e-book business process automation ch1

8/8/2019 E-Book Business Process Automation CH1

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sponsored by

Managing Cost in Your EnterpriseDavid ChernicoffSusan Perschke

Business

ProcessAutomation
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ContentsBusiness Process AutomationMana in Cost in Your Enterprise

Chapter 1: What Is Business Process Automation? Executive Overview What Is BPA?

Understanding the Difference Between Business Process Automation (BPA)and Business Process Management (BPM)

Run Book Automation How Does BPA Work? Integration Orchestration Automation What Is BPA's Impact on Business Workflow? BPA and ROI

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Brought to you byNetwork Automation and Windows IT Pro eBooks

Chapter 1:

What Is Business Process Automation?

Executive OverviewIn chapter 1 we outline the basic information necessary to understand what business process automation(BPA) is and how it can be of benefit to your organization. We look at the basic concepts of BPA, how itworks, how it fits into an existing corporate environment, and its impact on business workflow and thebottom line. We consider BPA in the context of the related concepts of business process management (BPM)

and run book automation (RBA).

We define BPA as both a business process and an IT component; often a server-not unlike a databaseserver or communication server in its importance to the organization, identifying the roles for which BPA isbest suited, and explaining what IT departments need to look at to assess where BPA can fit in to their envi-ronment. This review will help you understand the pressing need for BPA in your organization and providethe information that will allow you to begin to evaluate which processes are best suited for conversion to an

automated rollout.

What Is BPA?Business workflow is a task-based process From simple data entry to the more complex manipulation of thatdata, we can almost always define the business workflow process as a series of discrete tasks The various combina-tions of these discrete tasks make up your business processes These tasks can be broken down into their compo-nent actions, which means they can be automated Efficiently and effectively automating these types of tasks iswhat BPA is all about

Consider the existing workflow process in your business I f you take a step back and look at it dispassion-ately, you likely will see that you can define repetitive tasks in many areaspoints in the workflow where thesame action is constantly repeated Perhaps the data changes or the point at which this action occurs in the work-flow isnt constant; but overall you can see a significant percentage of user and IT actions that fit the descriptionof repetitive process

Further examination of your business workflow will often reveal that these repetitive tasks take considerablymore time than expected Repeated manual data manipulation, for example, is rarely an efficient use of resourcesand most easily demonstrates the value of the BPA concept Basic tasks that currently use human intervention,

such as purchase order processing, can often be delayed until the specific employee tasked with handling that pro-cess is available, and the actual requirements of the task could easily be automatedAt its simplest, we can define BPA as removing the human element from existing business processes by

automating the repetitive or standardized process components But dont let this simple explanation fool youBPA capabilities range from automating a simple data-entry-manipulation task to building complex, automatedfinancial-management processes using existing applications and a good BPA tool Nor should we let the obvioussimplicity of the BPA concept underscore the benefits cost reduction, elimination of human error, and havingpeople do what people do best: make decisions, analyze data, and provide customer service


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2 Business Process Automation


With BPA, you can optimize and streamline your business processes by automating process components Byimproving the performance, accuracy, and efficiency of your key business processes, you make your organizationmore efficient and responsive to customer and employee needs Good BPA software can build systems that proac-tively respond to changes in the data they are responsible for, thus reducing IT workloads and improving overallefficiencies

BPA is the basic component of an enterprise-wide automation and management scheme for both businessand IT workflow: Dont presume that the term business limits the scope of BPA tools In fact, IT processes areoften excellent candidates for the automation of repetitive tasks The examination of your corporate enterprise willuncover a broad range of tasks suitable for the application of BPA (Figure 1) and give you the chance to realize thebenefits this approach can bring to both core business and IT processes

Fi ure 1: Where BPA fits in to the business process.

To recap, finding the right BPA solution for your business can make your business processes faster and moreefficient, robust, and flexible As with any business problem, applying the right tool as the solution will have far-reaching positive effects in your enterprise

Identi y Business Problem

Automate TasksThat Would Otherwise Require

Human Interaction

Analyze Business Need

Develop Business Process

Deploy Business Process


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Chapter 1 What Is Business Process Automation? 3


Understandin the Di erence Between Business Process Automation (BPA)and Business Process Mana ement (BPM)The differences between BPA and BPM are two-fold: terminology and focus Part of the problem with the firstissue, terminology, is that, as a concept, BPM is not well defined So lets first establish a working definition forBPM based on the following, which some parts of the U S Government use:

Business Process Management (BPM) is the concept of shepherding work items through amulti-step process The items are identified and tracked as they move through each step,with either specified people or applications processing the information The process flow isdetermined by process logic and the applications (or processes) themselves play virtually norole in determining where the messages are sent ( http://www acf hhs gov/programs/cb/systems/sacwis/glossary htm)

This definition makes clear that BPM is the overview process The goal of BPM is to enable managers to geta handle on the processes as a wholehow they fit and work together, and, on a macro scale, how they reach theeventual goal In contrast, BPA focuses more on the micro scale With a good BPA solution, you can automate thebusiness processes that a BPM solution monitors and manages

