It’s not that long ago we signed all agreements on paper with all parties physically present. Or that all balance and attendance sheets were tracked in spreadsheets with sales orders manually processed, tracked, and handled. Now, business automation has transformed and keeps changing how companies manage each and every one of their processes.

Business automation enables companies to eliminate repetitive and time-consuming tasks to streamline business efficiency and boost employee productivity. People get an opportunity to concentrate on more significant tasks without spending time on activities that we previously did manually, but can be achieved quicker and more effectively with automation.

Although more than 60% of businesses are actively automating internal processes, many mistakes are made that result in challenges rather than increased productivity.

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For those looking to master businеss automation, we are going to cover six harmful missteps on the way to that automation, ways to avoid them, and things to keep in mind to accelerate the process.

The Concept of Business Automation Explained

Let’s start with the basics and find out more about automation in business, why it’s crucial, and how it actually works.

Business Process Management and Business Process Automation

While business process automation (BPA) and business process management (BPM) are interrelated, the two terms possess non-identical meanings.

The first, BPA, refers to replacing manual tasks utilizing technologies, such as RPA, AI, ML, and related.

Business process management, in turn, refers to the means of managing manual as well as automated tasks.

Hence, BPA is a certain form of process management, but not vice versa. Not all BPM contains automation.

Both processes help with improving a company's business workflows. With the help of business process automation software, BPA substitutes manual activities using technological solutions. BPM streamlines various workflows and works on enhancing the efficiency of each task, either manual or automated.

Companies can either use both approaches or utilize one to get a better income, enhance consumer experience, and get rid of inefficient processes.

How Business Automation Works

In search of ways to cut costs and remove laborious tasks, businesses have encountered a perfect solution in the shape of workflow automation. It utilizes various tech tools to improve some external and internal workflows. Namely:

  1. With a workflow automation plan, you can identify those tasks that are repetitive, time-consuming, and call for too many human resources for their implementation.
  2. You can find ways to automate those workflows with the help of different tools like customer service software, for instance.

Companies can either automate one process or pick several ones to streamline the effort.

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What to Automate in Business Processes

You can automate many business processes. Multiple everyday tasks can be automated, from email notifications to data migration, or managing call center and help desk operations to tracking leave and attendance. Things like payroll, processing invoices, and backup are usually the first to undergo automation, and the right payroll software plays a pivotal role in this transformation. The most important thing for this is an optimized laptop with enough free space for third-party applications. So that later, there are no problems and questions about what occupies your storage or why the device is so slow.

Perhaps most notably, not many businesses now doubt the value of automation in marketing. As per the below forecast, annual marketing automation expenses are to increase massively: from over $11 billion back in 2017, the number is expected to reach over $25 billion in 2023.

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Marketing automation is something that is not only advised but strongly recommended.

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How to recognize that an activity needs automation? There are several factors indicating the necessity to go for business process automation:

  • A large number of tasks
  • Most of the tasks are time-consuming
  • The need to involve multiple employees to execute them
  • Negative impact on other processes
  • Inability to spend time on more important business efforts
  • The constant need for audit and compliance

If you already have some workflows in mind that perfectly meet the above criteria, you are on the first step towards business automation.

Be Aware of These 6 Business Automation Mistakes

While automation has proven effective for many, it’s vital to understand that any process executed in the wrong way may lead to negative consequences. We’ll be covering business automation mistakes and ways to avoid them below:

1. Automating for the Sake of it

Mistake

If all the companies around you are automating their internal operations, it doesn’t mean that you have to catch this wave or you are massively falling behind.

Solution

While it is true that many businesses invest in automation because it is helpful and efficient, it’s vital to understand the “why” behind your strive for it.

To improve your company’s competitive market position and business performance, you need to identify tasks to automate to avoid ending up investing in the wrong ones.

First of all, think of the workflows that fall under the automation criteria. There is hardly a possibility that your business needs full operations automation. The better the research you make before starting with automation, the more time and money you save in the long run.

Think about things you are about to automate. Is there a way of changing or improving them? Not every automation is a good one to execute, so always bear the end goal in mind and identify what problem you are solving in the first place.

2. Not Having an Automation Plan

Mistake

Rushing with automation without mapping out a clear implementation plan and without taking time to pick up the right tools (such as Camunda for example) is a road to nowhere. “Chaotic automation” leads to rather devastating business effects, with processes going out of control and not bringing the desired results.

According to Salesforce research, half of the problems when dealing with automation are related to poor planning of complex processes. It means that automation itself is already a hard one to handle and, without careful planning, will never prove effective.

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Solution

The idea for your business automation should be first defined, designed, and developed. Once that’s done, it can be delivered and tested.

Business automation takes time to deploy and align with ongoing processes inside the company. So you need to understand and envision every step of automation, and every possible challenge you or your employees might face.

Having a plan B in place in case things go wrong is also a good approach. While it is true that you can always roll things back, you can’t return the money and time spent.

3. Automating the Wrong Workflow

Mistake

Another mistake is picking the wrong process to automate. Selecting some workflows just to test things might result in huge disappointment after automation. As an illustration, choosing to automate HR processes first when your accounting is on fire is the road to wrongly believing that “automation doesn't help much”.

Solution

Business workflows that fit the criteria should be carefully evaluated. You should pick only the ones that slow down work for future automation. So the decision on implementing automation must be aligned with company strategy, short-term goals, and priorities.

Alternatively, you should select reasonably, and be driven by data. Start by talking to employees and noting things that take their time the most.

Understand the pattern and see whether it happens regularly or is a one-time thing due to system error. Check performance indicators and metrics.

