Finding The Best Business Process Automation Software Guide For Enterprise Buyers
If you're reading this, it’s probably that your company is considering business process automation software.
With business process automation functionality, you can simplify routine, rules-based workflows. Mechanizing these types of business tasks produces more efficiency in enterprise resource planning (ERP), greater cost savings, and improved usage of your workforce.
While most enterprise businesses today have implemented some form of automation, digital transformation, or process optimization, many fail to recognize the full capabilities of automation innovations and struggle to phase out remaining tedious manual workflows.
While partially automated processes will deliver minimal edge, they can also deterring you in the end.
In this enterprise buyer's guide, we'll explain what business process automation is, how it operates, its advantages, and the specifications you need to consider when assessing BPA software.
So let's get to it!
What is Business Process Automation: A Primer
Business process automation (BPA), also called business process management (BPM), is the process of using technology to streamline routine, standards-based tasks such as transmitting documents, data-entry, processing payments, or classifying documents.
Taking advantage of automation can drastically enhance an organization's scalability by streamlining tasks, establishing efficiency, and eliminating manual tasks which allows your personnel to focus on tasks that augment the business.
Up-to-date automation platforms, like those you're likely evaluating, implement state-of-the-art technologies like artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning (ML), and robotic process automation (RPA) to take care of repetitive work on a person’s behalf.
Conclusively, people are still your greatest resource, but through system automation, your teammates can work more rapidly on more important tasks instead of having their time wasted by tedious manual tasks.
The Benefits of Business Process Automation
Beneath are just a small amount of the awesome benefits of BPA or automated software.
Eliminates Human Error
Streamlines Repetitive Tasks
Eliminates Inefficiencies
Deters Suspicious Activity
Creates Cost-Savings
Enhances Vendor Relationships and Customer Satisfaction
Decreased Supplier Inquiries
Enhances Better Transparency into Processes
Higher ROI
Use Cases for Business Process Automation
Any organization that has tiresome, continual tasks can improve from process automation tools. 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 corresponds to your organization starts with identifying your current workflow, finding opportunities for automation and assessing the marketplace for tools.
1. Define Your Business Needs
Before ever evaluating application options, the key thing to do is to determine your organizational needs.
Disregarding this aspect could result in acquiring application that ultimately restrains your business, or selecting additional features that are unnecessary. Gather your department heads to discuss the following:
What tasks are ideal candidates for automation?
Do you need the technology for a specific department, or can the application be used by numerous departments?
Are there any bottlenecks that prohibit you from launching a new system?
How many users will require access to the application? What are their duties?
2. Conducting Pre-Purchase Research
As soon as you have your core needs determined, you can start looking for potential solutions. There is a lot you can research on your own before reaching out to a vendor or entering a high-pressure sales negotiation.
Here are few resources you can typically find on technology 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 immediately request for customized price quotes from the solutions you're keen on learning about.
While many software websites offer pricing, nearly all business process management tools simply offer starting prices and will need more information about your business to arrange a conclusive forecast model for you.
If your business uses a more conventional acquisition process, this would be the time to commence sending the initial requests for information (RFI) which categorically outlines your requirements for potential vendors.
When you communicate with potential sellers, it's important that you get all of your queries answered and see to it that the tool meets all of your needs. This will help you diminish vendor options during purchase later on.
4. Understanding Licensing Structures
Among the major important budget considerations for an automation software is the licensing structure. There is an assortment of user models that software businesses use and it can have an extreme impact on the total cost of ownership. Here are some of the most frequently used structures:
Per-seat or per-user licensing: means that pricing is set per person. This is why it's very important to determine your maximum number of users.
Maximum user licensing: This is total pricing with the complete number of users allotted with additional seats 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 most often pay once and use indefinitely, whereas a subscription price will need to be renewed
The pricing model that best suits for your organization will finally depend on the budget, total users or site locations, in addition to the degree of flexibility you want. As an example, if you'd choose not be locked into a long-term investment, you might favor a subscription model that you can revoke anytime.
