process Automation Software
Choosing the process automation technology that relates to your business starts with looking at your current business processes, pinpointing prime targets for automation and searching the marketplace for applications.
1. Define Your Business Needs
Before ever assessing software options, the primary thing to do is to determine your company needs.
Turning a blind eye to this aspect could cause obtaining software that ultimately doesn't grow with your business, or purchasing additional features that are irrelevant. Gather your department heads to discuss the following:
What tasks are prime candidates for automation?
Do you need the software for a specific department, or can the technology be used by a number of departments?
Are there any blockers that keep you from deploying a new system?
How many employees will require access to the system? What are their responsibilities?
2. Conducting Pre-Purchase Research
As soon as you have your foundational needs established, you can start looking for probable solutions. There are several things you can research on your own before discussing with a vendor or entering a high-pressure sales discussion.
Here are few resources you can typically find on solution websites or from a Google search that will help you conduct 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 keen on learning about.
While numerous software websites offer pricing, the majority of business process management platforms simply offer starting prices and will ask for more information about your business to prepare a definitive estimation model for you.
If your organization uses a more standard attainment process, this would be the time to start sending the initial requests for information (RFI) which categorically drafts 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 diminish vendor options during the final decision later on.
4. Understanding Licensing Structures
One of the most important budget considerations for an automation software is the licensing structure. There is an assortment of user models that software companies 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 maximum number of users.
Maximum user licensing: This is total pricing with the total number of users allotted with additional licenses available for an additional cost.
Site licensing: Rather than per user, this type of licensing allows you to use the tool 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 ultimately depend on the budget, total users or site locations, in addition to the degree of flexibility you want. For example, if you'd choose not be held into a long-term investment, you might go for a subscription model that you can revoke anytime.
5. Deployment Models
The deployment model is one more important deliberation as your organization could have special legal or compliance-related requirements that impose you use just one type of infrastructure.
Take for example, many organizations in the healthcare and government division have meticulous codes which demand they control all computing and application infrastructure on-premise and that any new platform be licensed in compliant in a specific framework like HIPAA or FedRAMP.
Many vendors provide an assortment of deployment options because of this. These can be separated into two fundamental groups: on-premises, off-premises, or hybrid deployment.
On-premises (Data Center): This hosting option calls for your organization to use the software with your on-premise data center environment. That being the case, your company keeps outright control over the installation, architecture, administration, maintenance, and data security.
This limits the extent of risk involved with subcontracting deployment to a third party, but it also increases your responsibilities and includes its own level of risk.
Take for example, overlooking routine updates and backups may risk putting your organization in a dangerous position if a data breach or tragedy were ever to occur. But as stated previously, for some in a compliance-heavy enterprise, there may not be any other options here.
Off-premises (Cloud-based): For organizations that are either not obligated by compliance, or have regulated requirements that a cloud option can fulfill, this option may be much more appealing.
This stems from the fact that cloud deployments grant the organization the opportunity to offload a lot of the administrative and maintenance burdens it would usually be obligated to.
Moreover, an abundance of enterprise-level technology is incorporated on best-in-class infrastructures namely AWS or Azure and offers redundancy, reliability, as well as service level agreements (SLAs) if you seek more uptime guarantee.
Hybrid (Mixed) Deployment: The third option, for those that want to make the most out of cloud innovation but operate in a compliance-heavy enterprise, is a hybrid or mixed deployment.
While a bit more intricate, a hybrid environment would handle all your sensitive data and related features in an on-premise environment while your non-classified data and processes can be implemented in a cloud environment.
6. Implementation Requirements
A further key consideration is the implementation requirements, for the software vendor, for your organization. Just because you may have an inclination to a certain tool, doesn't mean your present capabilities are enough to run it. For this reason, it's crucial to look at the following:
Configurability. Does the software come with all needed functionality out of the box, or will it demand some refining once installed? This is important to know to guarantee you can get the most from your investment and get off to a good start.
System requirements. In theinstance of an on-premise deployment, do you have the entire prerequisite hardware to run the tool correctly? If not, your overall investment could be at risk.
Elasticity. Can the software scale to meet higher demand as your business cultivates, if the limit on the number of coincidental users are online, or if your framework incurs a utilization load spike? It's crucial to select an automation software that can scale to accommodate growth or a utilization flux. Many SaaS and cloud options provide auto-scaling as the need arises, whereas majority of on-premise deployments demand that auto-routing during load spikes is implemented in advance.
7. Integration capabilities
Another important concern is integration potential. While the notion of all together solution is a wonderful concept, it usually doesn't work that way. Specifically with automation, the automation tool has to communicate with various systems and other software in accordance with how many business units are utilizing it.
Therefore, you have to grant your potential vendors with a full list of all systems and tools to guarantee that your automation platform can properly incorporated with each.
