Finding The Best Business Process Automation Software Guide For Enterprise Buyers
If you're reading this, it’s most likely that your company is examining business process automation software.
With the competency of business process automation you can streamline repetitive, rules-based processes. Mechanizing these types of business tasks generates more yield in enterprise resource planning (ERP), larger cost savings, and improved operation of your human resources.
While most enterprise businesses today have enforced some form of automation, digital transformation, or process optimization, many fail to realize the full potential of automation functionality and struggle to terminate remaining time-consuming manual tasks.
While partially automated tasks will give you a slight 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 benefits, and the parameters you need to consider when analyzing BPA software.
So let's dive right in!
What is Business Process Automation: A Primer
Business process automation (BPA), otherwise known as business process management (BPM), is the act of using technology to streamline routine, regimented tasks such as sending documents, data-entry, routing payments, or organizing documents.
Capitalizing on automation can substantially improve an organization's sustainability by streamlining tasks, establishing productivity, and eliminating tedious work which permits your team to focus on tasks that augment the business.
Modern automation platforms, like those you're likely evaluating, implement innovative technologies like artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning (ML), and robotic process automation (RPA) to take care of repetitive tasks on a employee’s behalf.
Conclusively, humans are still your greatest resource, but through enterprise automation, your colleagues can work faster on more growth-focused tasks in lieu of having their time monopolized by repetitive manual tasks.
The Benefits of Business Process Automation
Written below are just some of the outstanding benefits of BPA or automated applications.
Eliminates Human Error
Streamlines Repetitive Tasks
Decreases Inefficiencies
Deters Malicious Activity
Facilitates Cost-Savings
Enhances Third-Party Relationships and Customer Satisfaction
Reduced Supplier Inquiries
Enhances Better Insight into Tasks
Improved ROI
Use Cases for Business Process Automation
Any business that has tedious, continual tasks can benefit from process automation technology. Some of the most prevalent 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 technology that fits your organization starts with examining your present operating procedures, identifying opportunities for automation and searching the marketplace for applications.
1. Define Your Business Needs
Before ever evaluating software options, the primary thing to do is to understand your business needs.
Neglecting this aspect could lead to acquiring software that ultimately restrains your company, or buying additional features that are irrelevant. Gather your department stakeholders to discuss the following:
What tasks are good candidates for automation?
Do you need the application for a specific department, or can the software be used by numerous departments?
Are there any blockers that keep you from deploying a new system?
How many users will require access to the tool? What are their responsibilities?
2. Conducting Pre-Purchase Research
As soon as you have your base needs pinned down, you can start looking for probable solutions. There is a lot you can learn on your own before reaching out to a vendor or entering a high-pressure sales conversation.
Here are few resources you can usually 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 several software websites offer pricing, most business process management software simply offer starting prices and will need more details about your company to provide a definitive estimation model for you.
If your business uses a more standard acquisition process, this would be the time to begin sending the initial requests for information (RFI) which specifically drafts your requirements for potential vendors.
When you communicate with potential sellers, it's imperative that you get all of your questions answered and see to it that the platform meets all of your requirements. This will help you diminish vendor options during purchase later on.
4. Understanding Licensing Structures
Among the major important pricing considerations for an automation platform is the licensing structure. There are a variety of user models that software 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 crucial to determine your total number of users.
Maximum user licensing: This is total pricing with the total number of users allotted with additional seats available for an additional cost.
Site licensing: As a substitute to per user, this type of licensing allows you to use the tool at a single (or multiple) predetermined locations.
Ongoing vs subscription licensing: Ongoing licensing is usually pay once and use indefinitely, whereas a subscription price will need to be renewed
The pricing model that best suits for your organization will ultimately depend on the budget, the number of users or site locations, as well as the degree of flexibility you want. For example, if you'd rather not be locked into a long-term investment, you might opt for a subscription model that you can revoke whenever you have to.