5. Deployment Models
The deployment model is one more crucial consideration as your business could have special legal or compliance-related requirements that dictate you use just one type of infrastructure.
Take for example, many businesses in the healthcare and government division have precise rules which stipulate they keep all computing and application infrastructure on-premise and that any new platform be accredited in compliant in a specific structure like HIPAA or FedRAMP.
Several vendors offer several deployment options precisely for this reason. These can be divided into two essential groups: on-premises, off-premises, or hybrid deployment.
On-premises (Data Center): This hosting option compels your organization to deploy the software via your on-premise data center environment. In doing so, your business retains full control over the installation, architecture, administration, maintenance, and data security.
This limits the scope of risk involved with subcontracting deployment to a third party, but it also adds to your duties and includes its own level of risk.
Take for example, disregarding routine updates and backups may set your organization up in a risky situation if a data breach or tragedy arises. But as aforementioned, for some in a compliance-heavy business, there may not be an option here.
Off-premises (Cloud-based): For businesses that have no compliance commitments, or have regulated demands that a cloud option can meet, this option may be a lot more tantalizing.
This is due to the fact that cloud deployments grant the organization the opportunity to offload much of the administrative and maintenance troubles it would usually be obligated to.
Moreover, an abundance of enterprise-level technology is built on best-in-class infrastructures specifically AWS or Azure and supplies redundancy, reliability, and even service level agreements (SLAs) if you seek more uptime guarantee.
Hybrid (Mixed) Deployment: The third alternative, for those that want to make the most out of cloud innovation but work in a compliance-heavy business, is a hybrid or mixed deployment.
While a little more intricate, a hybrid environment would contain 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
Another key consideration is the implementation requirements, in favor of the software vendor, for your business. Just because you might feel like using a certain tool, doesn't imply that your present capabilities are enough to run it. For this reason, it's essential to consider the following:
Configurability. Does the software come with all essential functionality once purchased, or will it require some refining once installed? This is essential to know to assure you can fully utilize your investment and get off to a good start.
System requirements. In theevent of an on-premise deployment, do you have the whole necessary hardware to handle the software properly? If not, your overall investment could be compromised.
Elasticity. Can the software scale to fulfill higher demand as your organization grows, if the maximum number of simultaneous users are online, or if your foundation causes a utilization load spike? It's necessary to single out an automation software that can scale to adapt to growth or a utilization flux. Many SaaS and cloud options supply auto-scaling as the need emerges, because a large part of on-premise deployments demand that auto-routing while load spikes is implemented in advance.
7. Integration capabilities
Another essential consideration is integration potential. While the notion of an all-in-one solution is a wonderful concept, it often doesn't work that way. Especially with automation, the automation tool will need to communicate with multiple systems and other software in accordance with how many business units are resorting to it.
That being said, you must grant your potential vendors with an entire list of all systems and tools to certify that your automation software can properly incorporated with each.
Alternatively, if a distinct tool does not appear under integrations, does the tool vendor grant an application programming interface (API) so that a developer can connect your systems his or herself?
If there isn't a preconfigured integration in ready for your other systems, and the API either is null or is tremendously difficult to use, it probably isn’t the finest fit for your company.
8. Customer Support
One more critical, yet often overlooked quality is convenient customer support. Often, companies are not aware of the worth of great customer support until they really need it and it's unavailable.
Every single software vendor has its own particular customer support offering which can be 24/7/365 or restricted to certain hours. They typically also have a scope for their customer support services - issues they will assist and issues they won't.
More often than not, basic customer support is given for issues linked to the platform itself, however, concerns that are customer-centric (i.e. implementation issues, best practices, etc) may solely be accessible at a premium, if at all.
Regardless, it's important that you recognize what the amount of your customer support offers, its accessibility, and the options at your disposal (i.e. ticket service, phone, email, chat, etc). Additionally, as your staff is learning to operate automation software, it's key that they have training resources conveniently attainable, whether live or pre-built.
