Humanizing Business Process Automation

How can a firm keep pace, be agile, and adapt? Business Process Automation (BPA) software can improve quality, reduce manual effort and accelerate processes, which are at the heart of good, fast, and cheap. However, BPA software is a tool, not a magic bullet. A firm’s leadership, people, and culture play the largest role in determining the firm’s values and the processes it uses to run the business. Humans have established what the processes are. They will decide whether process improvement is needed and how to improve them. We believe that BPA software is one way to improve processes, but do not make the mistake of buying the software without first buying into a process automation philosophy.

In this paper, we will explore the following four areas of process improvement, and do it from the human perspective. We’ll touch on the customer’s viewpoint as well as those of internal employees and management. Rachel Wentink will cover the first two points below, and Jesse Clark will finish by addressing the final two.