Finding The Best Business Process Automation Software Guide For Enterprise Buyers
If you're reading this, it’s presumable that your organization is examining business process automation software.
With business process automation functionality, you can simplify tedious, rules-based processes. Mechanizing these types of business tasks produces more efficiency in enterprise resource planning (ERP), greater cost savings, and better utilization of your human resources.
Although most enterprise businesses today have applied some form of automation, digital transformation, or process optimization, many fail to realize the full scope of automation technology and struggle to phase out remaining tedious manual processes.
While partially automated tasks will provide you with minimal 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 works, its superiority, and the parameters you have to study 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 action of using technology to establish routine, standards-based tasks such as routing documents, data-entry, routing payments, or organizing documents.
Capitalizing on automation can drastically better an organization's bottomline by streamlining tasks, establishing productivity, and eliminating manual tasks which enables 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 carry out repetitive tasks on a person’s behalf.
Fundamentally, people are still your best resource, but through workflow automation, your colleagues can work more rapidly on more important tasks in lieu of having their time consumed by repetitive manual tasks.
The Benefits of Business Process Automation
Beneath are just some of the awesome benefits of BPA or automated applications.
Reduces Human Error
Streamlines Repetitive Tasks
Decreases Inefficiencies
Deters Suspicious Activity
Facilitates Cost-Savings
Betters Supplier Relationships and Customer Satisfaction
Decreased Supplier Inquiries
Delivers Better Visibility into Workflows
Improved ROI
Use Cases for Business Process Automation
Any business that has tiresome, continual tasks can reap the rewards of process automation technology. Some of the most conventional 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 corresponds to your organization starts with looking at your existing operating procedures, finding prime targets for automation and searching the marketplace for applications.
1. Define Your Business Needs
Before ever weighing software options, the key thing to do is to determine your company needs.
Disregarding this aspect could lead to obtaining application that ultimately stagnates your business, or purchasing additional features that are irrelevant. Gather your department heads to discuss the following:
What workflows are good candidates for automation?
Do you need the technology for one department, or can the application be used by a number of departments?
Are there any bottlenecks that prohibit you from launching a new system?
How many team members will require access to the system? What are their roles?
2. Conducting Pre-Purchase Research
Once you have your base needs established, you can start looking for probable solutions. There are several things you can review 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 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 fundamental research, you can begin asking for customized price quotes from the solutions you're eager to learn about.
While many software websites offer pricing, the majority of business process management software simply offer starting prices and will request for more details about your business to prepare a final estimation model for you.
If your organization uses a more formal attainment process, this would be the time to start sending the initial requests for information (RFI) which respectively outlines your requirements for potential vendors.
As you discuss 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 requirements. This will help you lessen vendor options during procurement 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 tool companies use and it can have a profound 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 complete number of users.
Maximum user licensing: This is total pricing with the total number of users allotted with additional users available for an additional cost.
Site licensing: Rather than per user, this type of licensing allows you to use the platform 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 is best for your organization will ultimately depend on the budget, the amount of users or site locations, in addition to the degree of flexibility you want. As an example, if you'd rather not be locked into a long-term investment, you might opt for a subscription model that you can cancel should you feel the need.
5. Deployment Models
The deployment model is one more critical discussion as your organization can have special legal or compliance-related requirements that impose you use simply one type of infrastructure.
Take for example, many organizations in the healthcare and government sector have precise codes which stipulate they hold all computing and application infrastructure on-premise and that any new software be licensed in compliant in a specific structure like HIPAA or FedRAMP.
A lot of vendors present an assortment of 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 calls for your organization to use the software with your on-premise data center environment. That being the case, your business maintains outright control over the installation, architecture, administration, maintenance, and data security.
This limits the scope of risk concerned with outposting deployment to a third party, but it also increases your duties and has its own level of risk.
Take for example, overlooking routine updates and backups could set your organization up in a dangerous position if a data breach or emergency were ever to occur. But as stated previously, for some in a compliance-heavy industry, there may not be an option here.
Off-premises (Cloud-based): For organizations that are not bound by legal demands, or have regulated standards that a cloud option can satisfy, this alternative can be a lot more tantalizing.
This is due to the fact that cloud deployments allow your organization to get rid of much of the administrative and maintenance concerns it would under other conditions, be responsible for.
Furthermore, an abundance of enterprise-level technology is deep-seated on best-in-class infrastructures like AWS or Azure and supplies redundancy, reliability, not to mention service level agreements (SLAs) shall you want more uptime guarantee.
Hybrid (Mixed) Deployment: The third choice, for those that prefer to make the most out of cloud innovation but work in a compliance-heavy business, is a hybrid or mixed deployment.
Although being a bit more troublesome, a hybrid environment would contain all your sensitive data and related aspects in an on-premise environment while your non-classified data and processes can be implemented in a cloud environment.
6. Implementation Requirements
One more key deliberation is the implementation requirements, for the software vendor, for your business. Just because you can want to use a certain tool, doesn't imply that your existing capabilities are enough to run it. Thus, it's important to look at the following:
Configurability. Does the software come with all needed functionality once purchased, or will it demand some tweaking once installed? This is essential to know to ensure 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 jeopardized.
