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 the capabilities of business process automation you can expedite repetitive, rules-based workflows. Automating these types of business workflows creates more productivity in enterprise resource planning (ERP), larger cost savings, and enhanced operation of your manpower.
Although most enterprise businesses today have enforced some form of automation, digital transformation, or process optimization, many fail to understand the full potential of automation technology and struggle to terminate remaining tedious manual processes.
While partially automated workflows will give you a slight edge, they can also deterring you in the end.
In this enterprise buyer's guide, we'll shed some light on what business process automation is, how it operates, its advantages, and the parameters you have to study when evaluating BPA software.
So let's get to it!
What is Business Process Automation: A Primer
Business process automation (BPA), otherwise known as business process management (BPM), is the process of using technology to establish routine, regimented tasks such as sending documents, data-entry, routing payments, or classifying documents.
Taking advantage of automation can significantly enhance an organization's bottomline by streamlining tasks, creating competency, and eliminating gruntwork which permits your staff to focus on tasks that grow the business.
Up-to-date automation platforms, like those you're probably assessing, implement state-of-the-art technologies like artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning (ML), and robotic process automation (RPA) to perform repetitive work on a human's behalf.
Ultimately, employees are still your best resource, but through workflow automation, your associates can work faster on more growth-focused tasks instead of having their time wasted by tedious manual tasks.
The Benefits of Business Process Automation
Written below are just a few of the awesome benefits of BPA or automated software.
Eliminates Human Error
Streamlines Tedious Tasks
Reduces Inefficiencies
Deters Suspicious Activity
Facilitates Cost-Savings
Improves Vendor Relationships and Customer Satisfaction
Lessens Supplier Inquiries
Delivers Better Insight into Workflows
Higher ROI
Use Cases for Business Process Automation
Any organization that has tiresome, continual tasks can improve from 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 tool that corresponds to your business starts with looking at your present workflow, identifying prime targets for automation and evaluating the marketplace for tools.
1. Define Your Business Needs
Before ever evaluating technology options, the primary thing to do is to determine your business needs.
Neglecting this aspect could result in acquiring software that ultimately restrains your business, or selecting additional features that are irrelevant. Gather your department heads to discuss the following:
What workflows are prime candidates for automation?
Do you need the software for a particular department, or can the software be used by multiple departments?
Are there any dependencies that deter you from launching a new system?
How many employees will require access to the system? What are their duties?
2. Conducting Pre-Purchase Research
Once you have your core needs pinned down, you can start looking for probable solutions. There are various things you can research on your own before discussing with a vendor or entering a high-pressure sales negotiation.
Here are few resources you can frequently find on solution websites or via 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 begin asking for customized price quotes from the solutions you're most interested in learning about.
While numerous software websites offer pricing, the majority of business process management tools simply offer starting prices and will ask for more details about your company to prepare a definitive forecast model for you.
If your company uses a more standard attainment process, this would be the time to commence sending the initial requests for information (RFI) which categorically outlines your requirements for potential vendors.
As you discuss with potential vendors, it's important that you get all of your queries answered and make sure 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
One of the main important cost considerations for an automation tool is the licensing structure. There are a variety of user models that software businesses use and it can have a significant 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 come down to the budget, total users or site locations, in addition to the amount of flexibility you want. As an example, if you'd rather not be latched into a long-term investment, you might opt for a subscription model that you can revoke anytime.
5. Deployment Models
The deployment model is another critical consideration as your company could have certain legal or compliance-related requirements that prescribe you use only one type of infrastructure.
For instance, many companies in the healthcare and government section have meticulous rules which command they hold all computing and application infrastructure on-premise and that any new application be certified in compliant in a specific groundwork like HIPAA or FedRAMP.
Several vendors present multiple 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 calls for your company to use the software with your on-premise data center environment. In doing so, your company retains outright control over the installation, architecture, administration, maintenance, and data security.
This limits the extent of risk concerned with outposting deployment to a third party, but it also furthers your duties and includes its own level of risk.
Take for example, disregarding routine updates and backups could risk putting your organization in a dangerous situation if a data breach or disaster happens. But as stated previously, for some in a compliance-heavy business, there may not be any other choice here.
Off-premises (Cloud-based): For companies that are either not obligated by compliance, or have regulatory standards that a cloud option can satisfy, this alternative might be a lot more tantalizing.
This stems from the fact that cloud deployments give your organization the chance to offload many of the administrative and maintenance troubles it would under other conditions, be responsible for.
Not to mention that, the majority of enterprise-level technology is incorporated on best-in-class infrastructures namely AWS or Azure and supplies redundancy, reliability, and even service level agreements (SLAs) shall you desire an uptime guarantee.
Hybrid (Mixed) Deployment: The third alternative, for those that prefer to make the most out of cloud innovation but operate in a compliance-heavy enterprise, is a hybrid or mixed deployment.
Although being a tad more complicated, a hybrid environment would handle all your sensitive data and related phases in an on-premise environment while your non-classified data and processes can be implemented in a cloud environment.
6. Implementation Requirements
Another crucial deliberation is the implementation requirements, on behalf of the software vendor, for your company. Just because you can feel like using a certain tool, doesn't suggest that your current capabilities are adequate to run it. Therefore it's crucial to look at the following:
Configurability. Does the tool come with all needed functionality out of the box, or will it demand some adjusting once installed? This is important to know to ensure you can get the most from your investment and hit the ground running.
System requirements. In theinstance of an on-premise deployment, do you have all the necessary hardware to operate the tool properly? If not, your overall investment could be jeopardized.
