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 the competency of business process automation you can expedite repetitive, rules-based workflows. Streamlining these types of business workflows generates more productivity in enterprise resource planning (ERP), greater cost savings, and better operation of your manpower.
Even though most enterprise companies today have applied some form of automation, digital transformation, or process improvement, many fail to understand the full capabilities of automation innovations and struggle to eliminate remaining tedious manual workflows.
While partially automated tasks will deliver a slight edge, they can also costing you in the end.
In this enterprise buyer's guide, we'll explain what business process automation is, how it works, its benefits, and the parameters you have to study when evaluating BPA applications.
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 act of using technology to establish routine, standards-based tasks such as transmitting documents, data-entry, processing payments, or organizing documents.
Utilizing automation can significantly better an organization's bottomline by streamlining tasks, creating productivity, and eliminating manual tasks which enables your personnel to focus on tasks that grow the business.
Up-to-date automation platforms, like those you're presumably gauging, implement innovative technologies like artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning (ML), and robotic process automation (RPA) to take care of repetitive work on a employee’s behalf.
Ultimately, people are still your best resource, but through enterprise automation, your teammates can work faster on more important tasks instead of having their time monopolized by tedious manual tasks.
The Benefits of Business Process Automation
The following are just a small amount of the awesome benefits of BPA or automated tools.
Reduces Human Error
Streamlines Repetitive Tasks
Eliminates Inefficiencies
Deters Suspicious Activity
Creates Cost-Savings
Betters Third-Party Relationships and Customer Satisfaction
Decreased Supplier Inquiries
Provides Better Visibility into Processes
Greater ROI
Use Cases for Business Process Automation
Any organization that has drudging, frequently recurring tasks can improve from process automation software. 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 fits your business starts with looking at your present workflow, finding opportunities for automation and assessing the marketplace for tools.
1. Define Your Business Needs
Before ever weighing technology options, the most important thing to do is to discern your company goals.
Turning a blind eye to this step could result in acquiring application that ultimately restrains your company, or selecting additional features that are unnecessary. Gather your department managers to discuss the following:
What workflows are prime candidates for automation?
Do you need the application for one department, or can the software be used by numerous departments?
Are there any dependencies that keep you from launching a new system?
How many users will require access to the application? What are their roles?
2. Conducting Pre-Purchase Research
As soon as you have your core needs established, 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 discussion.
Here are few resources you can usually find on technology websites or through 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
Subsequently accomplishing some precursory research, you can immediately request for customized price quotes from the solutions you're keen on learning about.
While many software websites offer pricing, most business process management platforms simply offer starting prices and will ask for more information about your organization to prepare a final forecast model for you.
If your organization uses a more conventional attainment process, this would be the time to start sending the initial requests for information (RFI) which specifically summarizes your requirements for potential vendors.
As you discuss with potential sellers, it's vital that you get all of your queries 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
Among the major important pricing considerations for an automation tool is the licensing structure. There is a wide selection of user models that tool businesses use and it can have an extreme 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 maximum number of users allotted with additional users available for an additional cost.
Site licensing: As a substitute to per user, this type of licensing allows you to use the software 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 come down to the budget, the number of users or site locations, in addition to the level of flexibility you want. For instance, if you'd rather not be held into a long-term investment, you might favor a subscription model that you can cancel whenever you have to.
5. Deployment Models
The deployment model is one more crucial consideration as your company can have special legal or compliance-related requirements that dictate you use simply one type of infrastructure.
Take for example, many businesses in the healthcare and government section have precise rules which demand they keep all computing and application infrastructure on-premise and that any new application be licensed in compliant in a specific framework like HIPAA or FedRAMP.
Several vendors offer several 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 requires your organization to use the software via your on-premise data center environment. Accordingly, your organization keeps 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 adds to your responsibilities and has its own level of risk.
For example, disregarding routine updates and backups could put your organization in a dangerous situation if a data breach or tragedy arises. But as aforementioned, for some in a compliance-heavy industry, there may not be any other choice here.
Off-premises (Cloud-based): For companies that are either not obligated by compliance, or have regulated requirements that a cloud option can satisfy, this alternative can be far more attractive.
This is because cloud deployments grant the organization the opportunity to offload much of the administrative and maintenance troubles it would usually be held accountable for.
Not to mention that, the majority of enterprise-level technology is deep-seated on best-in-class infrastructures namely AWS or Azure and supplies redundancy, reliability, as well as service level agreements (SLAs) should you seek more uptime guarantee.
Hybrid (Mixed) Deployment: The third choice, for those that choose to make the most out of cloud innovation but work in a compliance-heavy industry, is a hybrid or mixed deployment.
While a little more complicated, 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 executed in a cloud environment.
6. Implementation Requirements
A further important deliberation is the implementation requirements, on behalf of the software vendor, for your business. Just because you might want to use a certain tool, doesn't imply that your present capabilities are enough to run it. Thus, it's important to look at the following:
Configurability. Does the tool come with all necessary functionality when acquired, or will it demand some refining once installed? This is essential to understand to ensure you can maximize your investment and hit the ground running.
System requirements. In theinstance of an on-premise deployment, do you have the whole necessary hardware to handle the tool properly? If not, your entire investment could be at risk.
