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If you're noticing bottlenecks or disadvantageous data silos in your enterprise workflows, enterprise automation could be the answer.

Our five key takeaways from How Enterprise Automation Transforms Workflows are:

  • Enterprise automation is the application of software programs and other technologies to carry out general, repetitious business processes throughout a company.

  • Organizations strategically use enterprise automation and other business technology to integrate disparate software programs and apps, streamline workflows, and automate repetitive tasks.

  • Intelligent automation platforms analyze your data and, through artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) algorithms, enable decision-making using real-time data.

  • The main technologies used in enterprise automation include robotic process automation (RPA), business process management (BPM), business process automation (BPA), and integration Platforms as a Service (iPaaS).

  • Enterprise automation improves an organization's productivity and efficiency through streamlined company workflows, reduced data entry errors, and the freeing up of staff time to focus on more organizationally important tasks and campaigns.

Enterprise automation centralizes automation strategies and preps your organization for improved business value realization and the ease of agility.

In this post, you'll learn how businesses like yours optimize workflows, increase employee productivity, remove data silos, connect disparate departments and teams, and power digital transformation throughout an organizational ecosystem.

Understanding Enterprise Automation

Organizations strategically use enterprise automation and other business technology to:

  • Integrate disparate software programs and apps

  • Streamline workflows

  • Automate repetitive tasks

Key aspects of enterprise automation that help improve processes and workflows include:

  • Rule-based. This form of automation requires defining rules in advance that trigger task execution. To define these rules, conditions are chosen that determine the actions an enterprise automation program must take whenever a specific programmed action occurs. Rule-based automation maintains consistency and structure.

  • Integration-based. Integration-based automation ties together application programming interfaces (APIs), customer relationship management (CRM) programs, and enterprise resource planning (ERP) solutions to streamline your data- and workflows between these systems.

  • Intelligence-based. Intelligent automation analyzes your data and, through artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) algorithms, enables decision-making using real-time data. Intelligence-based automation can carry out complicated tasks, learning from your data in real time and adapting to different scenarios without the need for human contributions.

Although enterprise automation allows organizations to realize multiple benefits, many key decision-makers often misunderstand key aspects of the tech and are therefore reluctant to try it.

Recommended Reading: Why Data Democratization Matters Today

Common Misconceptions About Enterprise Automation

If you're apprehensive about enterprise automation, you're not alone. Many businesses refrain from automation — but this apprehension is usually due to myths surrounding the technology, such as:

Misconception: Enterprise automation is too expensive

The top misconception surrounding enterprise automation is that it costs too much or that the monetary investment will take too long to recoup. Now, it's true, automation systems are sometimes significant investments. But the savings you'll see in the long run make this a worthwhile business investment because:

  • Labor costs are reduced

  • Production times are decreased

  • Efficiency is raised over time

…all of which leads to positive return on investment (ROI).

Misconception: Enterprise automation eliminates humans' roles

Many organization leaders forego enterprise automation because they fear it could decimate jobs. Sure, some roles may become outmoded by automation. However, employment overall will see a nuanced impact. According to McKinsey, enterprise automation actually enhances current roles and will create new roles in the future.

Misconception: Enterprise automation isn't for small businesses

Small businesses generally consider enterprise automation as reserved for large organizations because large organizations have more data and therefore require automation, and also have greater ability to invest in technologies like automation. In practice, however, small businesses can also see great returns from enterprise automation, such as improved competitiveness, productivity, and overall efficiency; all of which lead to a boost in profitability.

Misconception: Enterprise automation isn't simple

Many organizations forego the automation route due to thinking it's too difficult. Maybe you think you need experts on staff to implement automation and maintain all the moving parts. Now, it is true that implementing enterprise automation is complex, it isn't too complicated to handle. In fact, most enterprise automation systems were created with user-friendliness in mind and don't require too much training to understand and benefit from.

Hopefully, we've addressed your doubts. So, now let's take a look at some primary technology used in enterprise automation.

Key Technologies of Enterprise Automation

The main technologies used in enterprise automation include:

  • Robotic process automation (RPA): RPA is the use of bots for the automation of rules-based tasks that are generally repetitive in nature. RPA bots imitate the actions of humans, interact with multiple systems, execute various tasks, and manipulate data.

  • Business process management automation (BPM/A): BPM and BPA use automation solutions that minimize the need for human involvement. These business process tools are end-to-end strategies that emphasize how all the tasks of a given process can be seamlessly integrated. An enterprise automation solution provides the environment in which business process management and automation can carry out processes and execute strategies.

  • Integration Platform as a Service (iPaaS): An iPaaS platform is typically crucial for the facilitation of unified data flow between apps and other enterprise systems, which results in a well-connected landscape for automation.

    • iPaaS offers multiple features, such as:

      • Integration capabilities for today's tech stack and legacy apps

      • Elasticity and multi-tenant functions for the cloud

      • Integration deployment and development

      • Integration management

      • Integration governance

      • System scalability

      • Storage-agnosticism (use the cloud, an on-premise storage solution, or a hybridized storage location)

Advantages of Enterprise Automation

Research by Salesforce in 2021 discovered that automation in the workplace improved employee satisfaction. More recent research published in the journal Science Direct concludes that variables regarding how people perceive and react to stressful situations are many. In other words, while it appears that job-related stress pertaining to ongoing enterprise automation efforts may be on the rise, there are simply too many variables to distinguish how and why people may feel as they do about the technology.

