One of the most crucial tasks for every company is to find a way to ensure the highest business productivity at the lowest costs. In some cases, such a combination may seem impossible or not feasible. To achieve a bigger quantity of the produced items or performed tasks, a lot of businesses have to sacrifice the provided quality. This is definitely not the best solution. But what if we say that you do not need to make any concessions, to achieve your business goals? This sounds rather interesting, right? And that’s exactly what you can get with the correctly chosen business process automation strategies.
What is business process automation?
The concept of business process automation (BPA) presupposes the use of technology to perform recurring tasks and reach better efficiency. In other words, technologies are applied to replace manual effort to improve productivity, reduce operational costs, streamline processes, minimize errors, and enable employees to focus on more strategic activities. Moreover, with automation, business process execution becomes more regulatory-compliant as it allows companies to enforce standard procedures to meet the existing requirements.
Examples of business process automation
In the modern business world, there are dozens of examples where automation can make sense. While some use cases can be domain- or even company-specific, some others are quite common. Here are a couple of examples for your consideration.
- Human resources (HR). It is possible to automate the process of collecting employee information, document verification, and setting up accounts. Moreover, with automation, recruiters can efficiently streamline job postings, candidate screening, and interview scheduling.
- Sales and marketing. Automated systems can capture, qualify, and assign leads to sales representatives. They can be also used to facilitate email scheduling, CRM updates, and work with sales quotes and proposals. An example—is the project of our team, an app for a travel agency that we built to track client information.
- Finance and accounting. In this sphere, it is worth automating invoice generation, validation, payment tracking, salary calculations, and approval workflows for employee reimbursements.
- Customer service. Digital solutions can analyze, assign, and prioritize customer inquiries to appropriate teams, as well as automate surveys and feedback collection.
- Healthcare. Business process automation can be of great help for patient record management, appointment scheduling, reporting, and billing. A good example from our practice is the development of a mobile app that was expected to connect vet clinics and pet owners. Among all the available features, it’s worth mentioning scheduling and management of appointments.
Key features of business process automation
Before considering business process automation strategies, you need to get a good understanding of the core BPA features and elements.
- Workflow automation and management. It helps to automate sequential tasks and approvals within a process, as well as implements predefined rules to ensure consistent execution.
- Task scheduling and triggering. It is able to schedule tasks to run at specific times or trigger them based on certain events.
- Real-time monitoring and reporting. It provides dashboards for tracking the progress and performance. Moreover, with its help, users can see bottlenecks and inefficiencies to continuously improve their business processes.
- Integration. Automation solutions allow businesses to connect different systems, like CRM and ERP, to enable seamless data flow.
- Notifications and alerts. Automation tools can send notifications and alerts to users about task updates, approvals, or deadlines.
- Scalability and customization. A good modern business process automation platform should allow users to customize workflows to meet specific needs. Moreover, it should support scaling up. This is important to accommodate increased workloads or expanded operations.
How to choose the right business process automation strategy
Business process automation strategies can vary based on the needs and peculiarities of your activities. That’s why their development and implementation require a complex approach. At Akveo, we have rich experience in process automation, which allowed us to prepare a universal plan for building a business process automation strategy.
Step 1. Identify processes suitable for automation.
You need to analyze existing workflows to define repetitive, time-consuming, and error-prone tasks. We always recommend our customers focus on processes that will provide the highest ROI after automation. For example, this could be HR or customer support tasks.
Step 2. Set clear goals.
You should define specific outcomes that you want to get:
- To reduce process completion time;
- To cut operational costs;
- To improve accuracy, etc.
It will be helpful to apply the principles of SMART goals. It means that your goals should be Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, and Time-bound.
For example, if we are talking about cost reduction, you need to add more details, like: We should reduce our expenses related to hiring by 20%. This should be achieved in 4 months after the implementation of automation tools for candidate screening and interview scheduling. These tools will allow recruiters to reduce the time typically allocated for such tasks.
Always establish key performance indicators (KPIs) to measure success.
Step 3. Use the right tools and technologies
Today the tech market offers a wide range of solutions of different types and complexity for automating business processes. Though it is impossible to name all the available options, we’d like to share at least the most commonly applied types of such tools.
- Robotic process automation (RPA). These solutions rely on so-called bots that are designed to mimic human actions. They are able to automate repetitive, rule-based tasks like data entry and report generation. You can find more information about RPA here.
- AI and ML. The role of AI in business automation shouldn’t be underestimated. Artificial intelligence and machine learning are widely applied today to implement intelligent decision-making and predictive analytics. Moreover, AI is often used now to power chatbots for customer support.
- Low-code and no-code tools. A low-code business process automation platform can become an excellent solution for businesses that are looking for simple and efficient ways to build and manage their workflows. These platforms allow companies across various industries to avoid expensive and time-consuming custom app development processes. Modern tools of this type provide broad possibilities for customization and integration with external systems and services. It means that even rather complex enterprise-level processes can be successfully automated.
