Business Process Automation Explained

Automating business processes can have wide ranging benefits, as detailed in our case studies below. But first, let’s break down the core business value of automation from boosting productivity to enabling better decision-making and why it could be a game changer in staying competitive today.

Repetitive, monotonous tasks are often manual processes carried out by human beings and as much as we would all like to think we are perfect - with 100% attention to detail, and no mistakes - the reality is that we are neither as speedy nor as infallible as we would like.

So, what consequences do we risk when we decline the invitation to automate? The first two are obvious perhaps:

• Mistakes can lead to poor decisions based on inaccurate business data

• Delays mean missed deadlines and absent data leading to misjudged business decisions.

Some of the more hidden side effects of manual processes can be summarised as follows:

• Things fall through the cracks!

• Business triggers are missed

• Overlooked business opportunities lead to lost revenue

• Missed deadlines for key business activities

• Capped workloads due to human capacity limits

• Inefficiencies leading to higher staff costs

• Staff dissatisfaction & churn

• Lack of confidence in business data and decisions

• Customer dissatisfaction due to inefficiencies, late project delivery or missed key milestones

So what are the benefits of an automated business process?

• Better client satisfaction

• Higher employee satisfaction

• Increased confidence in processes

• Higher efficiency and reduced manpower costs

• Faster delivery of products and services

• Higher revenue and profitability

• More control and visibility over business processes

• Fewer mistakes

• Better business data

• Better decision making

Competition is everywhere and our internal inefficiencies and manual processes leave us vulnerable to offering an inferior service, or slower response time compared with competitors who are already on their automation journey. These errors and delays impact your ability to make critical business decisions fast.

But with automation solutions you can code and automate business triggers so that you never miss a signal again. We also generate better quality data which drives the next stage of the process.

Don't let things fall through the cracks

Many of our business processes have a lifecycle associated with them and critical checkpoints that trigger the next step. If a trigger is missed or a step ignored that could lead to loss of customers, loss of revenue, increased costs and customer dissatisfaction. Increasing organisational efficiency makes things better for staff too.

To illustrate this, let’s look at a couple of examples of business processes. Each of them has critical stages that must be completed in a timely manner to ensure we are not losing clients and money.

A lead comes in to the sales team

What should happen when a lead comes into your business?

• Assign the lead to a salesperson

• Contact the potential client to qualify the lead

• Schedule regular contact by email or telephone

• Convert or close the lead after a defined period of time

• Converted leads should then be tracked as opportunities

• Opportunities should be closed as won business

• Sales orders should be created from won opportunities

When left to a human being and manual processes, any of these stages could be missed, or assumed to have been carried out by someone else. The lead could go unallocated, the lead could be left unqualified with no attempt to contact the potential client, the period between contacts could be too long resulting in the client going elsewhere to a company that was more responsive.

Automating the process for following up leads will streamline events so that opportunities aren’t missed - increasing your chances of winning the business and improving conversion rates.

Project work to invoice

How do we make sure that we invoice for all the work carried out on a project? What is the process for invoicing project work?

• A project start date is agreed

• A team is authorised to start work on the project

• Work starts on the project

• Time spent working on the project is tracked in timesheets

• At the end of the month a timesheet work summary is produced

• At the end of the month a completion % for the project is recorded

• The project manager approves the timesheets

• If the project is a “bill as you go” project an invoice should be raised for time tracked in the approved timesheets

  • The timesheets are passed to the admin team to record tracked project time and value

  • The tracked project time and value is passed to the finance team to raise an invoice

  • Invoice is sent to the client

• If the project is a “bill on completion” project the accrued work should be recorded

  • The timesheets are passed to the admin team to record tracked project time and value

  • The tracked project time and value is passed to the finance team to accrue revenue

  • Invoice is sent to the client

If a project is never started, then you lose the revenue, so it is key to ensure you have processes which pick up authorised projects and get them underway.

After the project starts, if any of the above stages are missed then project work could go un-invoiced. This means lost revenue and costs incurred to the development/project team who have carried out the work.

Missing key triggers in your project lifecycle could also result in revenue not being accounted for from a P&L point of view or put into the wrong period.

Missed business triggers

Human beings are constantly interrupted and distracted by external factors – that’s a normal part of business life, so eliminating the risk of missed triggers is a must.

Automation platforms and tools can help you map your business processes into an automated flow that triggers events at the right time, and retriggers them until they are completed. They can also alert groups of users to required actions so that we don't have a single point of failure when one person is absent.