Elasticity. Can the platform scale to meet higher demand as your company cultivates, if the limit on the number of coincidental users are online, or if your foundation causes a utilization load spike? It's necessary to single out an automation platform that can scale to accommodate growth or a utilization flux. Several SaaS and cloud options provide auto-scaling as the need arises, whereas majority of on-premise deployments compel that auto-routing during load spikes is implemented ahead of time.
7. Integration capabilities
Another important concern is integration potential. While the notion of an all-in-one solution is a beautiful concept, it usually doesn't work that way. Particularly with automation, the automation tool has to correspond with different systems and other tools contingent on how many business units are taking advantage of it.
Therefore, you have to provide your potential vendors with an entire list of all systems and tools to certify that your automation software can be well-coordinated with each.
Alternatively, if a distinct tool is not listed under integrations, does the software vendor offer an application programming interface (API) so that a developer can link your systems his or herself?
If there isn't a pre-built integration in place for your other systems, and the API either is null or is taxing to use, it most likely isn’t the greatest fit for your company.
8. Customer Support
Yet another crucial, yet often overlooked aspect is available customer support. Oftentimes, companies are not aware of the value of good customer support until they really need it and it's inaccessible.
Every software vendor has its own different customer support offering whether it’s 24/7/365 or limited to specific hours. They commonly also have a range for their customer support services - issues they will facilitate and issues they won't.
Most often, basic customer support is given for issues connected to the tool itself, nonetheless, concerns that are customer-centric (i.e. implementation issues, best practices, etc) may only be accessible at a premium, if at all.
Regardless, it's critical that you recognize what your level of customer support presents, its availability, 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 crucial that they have training resources available, whether live or pre-made.
The following are examples:
Webinars
Guides
Training Labs
Tutorial Videos
Instruction Manuals/Documentation
Community Help Forums
9. Security
Another important consideration is the software security features. With an automation platform, it's probable that it will get in touch with sensitive data, thus, it’s important to be confident that any data accessed is safe from unwarranted access. Be in no doubt that your software provides the succeeding security features:
Access management to manage who can have contact with the tool.
Permission controls to distinguish what a user can and can't access while working with the tool.
Compliance certification (if [required) to ascertain that the supplier has met all its commitments to abide by any legal regulations that your organization is responsible for.
10. Ease-of-use
In conclusion, it's important that the software is intuitive and user-friendly for your coworkers. An overly-complex user interface can result in lost productivity as you allocate time and assets toward having your team train on how to use the tool.
Offerings similar to a free trial can help to ensure your staff enjoy the product before purchasing. In addition, 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 adaptation period.
The Procurement Process
At the same time that your business has analyzed the entire evaluation criteria and you distinguish what you're searching for, it's time to start taking into account your options, narrowing down your choices, and ultimately buying and bringing the product about.
Below is a step-by-step guide to assist you with the procurement process.
Step 1: Compare Your Options
It's in all likelihood you've already arranged a list of potential sellers during the evaluation process. It is now time to remove any that don't fulfill your demands and narrow down your short-list. When your short-list is developed, compare your alternatives based on the following qualities:
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 figure out what the capacity of the tool is. Not only will this assist you to measure functionality, but it will also provide you with some idea of the product's usability. If it has an extremely complicated user interface or seems as if it will require an elevated learning curve, it most likely isn’t the best fit.
Step 3: Making the Purchase
When you've chosen one out of all the options, don't just settle for the full selling price. There may be leeway for negotiation, and if not, there might be an expanded free trial you can take advantage of before monthly or annual wages.
Additionally, pay attention to hidden pricing loopholes such as flat-rate vs per-user pricing, or paying for extra functionality you don't need.
A vendor that is opposed to negotiations, or provides questionable pricing with a lot of hidden fees is likely not going to be a good long-term partner for your business. Deliberate before proceeding as you may regret your decision in the future.
Step 4: Implementation
When you've purchased, it's time to bring about your new system. Depending on how deep-seated your previous platform was, or how intricate the integration is, this method might get a bit complicated. Here are a few suggestions to help you ease the transition.
Educate your staff on the new automation platform, advise them to view demos, or attend training. It's crucial for long-term scalability that each of your employees use the tool according to best practices as opposed to enforcing their own individual uses.
Contact customer support when necessary for technical issues.
Recruit the help of a solutions partner like Wave.
While a bunch of software companies have technical support for issues] with regard to their software, often, difficulties around best practices and implementation optimization are out of their scope.
We can give you a hand in rolling out new software in a gradual procedure that makes the most sense for your business and results in as little downtime as possible while guaranteeing that everyone knows how to use the software according to best practices.
Start Your Organization’s Digital Transformation with Wave
Manual business processes impede your business, leading to bottlenecks, incoherent workflows, missing information, and human error. This diminishes productivity, causes upscaled expenses, weakens your control over the business, and can someday obstruct your long-term stability and scalability.
Wave aids businesses like yours to implement automation solutions and content management systems (CMS) that facilitate your operation end-to-end, automate tedious, repetitive tasks, and can merge with any ERP system of your choice.
While we work predominantly with ECM systems like OpenText, M-Files, and SharePoint, we're pleased to work with whatever system you're currently applying.
Rather than tearing out deep-seated legacy tools, we can come alongside your system and carry out supportive tooling that can complement and enhance your existing systems.
We’d gladly provide our automation tools as an on-premise or cloud-based solution to correspond to your compliance demands and budget.
If you are interested about how Wave can contribute to digital transformation and business process automation in your company, contact us today.