Business Process Automation: A Complete Guide to Streamlining Workflows with Technology

Business Process Automation (BPA) is the means of streamlining and automating different tasks and processes involved in your business to achieve enterprise efficiency. According to a report by Gartner Inc. (dated Sep. 18, 2024), about “30% of enterprises will automate more than half of their network activities, an increase from under 10% in mid-2023.”

What is Business Process Automation?

BPA is not just about automating simple manual tasks. It is about restructuring the entire workflow by eliminating bottlenecks and reducing human error so that teams can focus on more business-critical work that drives real impact. If saving time is one benefit of BPA, it’s also about improving agility, scalability, and enabling smarter decision-making across every department like finance, IT, HR, operations, logistics, marketing, and more.

What more? Enterprises are adopting artificial intelligence (AI) into their BPA, making use of intelligent and predictive analytics to make smarter and real-time decision-making to make processes faster and more accurate.

Difference between BPA, RPA and AI

• RPA

This remains a confusing topic with early adopters. People often think BPA, Robotic Process Automation (RPA) and AI are all the same but they are not.

RPA is the implementation of bots to automate simple rule-based, time-consuming, and repetitive tasks like extracting invoice details from emails and populating them in an accounting software. RPA doesn’t have cognitive capabilities, doesn’t learn on its own, and can’t make predictions or solve complex processes like email classification or content extraction where it has to determine context.

RPA best works with structured data and on a schedule or based on pre-defined rules in a process. Also, RPA is one of the multiple automation solutions that you can integrate into your BPA.

Nevertheless, RPA works well with legacy systems where there are no Application Programming Interface (API) to integrate.

• AI

AI, unlike RPA, works well with unstructured data like images, text, speech etc. to learn on its own and make intelligent decisions with the help of abilities like Natural Language Processing (NLP), image detection and more. In short, it has the capability to learn from non-rule-based data and make predictions, and decisions.

A simpler way of understanding the difference between RPA and AI is that while RPA can mimic human actions, AI has cognitive capabilities that make it think like humans. While RPA only follows instructions and doesn’t make decisions, AI makes decisions based on patterns and context.

But can RPA work with AI? The answer is yes. It is important to understand that though the function of AI and RPA are different, they can work together to produce desired results. Though RPA has been used by industries much before the advent of AI, in today’s automation ecosystem, they are more than often deployed together.

The capabilities of RPA can be enhanced with AI integration to handle unstructured data like text, images etc. For example, in the deployment of AI-enabled FAQ chatbot, AI takes care of the enquiry interpretation and converts them to structured data, which the RPA can read and retrieve relevant data from the backend system.

However, one of the limitations of AI is that it doesn’t work well when it comes to rule-based environments, especially when compliance requirements, structured data or limited internal AI capabilities are factors. AI may not deliver optimum results in areas where consistency is crucial like in adhering to set regulations or compliance as AI systems may prove to be difficult to audit.

• BPA

BPA automates business processes across systems and is about end-to-end automation processes unlike RPA, which handles only specific functions. Nevertheless, both AI and RPA can be integrated into a BPA workflow.

The goal of BPA is to employ technology to automate tasks that are structured, rule-based, and frequently repeated. These ‘tasks’ can be as simple as sending approval emails, or more complicated ones like managing procurement workflows or onboarding new employees.

Benefits of BPA

Cutting down manual labour is not the only outcome of BPA for your organization. It’s a holistic end-to-end approach to improve operational efficiency, eliminate human errors, and ensure that all processes involved in your business works seamlessly, continuously and without bottlenecks.

Let’s look at some of the benefits of BPA:

• Improved accuracy and consistency

Unlike manual processes, automation can help deliver consistent and error-free results. For example, BPA systems can automatically scan diverse invoice formats, extract relevant information such as invoice amounts, dates, and vendor details; validate this data against predefined rules, minimizing errors and ensuring accurate input into the financial system.

• Improved efficiency

As discussed before, BPA system can cut down on the amount of time spent on manual processes, thereby freeing up time for employees to concentrate on more business-critical tasks. This goes a long way in improving overall efficiency.

• Cost cutting

It comes without saying that the BPA system can improve productivity and thereby improve ROI. Cloud-based BPA solutions will lower error-rates and improve output quality creating transparent processes for enhanced accountability.