Missed business opportunities and revenue

I highlighted two scenarios earlier - sales lead handling and project work invoicing.

If we don’t have an efficient process for tracking and driving the lead handling process, leads will go unqualified, and opportunities won’t be followed up. As a result sales opportunities will be missed.

If our project tracking process doesn’t pick up when a project is completed or when time has been spent on a project, invoices won’t be sent. In the worst-case scenario this may never get picked up and the revenue will be lost whilst keeping all the costs associated with it. If not completely lost it could be months before the missed invoicing is spotted, leading to unhappy clients getting a nasty surprise!

Missed deadlines for key business activities

Failing to send a quote to a potential new client will most likely result in a lost sales opportunity, and the loss of the client.

Missing a project milestone delivery date could incur penalties and loss of revenue.

Missing a client's deadline request for submitting invoices could result in a lengthy battle to try and secure payment of a late invoice. We may also lose a client's future business over such poor internal processes.

Automating these processes mean alerts and emails can be generated automatically and sent to key personnel to remind them of the tasks they need to request or carry out, enabling them to keep on top of the work and never miss as thing.

Capped workloads due to human capacity limits

There is a limit to what a human can get done in a working week. But some business processes involve so many moving parts and such vast quantities of data that it is a near physical impossibility to get one week's tasks done before the next week's are due to start.

I'm sure we’ve all seen scenarios where a "Monday" report takes three days to compile – what with complex spreadsheets and scattered data – it is not actually available until Wednesday or Thursday. Manual tasks can take much longer than expected. These scenarios are not good for business. Information is late and employees are under intense pressure.

This is where automation can really benefit you. Let an automated solution trundle through the vast sets of data you have and integrate it into a suitable format for consuming, whether it be data that will feed management reports, or data that will drive business processes.

Inefficiencies leading to higher staff costs

Manual processes will take significantly longer than an automated process. I have seen cases, such as the Monday report mentioned above, where one person is spending three days collating data from various spreadsheets and data sources to construct a monster spreadsheet that is then distributed to various people around the business.

At PTR we can automate this task and deliver you a dashboard that is instantly available without any human intervention. That is 3 days of staff effort and all the associated costs wiped out at a stroke. Talk about quick wins! And once the automated solution is built it is there forever.

Staff dissatisfaction & churn

When internal systems are not fit for purpose it inevitably means that people are being put under immense pressure to deliver services, information and answers under very difficult circumstances, continually chasing their tails to get things done in time and without mistakes. We all know that the faster we go the more mistakes we are likely to make.

Time pressures and unrealistic expectations, along with human error due to haste can lead to immense stress which affects the physical well being and emotional health of those involved. This in turn could lead to stress and staff absence. You don’t want to lose key team members altogether because they can find a more up to date work environment elsewhere.

Lack of confidence in business data and decisions

Poor business process management can lead to a loss of confidence, both in the processes themselves and the quality of the data involved. If the processes are badly managed, how can you trust any decisions made as a result?

Automating critical business processes means greater efficiency but also leads to much higher quality data at each stage. That in turn means dashboards you can trust and ultimately better business decisions.

Customer dissatisfaction; inefficiencies, late project delivery, missed milestones

This one speaks for itself really. If we don’t respond to a client fast enough, if we hand them inaccurate/incomplete information, or we appear to have disjointed and inefficient internal processes, we are likely to see dissatisfaction increase. Ultimately, they will go elsewhere.

Summary

It is safe to say that if you want happy customers, you want happy staff - so give them the best possible tools for the job and a realistic timescale.

Many aspects of business have workflows that lend themselves to automation which can make you more efficient. I have mentioned only two here, but our business process automation expert, Neil Skipper has created a library of 10 examples to show you how automation can accelerate business growth. See the snapshot overview of all 10 here and then dive into the detailed case studies one by one HERE Which one will you go for first?

• Improving financial forecasting with automated data integration

• Automated sales lead follow up

• Streamlining Invoice approvals manual processes with Power Automate

• New employee onboarding workflows

• Accelerated decision making with real-time insights in Power BI

• Enhancing customer engagement with Power Virtual Agents

• Standardising Data Collection with PowerApps

• Boosting collaboration across tams with Power Automate Approvals

• Scaling operations without additional head count

• Creating competitive advantage through agility

We would strongly encourage you to talk to your team about automating a single process first to get you going and if you need help carrying out the work or strategic advice on where to go next then please do get in touch with us at info@ptr.co.uk or via our contact form. You might also want to take a look at our business process automation consultancy offerings.