Elasticity. Can the tool scale to fulfill higher demand as your business cultivates, if the limit on the number of concurrent users are online, or if your infrastructure incurs a utilization load spike? It's imperative to choose an automation tool that can scale to handle a growth or a utilization flux. Many SaaS and cloud options offer auto-scaling as the need arises, whereas most on-premise deployments demand that auto-routing under load spikes is implemented ahead of time.
7. Integration capabilities
One more important concern is integration potential. While the idea of an all-in-one solution is an alluring concept, more often than not, it doesn't work that way. Specifically with automation, the automation tool will have to correspond with multiple systems and other software based on how many business units are utilizing it.
That being said, you have to grant your potential vendors with a complete list of all systems and tools to ensure that your automation platform can properly incorporated with each.
On the other hand, if a distinct tool is not listed under integrations, does the platform vendor grant an application programming interface (API) so that a developer can bridge your systems his or herself?
If there isn't a pre-built integration in place for your other systems, and the API either is nonexistent or is extremely complicated to use, it probably isn’t the best fit for your company.
8. Customer Support
Yet another important, yet often unnoticed feature is convenient customer support. Often, organizations fail to understand the significance of good customer support until they are in dire need of it and it's not available.
Every single software vendor has its own particular customer support offering that’s either 24/7/365 or confined to certain hours. They commonly also have a range for their customer support services - issues they will support and issues they won't.
More often than not, basic customer support is given for issues connected to the software itself, however, problems that are customer-facing (i.e. implementation issues, best practices, etc) may exclusively be available at a premium, if at all.
Regardless, it's important that you understand what the amount of your customer support provides, its availability, and the options available to you (i.e. ticket service, phone, email, chat, etc). Also, as your staff is learning to use automation software, it's important that they have training resources accessible, 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 tool security features. With an automation platform, it's almost guaranteed that it will have contact with sensitive data, thus, it’s important to be sure that any data used is not liable to unwarranted access. Ensure that your software offers the succeeding security features:
Access management to regulate who can access the software.
Permission controls to determine what a user can and can't use while utilizing the software.
Compliance certification (if [necessary) to ascertain that the supplier has met all its commitments to abide by any legal regulations that your company is in charge of.
10. Ease-of-use
Finally, it's important that the software is intuitive and user-friendly for your colleagues. A convoluted user interface can bring about lost productiveness as you appropriate time and valuables toward having your employees train on how to utilize the platform.
Offerings similar to a free trial can help to ensure your employees adore the product before purchasing. In addition, demos, training resources, and process templates can do a great deal for the learning curve as all tools, even intuitive ones, will call for some sort of adjustment period.
The Procurement Process
At the same time that your business has analyzed all of the evaluation criteria and you distinguish what you're in pursuit of, it's time to start deliberating your options, pegging your choices down, and ultimately buying and implementing the product.
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 developed a list of potential sellers during the evaluation process. Now it's time to take off any that don't meet your needs and reduce your short-list. Just after your short-list is prepare, compare your choices in accordance with the following characteristics:
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 tool’s capable of. Not only will this assist you to measure functionality, but it will also provide you with some idea of the product's serviceability. If it has an excessively complex user interface or appears as though 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 may be an extended free trial you can utilize before monthly or annual fees.
Furthermore, pay attention to hidden pricing technicalities such as flat-rate vs per-user pricing, or paying for extra functionality you don't need.
A supplier that is completely unwilling to negotiate, or offers shady pricing with a lot of hidden fees is in all likelihood not going to be a worthy long-term partner for your company. Bear this in mind before following through as you may regret your decision down the road.
Step 4: Implementation
After you've secured your acquisition, it's time to bring about your new system. Contingent upon how deep-seated your previous tool was, or how complicated the integration is, this process might be slightly more tricky. Here are a few hints to help you facilitate the transition.
Train your team members on the new automation platform, instruct them to view demos, or attend training. It's important for long-term scalability that each of your staff use the tool according to best practices as opposed to enforcing their own individual uses.
Involve customer support when needed for technical problems.
Recruit the help of a solutions partner like Wave.
While a bunch of software companies have technical support for issues] in connection to their tool, regularly, issues around best practices and implementation optimization are beyond their scope.
We can can be of assistance in the roll out of new tools in an incremental approach that makes the most sense for your business and results in as little layoff 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 disrupt your business, which results in bottlenecks, incoherent workflows, missing information, and human error. This reduces overall productivity, results in higher expenses, weakens your control over the business, and can eventually hinder your long-term stability and scalability.
Wave aids businesses like yours to execute automation solutions and content management systems (CMS) that facilitate your operation end-to-end, automate tedious, recurrent tasks, and can merge with any ERP system you choose.
While we work profoundly with ECM systems like OpenText, M-Files, and SharePoint, we're perfectly willing to work with whatever system you're currently using.
Rather than tearing out deeply-rooted legacy platforms, we can cooperate with your system and implement supportive tooling that can add to and develop your current systems.
We’d gladly provide our automation platform as an on-premise or cloud-based solution to correspond to your compliance requirements and budget.
If you have any inquiries about how Wave can help support digital transformation and business process automation in your organization, contact us today.