• Enhance compliance adherence

Unlike independent AI tools, comprehensive BPA systems work on rule-based datasets and ensure adherence to set regulations by maintaining consistent data trails and monitoring compliance requirements. This in turn reduces the need for repeated audits and improves legal compliance across functions.

• Better customer service

A well-defined BPA system can improve customer experience to a great extent by providing error-free responses, while also reducing response time.

Types of BPA

The applications of BPA are varied depending on different levels of complexity in business operations.

• Single task automation

Automating individual manual tasks is the simplest form of BPA. Repetitive activities like sending automated email responses, capturing digital signatures, updating system statuses, generating invoices and other administrative tasks can be automated to reduce errors and improve productivity.

• Workflow automation

Unlike single-task automation, workflow automation syncs multiple activities and ensures a synchronized workflow without disruptions. For example in the healthcare industry, workflow automation is used to schedule staff-work and on-call rotations. In addition, these tools also help with fixing patient appointments, admissions, discharge and also to transfer their electronic health records.

• Process automation

This is taking automation a step ahead. It is the automating of end-to-end tasks involved in processes such as employee-onboarding. This involves the need to streamline various steps in the process like collecting details of employee such as name, contact, address, etc.; IT preparation that makes sure a newly hired employee is provided with all necessary equipment like laptop, mouse, charger etc.; and the final step would include giving the new employee access to security trainings and required handbooks and confirming their sign-off. A digital record of all these various steps ensures that all due processes have been followed correctly.

• Intelligent automation

BPA, in its traditional form, deals with rule-based, repetitive tasks but when combined with new-gen technologies like artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning (ML) natural language processing (NLP), and data analytics, you get what is called intelligent automation that combines the cognitive power of these new technologies to make predictive and intelligent automation. This type of automation can handle complex tasks requiring cognitive abilities, such as interpreting text, making predictions based on data analysis, or learning from past decisions to optimize future actions.

Top 5 Applications of BPA

Below are examples highlighting the benefits of business workflow automation tools:

• Inventory management

Inventory management is one area where you can leverage the capabilities of BPA. Automating the process can not only optimize stock level but also improve supply chain efficiency, and reduce costs. By integrating inventory management tools with BPA you can automate inventory tracking and replenishment. Also, implementation of sensors, barcode scanners and RFID technology can help you capture real-time data and automatically update stock levels. You can also configure BPA tools to place orders automatically, or even forecast quality issues based on historical data and weather.

• Invoice processing

For many organisations, invoice processing can be a time-consuming task, and automating this can reduce manual efforts, minimize error and streamline the operation. Implementing optical character recognition (OCR) technology to automatically extract relevant information from invoices, such as vendor name, invoice number, and amount, can increase the workflow speed. You can also configure the BPA tool to validate the extracted data, cross-reference it with existing records, and flag any discrepancies for manual review. These BPA tools can also route invoices to the appropriate stakeholders for approval based on predefined rules and thresholds. You can also integrate the BPA tool with accounting or ERP systems to automatically update payment status and generate reports.

• Customer onboarding

Customer onboarding in different industries like banking involve many steps such as gathering customer information, verifying them, setting up accounts and initiating product/service provisioning.

Utilizing web/customer forms to capture information of customers, and configuring the BPA tool to validate the data against external database or identity verification service can reduce a lot of time in the customer onboarding process. Also, BPA tools can be used to automate email reminders and notifications that can enhance customer experience and minimize errors.

• Credit automation

We apply for various loans and credit cards and traditional methods required checking our credentials, long waiting hours, approvals at various levels. Using a BPA system can cut through a lot of these procedures as it can verify our credit eligibility through regulated processes and secure necessary approvals and let us know about the status of the loan or credit application within the comfort of our homes/offices. This not only reduces a lot of man hours otherwise lost through these processes but also minimizes errors and saves a lot of human interactions which can become cumbersome at times.

• Sales and marketing automation

By automating various marketing tasks through BPA tools, teams can now concentrate on more strategic activities like bringing out more creative messaging and building relationships with potential customers. Automation can also help in identifying leads, creating more targeted messaging, and integrating with customer relationship management (CRM) systems to keep information current. This helps build sales leads and convert prospects into customers.