If the task takes too much human labor, is time-consuming, and slows down half of the other processes, you can start planning automation, considering risks and employees’ opinions.

A company will benefit from solving a general pain rather than your own wish to check how automation works.

4. Simultaneous Automation

Mistake

Another common mistake is automating all at once. Hoping to stay ahead of others, companies end up investing their time and money into automating several processes simultaneously.

This may result in too much confusion and be rather overwhelming for employees. Rather than progressing, you are actually postponing things and slowing down the company's development.

If you are not dedicating enough time to proper automation, you will never get the results you are looking to achieve. Unless you allow consequent implementation and give time to your people to get used to working with the new workflow.

Solution

For automation to yield the desired outcome, focus on working with one workflow at a time. Suppose you want to try social media automation, so consider automating Linkedin, Facebook, or any other one social media platform.

Automating one process only, you will be able to:

  • Get acquainted with the way automation works
  • Understand automation flows
  • Learn how to deal with automation challenges
  • Avoid slowing down company performance

Your team will get a chance to continue working according to a familiar workflow and, at the same time, adjust to a new process in an easy and stressless way.

5. Automation as an Ultimate Solution

Mistake

Thinking that automating workflows is an ultimate solution to improve productivity, performance, and income is pretty overrated. Company owners falsely treat automation as a full-stack solution for business growth rather than a tool for working towards it.

Solution

Automation, in reality, is a set of tools that can help businesses perform strategic tasks better, but automation is not a button activating business prosperity. Companies need to treat automation as a means to enhance their work approaches and improve internal processes. Automation is only one of the steps toward building a successful business, but not a magic pill to solve all problems.

So you need to have a growth plan, business development strategy, and responsible teams, and then automation will help. You'll have a balance between quality and quantity as well as the speed of delivery and outcome value.

6. Not Thinking About People

Mistake

Many business owners miss a key factor—the human factor—when making big decisions. It has the biggest influence on business progress. Same with automation: Unprepared employees may not receive value from business automation.

Solution

​​Ask yourself these important questions before starting the process in order to avoid big disappointment:

  • Are your people qualified to handle automation?
  • What do they think about upcoming changes?
  • Do they really need their current workflow to be automated?

When you treat automation in the right way, it will increase workforce productivity and engagement. Automation, however helpful and innovative it might seem, calls for people to be acquainted with its processes. It comes with careful planning, workflow optimization, and training.

Start communicating with the team and make sure they are qualified for the implementation of businеss process automation software. And for those who need to gain skills, prepare explainer videos and organize training sessions.

When you are going live with a new workflow, everyone in the team should be on the same page.

Business Process Automation Checklist

We’ve covered the most common and harmful missteps when planning business automation, and it’s time to summarize and list the things to remember.

If you’ve chosen the first operation to automate, make use of the below checklist to stay on the right track and avoid mistakes:

1. Choose a Responsible Person

Before diving into automation, you need a person to lead the entire process—someone who will be documenting, evaluating, implementing a new workflow, and working with feedback.

2. Identify Your “Why”

We highlighted the point about automation for the sake of automation. Identifying reasons is the step where you need to clarify the goal.

Why are you automating? Are you looking to reduce the workload? Are you trying to save time and money? Do you want to get rid of manual paperwork? State the primary “why” behind upcoming automation and keep your focus on it during the whole process.

3. Gather Data

This step is time-consuming yet effective. Find out more about the workflow you are planning to automate. How was it managed before? Were there any changes made to improve it?

Here you will need to collect all the records from related data sources—CRMs, websites, resource management software, and others. Also, ask employees how they feel about the process, what bothers them, what other workflows it influences, how many people it usually involves, how much time it takes to complete. The more details, the better.

Once done, you need to evaluate all possible challenges you and your people might face when the process is eventually automated. You might face rejection and the inability to adjust to changes. It is important to hear people out and ensure that each step will be explained and shown with the process being documented and implemented.

This step is also crucial for identifying the real need for automation. It might become obvious that future changes will bring more harm than use, hence needing further discussion.

4. Map an Action Plan

Once you have the data, it’s time to work on the strategy. Mapping out each step of the process with a process mapping software is vital to ensure you are moving in the right direction and anticipating all the possible challenges. The action plan will also be a relief for employees as they will be able to understand how things will change and at what speed.

5. Execute

Once you finish planning, you can start the implementation process. It’s good to try things in a test mode and see how things work (or how they don’t). The entire workflow should be working perfectly, without breakdowns, errors, or glitches. The more different tests you run, the better the outcome. Ensure that the process follows the needed path and doesn’t break somewhere in the middle.

6. Gather Feedback

An important step during testing is not accepting a middling result. Suppose things work but not in the way you want them to; roll back and see what went wrong.

If you went live and started training people and they bring negative feedback, don’t ignore it. Look into the issue, do more tests. Ensure you are not bringing more challenges into the workflow.

7. Improve

If things go largely smoothly but have several drawbacks, look for means to improve. Besides, track results, look into analytics, see how much you were able to optimize, and whether the main goal (your “why”) has been reached.

Wrap Up

Business process automation doesn’t come overnight. You need to start it with a clear goal, a thought-out strategy, and an understanding that all the changes you are about to make will influence your employees in the first place.

While automation is great, it doesn’t suit every business unit. It is not a trend to follow, but a solution to decrease workload, save time, and improve workforce management.

Dmytro Zaichenko is a Marketing Specialist at Coupler.io, a tool helping to configure HubSpot, Shopify, Trello export, and integrations with 15+ popular platforms. He has 7 years of experience in content making. Apart from writing, he's passionate about networking and the NBA.