How Can Business Process Automation (BPA) Help Your Business Save Time And Money

Business Process Automation (BPA) is a software used for task automation within an organization to reduce unnecessary, time-consuming tasks. Some of daily business tasks might be difficult simple because they are tedious or redundant.

A company could invest in multiple different software solutions for managing their business. Usually, those solutions are not connected, creating disruption and more confusion rather than helping the organization be more efficient.

BPA centralizes all tasks and helps reduce the stress that comes with these tasks by simplifying them into hands-free processes. BPA makes your business more efficient by saving time, money, and employee’s skills on basic operational tasks.

BPA Benefits in Client Management

An area that can certainly benefit from using BPA is client management. This area involves multiple client accounts that can easily overwhelm any business, especially smaller ones. Businesses usually have multiple employees using client account database. BPA helps by centralizing all of the information and making it available to any team member at any time. BPA software ensures that all of the accounts are regularly updated. Also, all of the files are made easily accessible with a clear view of what needs to be completed within the client management segment.

Important benefits of using BPA include collaboration. BPA allows template creation for various tasks, such as closing a contract or uploading invoices. When the account manager makes changes within the system to update client’s contract, it sends an automatic email to all relevant team members.

BPA Benefits in Marketing and Customer Service

In marketing, BPA is highly used in posting new blogs and articles. As soon as the business publishes new content, it is automatically posted on various social media, i.e. Facebook and Twitter. Because of this, you don’t have to waste time and manually post each one of articles on multiple media platforms your business uses. 

Another example is an automated “welcome” email to all new visitors who join business’ newsletter. The system immediately adds these visitors to the marketing email list. Businesses choose how often they want to reach out to their customers, whether weekly, monthly, etc.

Customer service is improved in a similar way when using BPA (and a good discussion of this can be found on Jim Sinur's blog). As soon as a customer requests a service or support, the software creates a task to be completed by the customer support division within your business. The request is much easily tracked using a BPA software solution. An extra benefit is that BPA can be integrated with the customer relationship management (CRM) software.

More BPA Implementation Benefits

BPA reduces the amount of administrative tasks by sending automatic email reminders to customers about payments and any other information regarding their purchase. It also helps with sending automated, but personalized “thank you” emails and follow-up surveys. BPA can spot issues within the system and notify you on time.

BPA records all of your actions, allowing for a more accurate forecast of the time, budget, and materials needed to complete a specific project. As a result, you and your company are more prepared for upcoming projects and report sessions.

Since data and communication are centralized, the organization itself develops better team relationships. All of the updates, files, tasks, and communication are in one place, within easy reach of employees involved in the project. This leads to a more productive environment, reduction in project confusion, and better overall management.

Author  bio:
Amira Chugunova is a process management and optmiization specialist, currently researching emerging technology handling business process automation (BPA), such as that provided by Lean BPM pioneer, JobTraQ.