5. Deployment Models
The deployment model is an extra important discussion as your organization might have specific legal or compliance-related requirements that dictate you use just one type of infrastructure.
Take for example, many organizations in the healthcare and government division have precise regulations which stipulate they hold all computing and application infrastructure on-premise and that any new application be certified in compliant in a specific structure like HIPAA or FedRAMP.
A lot of vendors offer multiple deployment options for this very reason. These can be partitioned into two fundamental groups: on-premises, off-premises, or hybrid deployment.
On-premises (Data Center): This hosting option requires your business to use the software via your on-premise data center environment. That being the case, your organization maintains full control over the installation, architecture, administration, maintenance, and data security.
This limits the extent of risk concerned with subcontracting deployment to a third party, but it also furthers your duties and includes its own level of risk.
For instance, disregarding routine updates and backups might put your organization in a risky position if a data breach or tragedy arises. But as stated previously, for some in a compliance-heavy business, there may not be any other options here.
Off-premises (Cloud-based): For businesses that are not bound by legal demands, or have regulatory demands that a cloud option can satisfy, this option might be far more attractive.
This is due to the fact that cloud deployments grant the organization the opportunity to unload much of the administrative and maintenance concerns it would otherwise be obligated to.
Moreover, the majority of enterprise-level technology is deep-seated on best-in-class infrastructures like AWS or Azure and supplies redundancy, reliability, as well as service level agreements (SLAs) should you want more uptime guarantee.
Hybrid (Mixed) Deployment: The third option, for those that choose to exploit cloud innovation but work in a compliance-heavy enterprise, is a hybrid or mixed deployment.
While a tad more troublesome, a hybrid environment would have 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
One more key deliberation is the implementation requirements, in favor of the software vendor, for your organization. Just because you might want to use a certain tool, doesn't mean your existing capabilities are sufficient to run it. Thus, it's essential to examine the following:
Configurability. Does the platform come with all essential functionality once purchased, or will it demand some refining once installed? This is important to know to ensure you can fully utilize your investment and get off to a good start.
System requirements. In theinstance of an on-premise deployment, do you have the entire prerequisite hardware to run the tool appropriately? If not, your overall investment could be at risk.
Elasticity. Can the platform scale to satisfy higher demand as your company cultivates, if the limit on the number of simultaneous users are online, or if your framework causes a utilization load spike? It's imperative to choose an automation platform that can scale to handle a growth or a utilization flux. Many SaaS and cloud options offer auto-scaling as the need develops, considering that most on-premise deployments compel that auto-routing during load spikes is implemented ahead of time.
7. Integration capabilities
One more important consideration is integration potential. While the concept of an all-in-one solution is an alluring concept, it often doesn't work that way. Specifically with automation, the automation tool has to communicate with various systems and other software in accordance with how many business units are taking advantage of it.
That being said, you must supply your potential vendors with a complete list of all systems and tools to ensure that your automation software can integrate well with each.
Alternatively, if a particular tool does not appear under integrations, does the tool vendor grant an application programming interface (API) so that a developer can link your systems his or herself?
If there isn't a preformed integration in qualified for your other systems, and the API either is nonexistent or is tremendously difficult to use, it most likely isn’t the best fit for your company.
8. Customer Support
Another critical, yet often overlooked feature is convenient customer support. Often, businesses don't realize the worth of great customer support until they are in dire need of it and it's inaccessible.
Every software vendor has its own different customer support offering whether it’s 24/7/365 or limited to particular hours. They usually also have leeway for their customer support services - issues they will assist and issues they won't.
Most often, basic customer support is offered for issues relating to the software itself, however, concerns that are customer-facing (i.e. implementation issues, best practices, etc) may exclusively be obtainable at a premium, if at all.
Regardless, it's crucial that you understand what the amount of your customer support provides, its handiness, and the options accessible to you (i.e. ticket service, phone, email, chat, etc). Additionally, as your staff is learning to use automation software, it's key that they have training resources accessible, whether live or pre-designed.