Many organizations don't enjoy the full benefits of automation because leadership takes a siloed approach. To truly appreciate the value of automation, a holistic approach is required, organization-wide — that holistic approach is enterprise automation.

The benefits of a holistic automation approach include:

  • Increased productivity through a reduction in manual tasks and faster completion of projects

  • Improved accuracy and fewer errors vs manual processes

  • Direct and indirect cost savings

  • Improved data management fosters enhanced regulatory compliance and reporting

These benefits of enterprise automation are clear in organizations that reached full implementation. So, how can you take advantage?

4 Steps to Implement Enterprise Automation in Your Organization

To automate your organization:

  1. Assess your current workflows. Identify areas where automation opportunities exist and evaluate the readiness of your team for adding automation tools.

  2. Choose the right automation solutions. Evaluate why you want to automate, where you want to automate, and use those answers to decide on the right automation programs. Shortlist vendors for comparison. Choose your top three solutions and schedule demos.

  3. Plan and execute. Build a step-by-step plan for how your organization will implement automation solutions and brainstorm strategies for change management.

  4. Measure your success. Choose the right key performance indicators (KPIs), monitor activities, and tweak approaches where necessary. Work towards continuously improving and scaling your automation until your company is at the automation level you envisioned.

While that's relatively straightforward, some companies may still face certain issues when transitioning to enterprise automation.

Challenges of Enterprise Automation

While enterprise automation has multiple benefits, you could encounter issues that pose difficult challenges. It's important to consider how you'll meet and overcome these potential problems should they occur during implementation:

Silos

Many organizations experience automation silos in which certain teams focus on solely their own department's goals. Now, this might work for companies focusing on those departments alone, but if you're looking for more than micro gains, you're leaving a lot of benefits on the table. A limited scope like this could produce inefficient processes that result in worse effects than had you not attempted automation at all.

Bottleneck Identification During Implementation

You might find that identifying bottlenecks isn't so easy. So, you need carry out a detailed evaluation and learn where enterprise automation is most desperately needed. This is especially important for organizations that have proprietary or legacy systems in place. Automation strategies should align with these systems, or leadership needs to assess which programs, tools, apps, and other proprietary or legacy systems may need to be replaced with new technologies.

Implementation challenges can also include change resistance, unclear strategies, and even cultural barriers that hinder total acceptance and adoption.

Accurate Data Entry

Accurately and completely entering data is a vital part of automating processes. Any inconsistencies or inaccuracies can cause errors in workflows and cancel out any benefits you may see from enterprise automation. Identify the origins of data quality problems, rectify any errors, and ensure your teams understand the importance of data integrity in all organizational systems. Establish best practices for handling occasional data errors going forward.

Recommended Reading: The Essential Role of a Data Steward in Modern Business Intelligence

Non-standard Task Automation

Enterprise automation implementation for tasks that historically need human eyes is challenging. Decide if automating these tasks is necessary, because without human-level accuracy, any decisions from resulting tasks, activity, or data could be hampered or outright incorrect.

Scalability

Scaling in this sense isn't about scaling your organization. This type of scaling refers to the ability of your enterprise automation system to handle increasing "jobs" whether in number or frequency. When you're expanding these automation initiatives across multiple departments, it's important that you can ensure the automation system can process fluctuating data, transactional, or process volumes without skipping a beat.

Build a Foolproof Enterprise Automation Strategy with Integrate.io

A well-planned and -executed enterprise automation strategy with stakeholder collaboration, adoption, and buy-in can help any organization implement automation tools and reap the benefits of full-scale organizational automation.

Sign up for our free, 14-day trial and see for yourself how Integrate.io's robust set of no-code integration tools can lay the foundation for operational efficiency and successful enterprise automation efforts. Unsure where to start? Schedule an intro call with one of our experienced Solutions Engineers, and we can walk you through the benefits of Integrate.io for your unique enterprise automation use case.

FAQs

What is enterprise automation and how does it work?

Enterprise automation is the use of automation software programs and other automation technologies to carry out general, repetitious business operations throughout a company and achieve optimization of company resources. Enterprise automation may use one or all of the following to accomplish true automation:

  • Artificial intelligence (AI)

  • Machine learning (ML)

  • Robotic process automation (RPA)

How do you identify which workflows to automate in an enterprise?

To decide which business processes you should automate, consider the tasks your team executes on a daily basis. Data-driven tasks that can be automated are those that are:

  • Repetitive

  • Frequent

  • High-volume

  • Structured

  • Time-consuming

  • Prone to errors

  • Costly

What are the challenges of implementing enterprise automation?

Challenges to enterprise automation success include:

  • Automation silos

  • Bottlenecks

  • Lack of adoption or buy-in

  • Inaccurate data entry

  • Non-standard tasks

  • Inability to scale

How does enterprise automation improve productivity and efficiency?

Enterprise automation improves an organizations productivity and efficiency through streamlined company workflows, reduced data entry errors, and the freeing up of staff time to focus on more organizationally important tasks and campaigns.