Step 4. Simplify processes.
You need to streamline workflows by removing unnecessary steps. That’s why to make automation implementation easier, you should eliminate all redundancies. Nevertheless, you need to leave space for scaling up. Your processes should be able to deal with increased workloads as your business grows.
Step 5. Develop a phased implementation plan.
It’s very challenging and sometimes even impossible to automate all your existing processes just at once. That’s why well-thought-out business process automation strategies always start with small, manageable pilot programs. They are simple to introduce. And at the same time, they help to validate the benefits of automation.
After the initial success of smaller projects, you can proceed to more complex workflows.
Implementation of business process automation: Practical tips
When you have a good business process automation strategy, you need to introduce it in the right way. And here’s what you can do, to make all the changes as smooth as possible.
Tip 1. Train and support employees.
When introducing automation, your main idea should be not to replace your employees but to facilitate processes by giving them powerful digital tools. Every user of automation solutions should know all their benefits and functionality.
Given this, you need to provide training to help employees understand and use automation tools effectively. You should be ready to address resistance to change by highlighting how automation benefits people’s roles. Let’s be honest, automation greatly helps to deal with those tasks that employees typically do not like at all. Instead of handling monotonous boring processes, people will have time to focus on more creative and strategically important processes.
Tip 2. Support cross-departmental collaboration.
You should try to involve in your automation projects all stakeholders, including IT specialists, business teams, and managers. With efficient communication, you can ensure that automation meets all organizational needs. Working together and discussing the existing processes, all team members will help you find the best approaches to automation.
Moreover, if you choose a relevant no-code or low-code business automation process platform, non-tech experts will be able to participate in building apps and workflows.
{{cta}}
Tip 3. Monitor and optimize your automation efforts.
It is not enough just to implement automation once and leave it as it is. It is obligatory to regularly evaluate automated processes against predefined KPIs and identify areas for improvement. To facilitate this task, you can use analytics tools.
To ensure long-term benefits, you need to continuously update automation workflows. This is explained by the fact that your business requirements continuously evolve and something that worked well a year ago, won’t be the most appropriate idea now.
Should you hire business automation consultants?
If you have enough knowledge and information, you can create your business process automation strategy on your own. However, to be sure that you will be able to reach the desired results, it can be a good idea to consider establishing cooperation with professional business automation consultants.
That’s not a rare case when businesses invest quite impressive amounts of money into automation solutions but can’t ensure the expected productivity. And many tasks still have to be performed manually. As a result, such projects lead to extra expenses, instead of reducing operating costs. That’s why to avoid time and money losses, it’s vital not to make a mistake and not to go in the wrong direction.
To be on the safe side and succeed on the first try, it’s worth investing in business process automation consulting. If you want to get more information about such services, we recommend you read one of the recently published articles on our blog. To do it, just follow the link.
Already looking for professionals who will support you in finding the right approach to automating your business processes? At Akveo, we are always open to cooperation. For more than 9 years, we have been successfully working with companies from different domains. This helped us accumulate exclusive expertise. We can understand various business needs and offer the most efficient solutions to address them. Do not hesitate to contact us to learn more about our services.
Lead Generation Tool to Reduce Manual Work
Our client, Afore Capital, a venture capital firm focused on pre-seed investments, aimed to automate their lead generation processes but struggled with existing out-of-the-box solutions. To tackle this challenge, they sought assistance from our team of Akveo Retool experts.
The scope of work
The client needed a tailored solution to log and track inbound deals effectively. They required an application that could facilitate the addition, viewing, and editing of company and founder information, ensuring data integrity and preventing duplicates. Additionally, Afore Capital aimed to integrate external tools like PhantomBuster and LinkedIn to streamline data collection.
The result
By developing a custom Retool application, we streamlined the lead generation process, significantly reducing manual data entry. The application enabled employees to manage inbound deals efficiently while automated workflows for email parsing, notifications, and dynamic reporting enhanced operational efficiency. This allowed Afore Capital's team to focus more on building relationships with potential founders rather than on administrative tasks.
Learn more about the case
Retool CMS Application for EdTech Startup
Our client, CutTime, a leading fine arts education management platform, needed a scalable CMS application to improve vendor product management and user experience.
The scope of work
We developed a Retool application that allows vendors to easily upload and manage product listings, handle inventory, and set shipping options. The challenge was to integrate the app with the client’s system, enabling smooth authentication and product management for program directors.
The result
Our solution streamlined product management, reducing manual work for vendors, and significantly improving operational efficiency.
Building Reconciliation Tool for e-commerce company
Our client was in need of streamlining and simplifying its monthly accounting reconciliation process – preferably automatically. But with a lack of time and low budget for a custom build, development of a comprehensive software wasn’t in the picture. After going through the case and customer’s needs, we decided to implement Retool. And that was the right choice.