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 characteristics. With an automation platform, it's almost guaranteed that it will have some sort of connection with sensitive data, therefore, it’s important to be positive that any data utilized is safe from prohibited access. Be in no doubt that your platform offers the following security features:
Access management to control who can use the tool.
Permission controls to distinguish what a user can and can't access while using the tool.
Compliance certification (if [necessary) to ensure that the seller has met all its commitments to comply with any legal regulations that your company is liable for.
10. Ease-of-use
Lastly, it's of the utmost importance that the tool is intuitive and easy to use for your team members. A convoluted user interface can be the cause of lost productiveness as you dish out time and assets toward having your team train on how to properly operate the platform.
Offerings same as a free trial can help make certain that your teams adore the product before purchasing. Also, demos, training resources, and process templates can also go a long way to shorten the rate of learning over time as all tools, even intuitive ones, will oblige you to have some sort of adjusting period.
The Procurement Process
After your business has examined all of the evaluation criteria and you know what you're in pursuit of, it's time to start considering your options, examining and reducing your choices, and ultimately buying and bringing the product about.
Below is a step-by-step guide to help you with the procurement process.
Step 1: Compare Your Options
It's presumable that you've already developed a list of potential sellers during the evaluation process. Now it's time to remove any that don't fulfill your demands and narrow down your short-list. Just after your short-list is developed, compare your options 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 standing, it's now time to find out what the tool’s capable of. Not only will this assist you to evaluate functionality, but it will also provide you with some idea of the product's serviceability. If it has an excessively complex user interface or it seems like it will require a precipitous learning curve, it may not be the best fit.
Step 3: Making the Purchase
When you've finalized your choice, don't just settle for the full selling price. There may be some wiggle room for negotiation, and if not, there could be an extended free trial you can use before monthly or annual payments.
Furthermore, keep an eye out for hidden pricing technicalities such as flat-rate vs per-user pricing, or paying for extra functionality you don't need.
A vendor that is completely unwilling to negotiate, or provides suspicious pricing with a lot of hidden costs is in all likelihood not going to be an excellent long-term partner for your organization. Think strongly before following through as you may regret your decision in the course of time.
Step 4: Implementation
After you've purchased, it's time to implement your new system. Contingent upon how deeply embedded your previous software was, or how complicated the integration is, this method might be slightly more tricky. Here are a few tips to help you ease the transition.
Train your team members on the new automation platform, have them view demos, or acquire some training. It's important for long-term scalability that each of your teams use the platform in accordance with best practices as opposed to applying their own individual uses.
Contact customer support when required for technical problems.
Enlist the help of a solutions partner like Wave.
While a bunch of software companies have technical support for problems] in connection to their platform, often, difficulties around best practices and implementation optimization are out of their scope.
We can help you roll out new tools in a gradual procedure that makes the most sense for your business and results in as little downtime as possible while ensuring that everyone knows how to use the software according to best practices.
Start Your Organization’s Digital Transformation with Wave
Manual business processes slow your business down, leading to bottlenecks, disjointed workflows, misplaced information, and human error. This reduces overall productivity, results in higher expenses, loosens your control over the business, and can someday limit your long-term stability and scalability.
Wave aids businesses like yours to enforce automation solutions and content management systems (CMS) that streamline your processes end-to-end, automate tedious, recurrent work, and can merge with any ERP system of your choosing.
While we work heavily with ECM systems like OpenText, M-Files, and SharePoint, we're pleased to work with any system you're currently applying.
Rather than tearing out deeply-rooted legacy tools, we can come alongside your system and execute supportive tooling that can correlate and develop your current systems.
We’d be happy to convey our automation tools as an on-premise or cloud-based solution to suit your compliance needs and budget.
If you are interested about how Wave can help support digital transformation and business process automation in your business, contact us today.