Alternatively, if a particular tool is not listed under integrations, does the tool vendor provide an application programming interface (API) so that a developer can bridge your systems his or herself?
If there isn't a preformed integration in place for your other systems, and the API either is nonexistent or is taxing to use, it probably isn’t the finest fit for your business.
8. Customer Support
One more crucial, yet often overlooked quality is accessible customer support. Frequently, organizations don't realize the value of great customer support until they are in dire need of it and it's inaccessible.
Every single software vendor has its own particular customer support offering which can be 24/7/365 or limited to certain hours. They usually also have a range for their customer support services - issues they will assist and issues they won't.
Almost always, basic customer support is provided for issues connected to the software itself, however, problems that are customer-oriented (i.e. implementation issues, best practices, etc) may exclusively be available at a premium, if at all.
Either way, it's critical that you comprehend what the amount of your customer support provides, its handiness, 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 important that they have training resources accessible, whether live or pre-built.
Listed below are examples:
Webinars
Guides
Training Labs
Tutorial Videos
Instruction Manuals/Documentation
Community Help Forums
9. Security
Also a critical consideration is the tool security characteristics. With an automation platform, it's very likely that it will get in touch with sensitive data, therefore, it requires you to be confident that any data utilized is secure against prohibited access. See to it that your tool offers the subsequent security features:
Access management to control who can have contact with the software.
Permission controls to identify what a user can and can't have contact with while working with the platform.
Compliance certification (if [needed) to ascertain that the seller has met all its commitments to adhere to any legal regulations that your business is in charge of.
10. Ease-of-use
Lastly, it's important that the software is intuitive and convenient for your colleagues. An overly complicated user interface can bring about lost productivity as you allocate time and assets toward having your staff train on how to use the tool.
Offerings similar to a free trial can help make certain that your teams enjoy the product before purchasing. In addition, demos, training resources, and process templates can also go a long way to shorten the learning period as all tools, even intuitive ones, will oblige you to have some sort of adjustment period.
The Procurement Process
At the same time that your organization has examined the entire evaluation criteria and you know what you're searching for, it's time to start deliberating your options, examining and reducing your choices, and ultimately buying and bringing the product about.
Listed below is a step-by-step guide to assist 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. It is now time to take off any that don't fulfill your needs and taper down your short-list. Just after your short-list is prepare, compare your choices on the basis of the following characteristics:
Price
Features
Free Trial Options
Security and Compliance Capabilities
Customer Support
Step 2: Schedule Demos
With presumptively only 2-3 options left, it's now time to find out what the tool's capabilities are. Not only will this aid you to measure functionality, but it will also supply you with a sense of the product's ease of use. If it has an overly complicated user interface or it seems like it will require a precipitous learning curve, it probably isn’t the best fit.
Step 3: Making the Purchase
When you've made your final selection, don't just pay the full asking price. There may be some wiggle room for negotiation, and if not, there might be an expanded free trial you can use before monthly or annual payments.
Additionally, keep an eye out for hidden pricing minutiae 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 likely not going to be an excellent long-term partner for your company. Bear this in mind before proceeding as you may regret your decision in the course of time.
Step 4: Implementation
Once you've purchased, it's time to implement your new system. Influenced by how deep-seated your previous tool was, or how complex the integration is, this method might get a bit complicated. Here are a few suggestions to help you boost the transition.
Inform your team on the new automation platform, have them view demos, or get some training. It's critical for long-term scalability that each of your teams use the platform in accordance with best practices instead of implementing their own individual uses.
Contact customer support when required for technical problems.
Hire the help of a solutions partner like Wave.
While plenty of software businesses have technical support for difficulties] in connection to their tool, regularly, problems around best practices and implementation optimization are beyond their scope.
We can give you a hand in rolling out new software in an incremental approach that makes the most sense for your business and results in as little dead time as possible while guaranteeing that everyone knows how to use the tool according to best practices.
Start Your Organization’s Digital Transformation with Wave
Manual business processes slow your business down, which leads to bottlenecks, jumbled workflows, missing information, and human error. This diminishes productivity, leads to greater expenses, reduces your control over the business, and can eventually limit your long-term sustainability and scalability.
Wave aids businesses like yours to enforce automation solutions and content management systems (CMS) that facilitate your operation end-to-end, automate tedious, repetitive work, and can integrate with any ERP system of your choosing.
While we work predominantly with ECM systems like OpenText, M-Files, and SharePoint, we're perfectly willing to work with whatever system you're currently utilizing.
Rather than tearing out deep-seated legacy software, we can cooperate with your system and execute supportive tooling that can complement and develop your current systems.
We can also deliver our automation tools as an on-premise or cloud-based solution to work with your compliance needs and budget.
If you have any inquiries about how Wave can contribute to digital transformation and business process automation in your organization, contact us today.