Complete Guide to Workflow Automation using BPA

Employing Business Process Automation (BPA) successfully requires a good understanding of your enterprise’s specific needs, processes, and objectives. An intelligent way to implement BPA to automate your workflow automation requires the following five steps:

• Evaluate employee readiness for automation

It’s natural for people to resist change especially if they think automation will take their jobs away. You can start by assessing your organisation’s readiness for automation across different levels of your staff. Since BPA will change the way your organization functions, it is vital to address how these changes will affect employees and understand their concerns and willingness to embrace the change. Employees at the risk of getting affected or replaced by automation need to be educated about the need for upskilling and the benefits these new changes will bring to both them and the organisation.

• Identifying process to automate

Not all tasks need to be automated. You must be able to identify repetitive, time-consuming, high-volume, and collaboration among different individuals or departments. Common tasks that would benefit from automation include invoicing, payroll management, customer care, email notifications etc.

• Involving key stakeholders

Involving key stakeholders earlier in the automation process would help identify organization’s needs, and prioritize which processes need to be automated. Engaging business leaders from the beginning would ensure that the automation process addresses the most vital of functions.

• Evaluating integrating capability with legacy systems

This is another area where an improper implementation of BPA would create data silos instead of solving problems for you. You have to check whether the BPA solution aligns with your existing legacy system whether it’s your ERP system, HCM platform, CRM, or accounting tools. Involving your IT team earlier in the process will go a long way in addressing this issue.

• Evaluating scalability and measuring results

Implementing BPA to automate your business workflow is one thing but you must also take care to document every step of the process and conduct regular audits to measure the outcome of it to see if it has met desired results. You must also take into account the capability of the system to scale as your business grows. You must think long-turn and must go for scalable architecture, proper documentation, flexible automation tools that can adapt and scale depending on the growing or changing needs of your business.

Demystifying Automation

As with any other technology, automation also comes with its sets of misconceptions and fears. Let’s try and address the top 5 myths of automation:

• Automation is job-killer
  A common misconception or fear about adapting automation is that bots would take away jobs from the human workforce. While it’s true that automation can handle large repetitive workloads with more precision than a human, automation is not here to steal jobs from humans but rather complement their capabilities and enhance overall productivity. By taking care of mundane repetitive tasks, automation allows humans to work on more critical and fulfilling jobs. People willing to upskill themselves would only benefit from automation by being able to move into more important and specialised roles.

• Automation is costly and only for large enterprises
  The initial cost of setting up automation used to be fairly large for any enterprise depending on their needs. Again, to think that automation is only for large organizations is wrong as it is accessible and beneficial for enterprises of any size including SMEs. Also, the advancement of technology has brought out more cost-effective and scalable automation solutions that could easily fit to the budget of small and medium enterprises. Also, the scalability factor of the new age automation tools lets you start small and then incorporate it to more of your operation depending on your needs.

• Automation is only for IT departments
  No other statement can be more wrong about automation as it benefits departments across an organization. We have seen above how automation can augment the functions of various processes like finance (payroll automation, credit automation etc.), manufacturing (invoice automation, warehouse management, supply chain management etc.), customer relations management, marketing and sales and much more.

• Business automation is flawless
  Yet another misreading by many is that automation is completely error-free. It is true that it can handle large volumes of work with precision. However, automation is not entirely flawless. It is essential to conduct regular audits to check for any discrepancies. For example an automated invoice system might give you wrong readings if it is not regularly checked, and hence human judgement is crucial for the proper functioning of an automated system. Early on identification of issues can improve its efficiency.

• Automation is all about cost-cutting
  Many people look at automation only as a means for cutting costs. While cost savings is a significant benefit, automation offers a range of strategic advantages that extend well beyond the financial gains. By automating processes, organizations can unlock new opportunities for innovation, enhance customer experiences, and improve overall operational efficiency.

Bringing automation to your business processes has many advantages and when implemented intelligently, one can reap its benefits. On the other hand if you think it’s a one-time-process and doesn’t need your supervision, well, you can’t be more wrong.

As AI-powered BPA becomes more sophisticated, organizations that take a thoughtful, strategic approach will gain the most value. DeepKnit AI is uniquely positioned to embrace innovation alongside businesses of any kind as the BPA ecosystem continues to evolve. With our cutting-edge BPA solutions, DeepKnit AI is literally reshaping how businesses function in our world today.