Elasticity. Can the software scale to satisfy higher demand as your company develops, if the limit on the number of coincidental users are online, or if your foundation acquires a utilization load spike? It's imperative to choose an automation platform that can scale to adapt to growth or a utilization flux. Many SaaS and cloud options offer auto-scaling as the need emerges, whereas majority of on-premise deployments compel that auto-routing under load spikes is implemented ahead of time.
7. Integration capabilities
Another key consideration is integration potential. While the concept of all together solution is a wonderful concept, more often than not, it doesn't work that way. Specifically with automation, the automation tool will need to reach out to various systems and other tools contingent on how many business units are resorting to it.
Therefore, you must grant your potential vendors with an entire list of all systems and tools to ensure that your automation platform can be well-coordinated with each.
Also, if a distinct tool not quoted under integrations, does the platform vendor offer an application programming interface (API) so that a developer can bridge your systems his or herself?
If there isn't a preconfigured integration in place for your other systems, and the API either is nonexistent or is extremely complicated to use, it may not be the best fit for your company.
8. Customer Support
One more critical, yet often unnoticed aspect is available customer support. Oftentimes, companies don't realize the worth of excellent customer support until they are in dire need of it and it's unavailable.
Each and every software vendor has its own particular customer support offering which can be 24/7/365 or restricted to specific hours. They commonly also have a range for their customer support services - issues they will assist and issues they won't.
Almost always, basic customer support is given for issues linked to the tool itself, however, concerns that are customer-oriented (i.e. implementation issues, best practices, etc) may exclusively be obtainable at a premium, if at all.
Either way, it's important that you understand what your level of customer support provides, its accessibility, and the options accessible to you (i.e. ticket service, phone, email, chat, etc). Additionally, as your team is learning to use automation software, it's key that they have training resources available, whether live or pre-designed.
The following are examples:
Webinars
Guides
Training Labs
Tutorial Videos
Instruction Manuals/Documentation
Community Help Forums
9. Security
One more important consideration is the platform security characteristics. With an automation platform, it's almost guaranteed that it will get in touch with sensitive data, for this reason, it requires you to be sure that any data utilized is safe from unauthorized access. See to it that your software grants the succeeding security features:
Access management to regulate who can have contact with the software.
Permission controls to identify what a user can and can't have contact with while working with the tool.
Compliance certification (if [necessary) to guarantee that the supplier has met all its responsibilities to comply with any legal regulations that your business is in charge of.
10. Ease-of-use
Finally, it's of the essence that the tool is intuitive and easy to use for your coworkers. An overly complicated user interface can bring about lost production as you allocate time and resources toward having your employees train on how to use the software.
Offerings like a free trial can help secure your employees enjoy the software before purchasing. Additionally, demos, training resources, and process templates can contributes significantly to the learning curve as all software, even intuitive ones, will call for some sort of adjustment period.
The Procurement Process
At the same time that your company has reviewed the full evaluation criteria and you are aware of what you're in pursuit of, it's time to start considering your options, narrowing down your choices, and ultimately buying and bringing the product about.
The following is a step-by-step guide to aid you with the procurement process.
Step 1: Compare Your Options
It's presumable that you've already developed a list of potential vendors during the evaluation process. Now’s the time to eliminate any that don't fulfill your requirements and reduce your short-list. Just after your short-list is ready, compare your alternatives based on the following traits:
Price
Features
Free Trial Options
Security and Compliance Capabilities
Customer Support
Step 2: Schedule Demos
With likely only 2-3 options remaining, it's now time to find out what the tool's capabilities are. Not only will this assist you to assess functionality, but it will also provide you with some perspective of the product's ease of use. If it has an extremely complex user interface or seems as if 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 settle for the full asking price. There may be room for negotiation, and if not, there could be an extended free trial you can take advantage of before monthly or annual wages.
Additionally, be careful of hidden pricing minutiae such as flat-rate vs per-user pricing, or paying for nonessential extra functionality.
A supplier that is reluctant to negotiate, or provides suspicious pricing with a lot of hidden costs 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 made your purchase, it's time to enforce your new system. Influenced by how deeply ingrained your previous platform was, or how intricate the integration is, this procedure might be a bit complex. Here are a few hints to help you ease the transition.
Inform your team members on the new automation platform, advise them to view demos, or get some training. It's critical for long-term scalability that each of your staff use the tool according to best practices as opposed to applying their own individual uses.
Consult with customer support when necessary for technical issues.
Recruit the help of a solutions partner like Wave.
While many software organizations have technical support for difficulties] relating directly to their platform, often, difficulties around best practices and implementation optimization are out of their range.
We can help you roll out new tools in a phased method that makes the most sense for your organization and results in as little downtime as possible while we see to it 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, which results in bottlenecks, disjointed workflows, missing information, and human error. This decreases productivity, leads to greater expenses, loosens your control over the business, and can eventually limit your long-term stability and scalability.
Wave aids businesses like yours to execute automation solutions and content management systems (CMS) that facilitate your processes end-to-end, automate tedious, recurrent duties, and can incorporate with any ERP system of your choice.
While we work predominantly with ECM systems like OpenText, M-Files, and SharePoint, we're happy to work with whatever system you're currently utilizing.
More willingly than tearing out deeply embedded legacy software, we can come alongside your system and carry out supportive tooling that can complement and greatly improve your present systems.
We’d be happy to convey our automation software 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 assist digital transformation and business process automation in your company, contact us today.