Examples include:
Webinars
Guides
Training Labs
Tutorial Videos
Instruction Manuals/Documentation
Community Help Forums
9. Security
Another important consideration is the platform security measures. With an automation platform, it's probable that it will have some sort of connection with sensitive data, thus, it’s important to be sure that any data utilized is secure against unauthorized access. See to it that your platform grants the subsequent security features:
Access management to control who can access the platform.
Permission controls to identify what a user can and can't have contact with while working with the tool.
Compliance certification (if [required) to ascertain that the seller has met all its responsibilities to adhere to any legal regulations that your company is liable for.
10. Ease-of-use
In conclusion, it's of the utmost importance that the software is intuitive and convenient for your team members. An overly-complex user interface can be the cause of lost production as you appropriate time and resources toward having your employees train on how to properly operate the tool.
Offerings same as a free trial can help secure your teams appreciate the software before purchasing. Also, demos, training resources, and process templates can do a great deal for the learning period as all tools, even intuitive ones, will require some sort of adjustment period.
The Procurement Process
After your organization has examined the entire evaluation criteria and you distinguish what you're looking for, it's time to start considering your options, examining and reducing your choices, and ultimately buying and actualizing the product.
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 developed a list of potential suppliers during the evaluation process. Now’s the time to remove any that don't meet your needs and narrow down your short-list. When your short-list is developed, compare your options on the basis of the following traits:
Price
Features
Free Trial Options
Security and Compliance Capabilities
Customer Support
Step 2: Schedule Demos
With likely only 2-3 options left, it's now time to figure out what the capacity of the tool is. Not only will this assist you to evaluate functionality, but it will also provide you with a sense of the product's ease of use. If it has an excessively complex user interface or it seems like it will require a precipitous learning curve, it most likely isn’t the best fit.
Step 3: Making the Purchase
When you've made your final selection, don't just go along with the full selling price. There may be some wiggle room for negotiation, and if not, there may be a prolonged free trial you can use before monthly or annual payments.
Furthermore, keep an eye out for hidden pricing minutiae such as flat-rate vs per-user pricing, or paying for nonessential extra functionality.
A seller that is completely unwilling to negotiate, or imparts questionable 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 going through with it as you may regret your decision down the road.
Step 4: Implementation
When you've made your purchase, it's time to bring about your new system. Depending on how deeply embedded your previous software was, or how complicated the integration is, this procedure might get a bit complicated. Here are a few tips to help you facilitate the transition.
Inform your staff on the new automation platform, advise them to view demos, or get some training. It's important for long-term scalability that each of your teams use the platform in line with best practices rather than implementing their own individual uses.
Involve customer support when required for technical problems.
Hire the help of a solutions partner like Wave.
While a bunch of software businesses have technical support for difficulties] with regard to their tool, regularly, difficulties around best practices and implementation optimization are beyond their scope.
We can can be of assistance in the roll out of new tools in a gradual procedure that makes the most sense for your organization and results in as little layoff as possible while ensuring that everyone knows how to use the tool according to best practices.
Start Your Organization’s Digital Transformation with Wave
Manual business processes disrupt your business, leading to bottlenecks, incoherent workflows, misplaced information, and human error. This reduces overall productivity, leads to greater expenses, weakens your control over the business, and can ultimately obstruct your long-term feasibility and scalability.
Wave aids businesses like yours to execute automation solutions and content management systems (CMS) that simplify your operation end-to-end, automate tedious, recurrent work, and can integrate with any ERP system you choose.
While we work profoundly with ECM systems like OpenText, M-Files, and SharePoint, we're pleased to work with whichever system you're currently using.
Instead of tearing out deep-seated legacy tools, we can come alongside your system and execute supportive tooling that can correlate and enhance your present systems.
We’d be happy to convey our automation platform as an on-premise or cloud-based solution to work with your compliance needs and budget.
If you'd like to learn more about how Wave can contribute to digital transformation and business process automation in your organization, contact us today.