Business Process Automation
by Jim Westcott

Productivity is one of the key benchmarks that consistently place Canadian businesses behind global competitors. But productivity, or the lack thereof, is a multi-dimensional issue; when the layers are peeled away, most companies reveal themselves to be using inefficient and sub-optimal business processes. Of course no organization strives to maintain processes and practices that limit its potential, but some retain antiquated and costly habits that present barriers to innovation because they are familiar and convenient; they are kept in place because making a change means taking a risk, even a calculated risk.

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That grasp of the familiar represents the greatest difficulty to achieving improvements through business process automation (BPA): to move forward, to grow, to become more productive, it often means giving up skills and methods of work that are well established and highly valued but misaligned to meeting current and future challenges. Process automation is not simply another technology solution; it also involves important, non-technical issues that have deeply held relevance to business operations. Being underproductive is not necessarily a failure of technology, it is more likely to be a failure to establish alternative solutions that users, technophiles and non-technophiles alike, are comfortable adopting. In many cases, users will forgo using BPA solutions because they seem complicated and the new business process flows are already unfamiliar.

At its core, business process automation - using IT to reduce or remove the need for human manipulation - is really about searching for opportunities in areas where habits and fear have led to vulnerabilities and weakness. BPA solutions are a tool for optimizing efficiency and competitiveness for all manner of companies, whether they provide services, manufacture goods or retail those goods and services. They are a way of refining business processes to reflect current and future conditions and identify accompanying requirements, thereby addressing the crucial issue of productivity.

So what does that all mean? It means understanding what you really want from your enterprise and making the move to get it. Hesitation, whether because of fear or comfort with old processes, can be lethal for productivity. But sudden and dramatic changes may do the same; the most prudent course of action may be to start with small projects - putting more focus on customers, for example - that can be used to perfect solutions.

The value of BPA lies in the achievement of two key outcomes. The first, based on process modelling and workflow redesign, allows for the reallocation of existing corporate resources - whether expressed as employees' time, as capital, or as investment. Employees and managers are freed up to do other productive work while the process continues to run. They can focus on areas of business that drive value for the company overall and improve its competitive position, productivity and, very possibly, profitability. Other benefits include eliminating inefficiencies related to manual interventions such as duplication, bottlenecks and poor auditing controls, which, in turn, can reduce the organization's expenses.

The second outcome is related to the attempt to resolve non-technical issues, particularly those concerning customers. BPA enables systems that improve customer service while lowering operating costs and providing companies with a consistent and unified view of customers. These benefits accrue from streamlining responsiveness based on the customers' or users' view of how the product or service is purchased and used. By improving workflows, eliminating redundancies and waste and sharpening its customer-centric focus, what an organization is really doing is creating advantages and economic results (higher revenue and profit) by exploiting opportunities. Such an organization would no doubt see and seize the opportunity to be innovative, to create or amplify the business climate that favours buyers, leading to increased customer retention, but simultaneously increasing employee satisfaction and productivity. What's more, this organization may be able to do all of this with a single automated process that both employees and customers can use.

The key development in the relatively young BPA market is software that standardizes the deployment of BPA software and uses industry best-practices to reduce implementation and integration cycles for common business processes. IT services are still critical to getting the most out of BPA solutions; however, the continuing expansion of BPA software into ever more areas allows benefits to be realized sooner. Business process modelling tools also serve to standardize the discovery phase of automation making the process highly adaptable and responsive to the needs of individual businesses.

For these reasons, Canadian businesses should be initiating business process automation solutions for operational efficiency rather than cost savings. Companies can quickly determine which processes are most in need of improvement and search for existing, commercially available solutions. The reality is that proprietary business processes, those that truly provide competitive differentiation, are relatively scarce in most corporations and distinctiveness lies in the application of business knowledge (to business and customer issues) rather than the workflow to achieve this knowledge. BPA solutions are reaching the point at which economies of scale begin to outweigh the value derived from maintaining custom solutions.

The problem is that many Canadian businesses are focused on solving existing problems by managing deficient processes that cause customer dissatisfaction or organizational paralysis. IDC contends that Canadian businesses should re-orient their strategy to proactively manage business processes in order to transform problems into opportunities before their competitors do it. Examine the organization's business processes for inefficiencies, weigh the risk of making changes against doing nothing, make the investment, make the change, work with the IT vendor, partners, suppliers and customers to ensure the process is optimized, re-examine regularly and tweak.

The key attribute fostered by BPA is orienting the enterprise to its strategic future not its past. The challenges Canadian businesses face mean that they must be flexible, ready to deploy processes that optimize economic performance under optimal conditions or ones that can help optimize performance under sub-optimal conditions.

Canada is on the world stage in terms of productivity, but it will take investment in information technology products and services as well as business services to push our way to centre stage. Taking advantage of existing business process automation solutions provides Canadian enterprises with the opportunity to take incremental steps toward improving their operations. Taking these steps will be important to achieving higher levels of productivity and competitiveness. However, there is an important caveat: half-measures won't produce meaningful benefits, just higher costs, lower satisfaction for both employees and customers and delayed benefits.

While it is critical to preserve employee knowledge and know-how, it is just as important that businesses not hold themselves hostage to outdated models and processes. By and large, the technology aspects of BPA are easy to manage relative to changing employee, customer and organizational habits. But when it's time for a change, make it, check it and tweak it. That could be all it takes to become more competitive, productive and profitable.