17 Process Automation Best Practices Your Business Should Follow

Competition—it’s something every business leader, no matter their industry, is worried about. With how quickly today’s market and customer demands are changing, businesses need to identify and act on any opportunity to stay ahead of the competition. Not only is this key to staying competitive, but it’s also helpful in building business agility and resiliency.

Business process automation (also known as robotic process automation(RPA)) is just one of the ways businesses are looking to edge out the competition.

To understand why so many businesses are using RPA in their workflows and business processes, you first have to recognize what process automation is, the benefits it offers, and how real organizations are using the approach in their daily operations.

What is process automation?

Put simply, process automation uses technology to perform tasks or processes with little to no human intervention. The goal of RPA is to streamline and optimize repetitive and time-consuming tasks to increase a business’s efficiency, accuracy, and productivity.

Why Process Automation is Critical in Today’s Business Landscape

With how competitive the business landscape is today, robotic process automation is critical to optimizing operations, reducing costs, and staying competitive.

One of the most common ways business process automation does this is by allowing organizations to perform repetitive tasks quickly and accurately, freeing employees to focus on more strategic or value-adding activities. The approach also helps to minimize human errors, which improves the quality of processes and projects.

As mentioned above, intelligent automation software and RPA tools helps businesses gain a competitive advantage by improving operational efficiency, helping organizations respond more quickly to market demands and delivering higher-quality products and services faster.

5 Benefits of Process Automation

With an understanding of what robotic process automation is, let’s take a closer look at the specific benefits business process management brings.

Increased Efficiency

Process automation enhances a business’s operational efficiency by streamlining workflows and reducing the time needed to complete tasks. Process automation technology can easily handle repetitive tasks much faster than humans, allowing individuals to get more done, faster.

Error Reduction

Errors are too common in manual processes. Automated processes lower the likelihood of errors as they typically follow predefined rules and logic, ensuring tasks are completed accurately every time. Lowering error rates also allows companies to maintain higher quality standards and improve reliability.

Cost Savings

Workflow automation and RPA tools can result in huge cost savings for businesses. For example, automating routine tasks helps organizations reduce labor costs as fewer team members are needed to complete tasks. Additionally, intelligent automation lowers error rates, which can be expensive to remedy.

Improved Compliance and Risk Management

Automated business processes and systems can be programmed to follow specific compliance requirements, which ensures organizations follow all necessary steps correctly and consistently. Additionally, with all activities recorded, it’s easier for businesses to conduct audits and verify compliance.

Enhanced Employee Productivity and Satisfaction

By relieving team members of mundane and repetitive tasks, robotic process automation allows team members to stay focused on more engaging or challenging tasks that add greater value to the organization. Not only does this shift in direction improve productivity but it also enhances overall job satisfaction and employee morale.

10 Examples of Process Automation

Below are a few common examples of business process automation:

Hiring Process

Automation tools can handle tasks such as job posting, screening resumes, scheduling interviews, and even conducting initial assessments via AI bots. These bots help to speed up the selection process and ensure only the most qualified candidates are recommended.

Employee Onboarding

Process automation technology simplifies onboarding by automatically generating and sending welcome emails, first-day schedules, and documentation. They can also handle new employee setup, provision access to required software, and schedule training sessions. Reducing the administrative burden on HR teams ensures a smooth, efficient onboarding process.

Employee Analytics and Retention

Automating employee analytics involves using software to gather and analyze employee performance, engagement, and satisfaction data. These insights allow businesses to identify trends and patterns, including high turnover rates in specific departments or factors contributing to employee disengagement.

Employee Leave and Vacation Requests

Using automation software, employees can submit time-off requests, which are then routed to the appropriate manager for approval. These systems can also update leave balances and send automatic notifications to employees or managers about the status of requests.

Transcript Requests and Processing

In educational settings, an automated process can easily handle transcript requests via an online request system. Students or alumni can submit requests through the portal, where the system verifies their information, processes the payment, and generates the official transcript.

Claims Processing

For insurance companies, automating claims processing helps improve efficiency and accuracy. Automated systems can receive and validate claims, extract the necessary information, and assess the claim against policy terms, significantly speeding up the claims resolution process.

Accounts Receivable

Typically, automating accounts receivable processes with RPA involves using software to manage invoicing, payment tracking, and collections, helping ecommerce organizations save time, improve cash flow, and ensure timely, accurate reporting.

Purchase Orders

Automated systems reduce the manual effort involved in creating, approving, and managing purchase orders. For example, automated systems in retail can generate purchase orders based on predefined criteria like inventory levels or route orders to the appropriate individual for approval. Process automation lowers the amount of manual effort needed, speeds up procurement processes, and improves supply chain efficiency.

Operations Management

Automation in business process management involves using technology to oversee and manage various organizational processes. For example, workflow automation software or RPA developers can ensure machines are running smoothly and predict when maintenance is needed. These insights help prevent downtime and help teams adjust production schedules in real time based on demand.

7 Robotic Process Automation Best Practices

As you’re looking at which of your processes to automate, here’s a few things to consider. Doing so will help you get the maximum benefit from the approach. These include:

Find Areas in Your Business Where Functional Improvement is Needed

For process automation to be successful, you first need to look at your business processes and figure out which ones need improvement. Looking for bottlenecks, inefficiencies, and pain points that are hindering productivity can help higher-ups determine which would benefit from automation.

Find Repetitive Tasks

Identifying repetitive tasks or those that follow a consistent pattern or set of rules may benefit significantly from intelligent automation. For example, tasks like data entry or invoice processing can be handled more efficiently by RPA tools. Automating these tasks reduces employee workload, minimizes errors, and increases efficiency.

Prioritize Areas to Automate

Once tasks and processes for automation have been identified, organizations need to prioritize them based on factors like complexity, impact, and costs. It’s recommended businesses start with high-impact, low-complexity tasks that offer quick wins and measurable benefits.

Create a Holistic Plan

A holistic plan for automating processes ensures all implementation tasks are considered. The plan should include the objectives, scope, timelines, required resources, and key performance indicators (KPIs) to measure success.

Establish Clear Roles

Defining clear roles and responsibilities is critical for successful process automation. Teams should consider assigning a project manager to oversee tasks and identifying process owners who understand the workflows being automated. You may also need to involve IT where necessary. Establishing clear roles ensures accountability and facilitates smooth collaboration between team members.

Build SOPs

To help keep your team consistent during implementation, use Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs). These documents should detail the steps involved in each automated process, the technology used, and troubleshooting. They also help serve as a reference for employees and maintain continuity, especially when personnel changes occur.

Train Users

Employees need to understand how to use the new automation process and it will impact their work. Training plays a key role in this, but it should be comprehensive and include both the technical aspects of the automation tools and the new workflows. Effective training ensures users are comfortable with the new technology and lowers their resistance to change.

Enhance Business Performance with Automation Tools from Podium

An automated process unlocks several benefits for organizations—from increasing efficiency and cost savings to lowering errors and enhancing employee productivity. By streamlining repetitive tasks and automating workflows, organizations can focus more on strategic tasks, improve product and service delivery, and achieve better overall performance.

With Podium, achieving automation goals is easier than ever. Our AI Employee, for example, automates key processes like customer interactions, feedback collection, and more, ensuring a seamless, efficient operation. Using Podium’s capabilities, businesses can stay ahead of their competitors and deliver a superior customer experience.

Learn more about how Podium automates processes by watching a free demo today.