Heading into 2023, it’s clear that the new decade is off to an unforgettable start.
Staying a step ahead has never seemed more challenging – but by rolling with the times, you can ensure your company always stays on top.
Business Process Automation (BPA) has made huge strides in the last few years, both in terms of innovation and adoption. However, despite this progress, many businesses simply haven’t welcomed the advantages of BPA into their processes as of yet.
There’s no shame in that – it’s been a busy and bizarre few years. However, as 2023 opens and companies create their forward strategies, here’s why BPA should be top priority in business.
Understanding what BPA is
Before diving into the reasons why BPA helps your business in 2023, it’s important to understand how and why BPA offers so many advantages. Put simply, business process automation is the term used to describe software, tools, strategies and systems that enable you to let your business run in a more streamlined way.
As any entrepreneur knows, a huge amount of what goes into keeping a business ticking over often takes time and resources – preventing you from investing that same time and level of resources elsewhere.
Why invest in BPA in 2023? Because the world’s getting more complex, the systems behind everything are moving ever quicker, and customers and clients are becoming more demanding than ever before. Why be on the back-foot when you can be on the cutting edge?
Why BPA means happier customers
Starting from a top-level perspective, the most obvious and appealing benefit of BPA is how much it can enhance customer satisfaction. They say you’re only as good as your last mistake, after all – and for startups, tech-businesses and other organisations, being at the top of your game is key.
The global health crisis has shown us that customer loyalty can soon shift if people believe their needs aren’t being met by even their most beloved brands. In an era in which business disruption has become an unfortunate fact of life, anything that anchors your processes to quicker, more efficient and more trackable solutions always leaves your client base satisfied.
That means they keep coming back, and better yet – BPA ensures your time is freed up to focus on winning new customers, growing your foothold in the market and trusting automation to take care of the niggling details.
Use BPA to speed up hiring new employees
Any recruiter will tell you that, from the Great Resignation to the effects of the pandemic, the way we hire staff has changed altogether in next to no time. From paperwork and compliance to tax codes, onboarding and staff retention, business owners know that finding and keeping talent is getting tough.
The right BPA tools can make hiring staff all the more streamlined. Better yet, it makes the process more appealing for the candidates you’re turning into members of staff – you only get one chance to make a first impression, after all.
Wrap all the contracts, staff handbooks and HR tools into a smooth, transparent process, and BPA has given your employees the empowerment they need to stay motivated and productive.
BPA makes at-scale business functionality effortless
Sending out thousands of emails. Tasks with tight turnarounds. Projects needing multiple pairs of eyes for sign-off before release. Auditing and compliance tasks. These are all complex business functions that often slow even the most agile of enterprises to a frustrating crawl.
BPA enables teams to communicate more effectively, for at-scale tasks like emails and time-sensitive projects to move quickly through the workflow pipeline, and for everyone to ultimately end up more free to innovate and inspire your business forward.
BPA doesn’t automate people out of the equation
It’s important to understand that BPA functions in business to enrich the people within it – not to make their jobs less viable or more precarious. One of the most commonly-used examples is payroll. Do you want people caught up in running payroll for days at a time at the end of every month, or do you want them free on other HR tasks while BPA systems get everyone paid up and satisfied on your behalf?
Understanding how BPA takes the nitty-gritty tasks out of the hands of people who are more motivated to commit their energy elsewhere is a crucial element of any good business process automation strategy.
BPA is also seeing ever more use in customer service, fielding simpler questions via smart chat online responses. Customer enquiries are only handed to assistants when solutions are too complex for BPA bots to handle, and a smart business owner can tailor their solutions accordingly to best serve their clientele.
Naturally, the data produced from these online chats can also be used to identify any areas where your business is falling short, and shape your strategies from there.
Use BPA for purchases and procurements to reduce errors
Lower overheads are always the goal of any business, and something that always takes a hit when human error results in duplicate orders, missed restock deadlines or delivery issues.
Using BPA, it’s possible to set up recurring orders and payments, intelligently monitor stock levels to forewarn you if certain products or resources are flying off your shelves quicker than usual, and altogether free you up from the tangles of inventory management.
Use BPA to bring 2023 under your company’s control
It seems almost as if the time for trying to predict the immediate future is long behind us. Since the dawn of the year 2020, businesses have learned the hard way that moving with the times is more vital now than it ever has been.
In an age of rising uncertainty and escalating complexity, bringing as much about your business under your command as possible is key. Here, BPA is the ace up your sleeve in every area of business – and by strategically employing it now, you stand to face whatever 2023 brings with confidence and capability alike.