The scope of work
Our team developed a custom reconciliation tool designed specifically for the needs of high-volume transaction environments. It automated the processes and provided a comprehensive dashboard for monitoring discrepancies and anomalies in real-time.
The implementation of Retool significantly reduced manual effort, as well as fostered a more efficient and time-saving reconciliation process.
Creating Retool Mobile App for a Wine Seller
A leading spirits and wine seller in Europe required the development of an internal mobile app for private client managers and administrators. The project was supposed to be done in 1,5 months. Considering urgency and the scope of work, our developers decided to use Retool for swift and effective development.
The scope of work
Our developers built a mobile application tailored to the needs of the company's sales force: with a comprehensive overview of client interactions, facilitated order processing, and enabled access to sales history and performance metrics. It was user-friendly, with real-time updates, seamlessly integrated with existing customer databases.
The result? Increase in productivity of the sales team and improved decision-making process. But most importantly, positive feedback from the customers themselves.
Developing PoC with Low Code for a Tour Operator
To efficiently gather, centralize, and manage data is a challenge for any tour operator. Our client was not an exception. The company was seeking to get an internal software that will source information from third-party APIs and automate the travel itinerary creation process. Preferably, cost- and user-friendly tool.
The scope of work
Our experts ensured the client that all the requirements could be covered by Retool. And just in 40 hours a new software was launched. The tool had a flexible and easy-to-use interface with user authentication and an access management system panel – all the company needed. At the end, Retool was considered the main tool to replace the existing system.
Testing New Generation of Lead Management Tool with Retool
Our client, a venture fund, had challenges with managing lead generation and client acquisition. As the company grew, it aimed to attract more clients and scale faster, as well as automate the processes to save time, improve efficiency and minimize human error. The idea was to craft an internal lead generation tool that will cover all the needs. We’ve agreed that Retool will be a perfect tool for this.
The scope of work
The project initially began as a proof of concept, but soon enough, with each new feature delivered, the company experienced increased engagement and value.
We developed a web tool that integrates seamlessly with Phantombuster for data extraction and LinkedIn for social outreach. Now, the company has a platform that elevates the efficiency of their lead generation activities and provides deep insights into potential client bases.
Building an Advanced Admin Portal for Streamlined Operations
Confronted with the need for more sophisticated internal tools, an owner of IP Licensing marketplace turned to Retool to utilize its administrative functions. The primary goal was to construct an advanced admin portal that could support complex, multi-layered processes efficiently.
The scope of work
Our client needed help with updating filters and tables for its internal platform. In just 30 hours we've been able to update and create about 6 pages. Following features were introduced: add complex filtering and search, delete records, styling application with custom CSS.
Together, we have increased performance on most heavy pages and fixed circular dependency issues.
Creating MVP Dashboard for Google Cloud Users
Facing the challenge of unoptimized cloud resource management, a technology firm working with Google Cloud users was looking for a solution to make its operations more efficient. The main idea of the project was to create an MVP for e-commerce shops to test some client hypotheses. Traditional cloud management tools fell short.
The scope of work
Determined to break through limitations, our team of developers turned Retool. We decided to craft an MVP Dashboard specifically for Google Cloud users. This wasn't just about bringing data into view; but about reshaping how teams interact with their cloud environment.
We designed a dashboard that turned complex cloud data into a clear, strategic asset thanks to comprehensive analytics, tailored metrics, and an intuitive interface, that Retool provides. As the results, an increase in operational efficiency, significant improvement in cost management and resource optimization.
Elevating CRM with Custom HubSpot Sales Dashboard
Our other client, a SaaS startup, that offers collaborative tools for design and engineering teams, was on a quest to supercharge their sales efforts. Traditional CRM systems were limited and not customizable enough. The company sought a solution that could tailor HubSpot to their workflow and analytics needs.
The scope of work
Charged with the task of going beyond standard CRM functions, our team turned to Retool. We wanted to redefine how sales teams interact with their CRM.
By integrating advanced analytics, custom metrics, and a user-friendly interface, our developers provided a solution that transformed data into a strategic asset.
In 40 hours, three informative dashboards were developed, containing the most sensitive data related to sales activities. These dashboards enable our customer to analyze sales and lead generation performance from a different perspective and establish the appropriate KPIs.
Building a PDF Editor with Low-Code
Our client, a leading digital credential IT startup, needed a lot of internal processes to be optimized. But the experience with low-code tools wasn’t sufficient. That’s why the company decided to hire professionals. And our team of developers joined the project.
The scope of work
The client has a program that designs and prints custom badges for customers. The badges need to be “mail-merged” with a person’s info and turned into a PDF to print. But what is the best way to do it?
Our developers decided to use Retool as a core tool. Using custom components and JavaScript, we developed a program that reduced employees' time for designing, putting the data, verifying, and printing PDF badges in one application.
As a result, the new approach significantly reduces the time required by the internal team to organize all the necessary staff for the conference, including badge creation.
