Business Process Automation solutions have been part of conversations for many years now, with a plethora of solutions available to help organisations streamline their daily operations; from OCR and ICR to Machine Learning (ML), Natural Language Processing (NLP) and cognitive computing. The benefits of deploying Business Process Automation solutions are significant and include not only the ability to grow revenue and improve the bottom line through increased efficiencies, but also improvements in customer service and operational insights leading to competitive advantage and business growth. So it is no wonder that many companies have made investing in these technologies one of their top priorities. Yet it can often be difficult for businesses to identify which technology will be the most effective for them and industry ‘hype’ is further complicating decision making.
In the first instance, it is important for organisations to spend time getting to know their processes and pain points in order to identify a robust business case. This not only generates a strong ROI, but also ensures buy-in from all levels and enables organisations to have a clearer idea of the technology solution that might be required. The second stage is to understand each of the individual technology's capabilities and how they might solve and deliver efficiencies to the business case. The below diagram provides an overview of the most common technologies in the market at the moment and their capabilities in relation to business process solutions.
