A business process is normally more valuable to an organization than the sum of its tasks.
This concept directly applies to automation.
Automating a task can bring about efficiency gains and time savings (and automating several tasks amplifies these benefits); but automating a business process end-to-end allows you to transform the experiences you deliver to employees and clients—and that, in itself, is priceless.
So how can your organization move from a task-based to a process-based approach to automation? Charles Araujo, an analyst and best-selling author, shared his thoughts in a series of posts for Intellyx, a digital transformation analyst firm.
Let’s break down some of his key insights.
Note: You can learn everything Araujo shared by reading his articles, “Breaking Through the RPA Distortion Field and Choosing the Right Automation Tool for the Job” and “How an End-to-End Perspective and a Low-code Mindset will Transform Your View of Enterprise Automation.”
Low-code/no-code makes building and maintaining end-to-end automations scalable
An end-to-end process can be daunting when you look at it at a high level.
Take order to cash, for example. This process likely involves your ERP system, CRM, data warehouse, payment processing application, etc. Moreover, multiple teams—from sales reps to accounts receivable specialists to financial analysts—will play a role in the process.
Given all these moving parts, there are likely countless ways to build, fix, and optimize the process through automation. However, using code to do so can’t accommodate this need over time—as only a select few builders can participate.
That’s where a low-code/no-code automation platform can help.
Leveraging this type of platform, the work involved in implementing or modifying an end-to-end workflow automation is all the more easy; also, it allows business users who are most familiar with a process to get involved, allowing your organization to not only increase its capacity for building automations but also build them in ways that ensure optimal performance.
An enterprise automation platform can orchestrate several automation technologies
Imagine bringing a single tool, say a hammer, to build a house.
Sounds silly, right?
Araujo argues that building end-to-end automations are no different.
For instance, when reviewing each step of a process, you might find that a specific step calls for a solution like RPA, while another calls for a platform bot that can communicate with employees directly in your business communications platform (e.g. Slack).
An enterprise automation platform like Workato can orchestrate the use of these technologies, among others, all but ensuring that they’re leveraged to the fullest extent.
Note: To help make this more tangible, you can review this example of automating order processing
Araujo neatly sums up why it’s critical to use a platform like Workato in this context:
“With the ability to orchestrate multiple types of automation, you now can look at a business process from a complete end-to-end perspective — and, in so doing, you gain the opportunity to completely reimagine it.”