However, the above definition is just one of many that you will find For example, many vendors considerBPA simply a component of a BPM system Although this relationship is true, issues can crop up when some ven-dors imply that you can implement BPA only as part of that BPM system

Management organizations have their own definitions of BPM, which usually focus on aligning business pro-cesses with the need to deliver specific products or services to business clients This means that significant atten-tion is on people-driven rather than technology-driven business processes And this view yields a very differentapproach from the nuts-and-bolts improvement process that BPA tools advocate

Technology vendors use BPM to describe actual management tools designed for monitoring and managingthe plumbing and machinery that makes up the technology side (software and hardware) of the business processSome vendors define BPM very specifically, using it as their phrase for the overall software development processfor application delivery by end-user customers, rather than just those pieces of the process that focus on automa-tion

SAP, for example, uses the term Process Management Lifecycleto describe and demonstrate the process of imple-menting new business processes or optimizing existing business processes SAP breaks its BPM down into thesephases:

1 Analyze phasea Analysis of the current environment and any current processes that might be in placeb Identification of needs and definition of requirements

2 Design phasea Evaluation of potential solutions to meet the identified needsb Business process designc Business process modeling
http://www.acf.hhs.gov/programs/cb/systems/sacwis/glossary.htmhttp://www.acf.hhs.gov/programs/cb/systems/sacwis/glossary.htmhttp://www.acf.hhs.gov/programs/cb/systems/sacwis/glossary.htmhttp://www.acf.hhs.gov/programs/cb/systems/sacwis/glossary.htm


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3 Implement phasea Project preparationb Blueprintingc Realizationd Final preparatione Go live and support

4 Run and Monitor phasea Business process execution or deploymentb Business process monitoring

The phases cover the entire business lifecycle of a process Although some of these actions line up well withwhat you would be doing with BPA, the BPM focus is less on the actual process automation and more on the

management and monitoring of the business process as a whole

Fi ure 2: SAP BPM Lifecycle

As you can see clearly from the graphic in Figure 2, SAP incorporates both the people and technology issuesthat BPM represents, and demonstrates a basic BPM philosophy: ongoing optimization of the business processHardcore BPM advocates make a clear point that business processes always will need to be tweaked and tuned torespond to the prevailing business practices and climate

A

n a l y

z e D e s i g n

P r o c e s s G o v e r n a n c e

OrganizationPeople

Technology

New Processes

ExistingProcesses

R u

n / M

o n i t o r I m p

l e m

e n t


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Its also important to note that there are, as yet, few if any recognized standards to define either BPA or BPMIn most cases the vendors themselves select the area they feel their products should be identified with Some majorvendors look at BPA in terms of discrete parts of existing applicationssuch as, in the case of IBM, automatingforms via the Lotus Forms applicationwhile they see BPM as a part of their overall management structures

This brings us to the second difference between BPM and BPA BPM focuses on the conceptualization of acomplete business environment, the end-to-end optimization of the business workflow Figure 3), without focusingon the tools necessary to accomplish this optimization In contrast, BPA vendors offer customers the tools theywill need to build more efficient processes, in most cases without disrupting the operation of the current businessenvironment and, ideally, without needing to invest in the development of in-house programming and applica-tion-development skills

Fi ure 3: This high-level BPM workflow diagram highlights areas where BPA can be used.

BPM and BPA are complementary technologies and concepts, but you can use BPA to make existing pro-cesses more efficient, not only on an enterprise-wide scale but even for desktop users simple workflows Deployinga BPA solution can be the first step in a corporate BPM deployment, or the final goal for implementing more

5

Business Process Analysis

Business Need Identi cation

Business Process Desi n and Development

Identi cation o Processes Suitable or BPA

Development o BPA Tasks

Business Process Monitorin

Automated BPA Optimisation

Business Process Mana ement


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efficient business processes on a much smaller scale Finally, a third, related concept that is relevant to the topic,called run book automation, deserves a brief overview before we look more closely at how BPA works

Run Book AutomationRun book automation (RBA), a term coined by the Gartner Group, is similar to BPA in that both technologiesare used to automate processes But in the case of RBA, the focus is on IT responsibilities (which is part of thereason the process is also known as IT process automation) For example, RBA software often is used to performIT processes that go beyond the simple job-scheduling features found in operating systems, and RBA includes anynumber of features that focus on the administration and maintenance side of IT business requirements

Automated service start and stop, data backup, and emailed report generation and transmission, all acrossmultiple clients or servers, are common tasks of RBA software Event tracking, log monitoring, and change-request management are all features often included in RBA products With these capabilities, the IT departmentcan monitor, control, and automate actions that it otherwise would need to do manually

RBA aides IT departments in meeting quality-of-service and uptime goals, along with proactively moni-toring mean-time-to-failure (MTTF) and mean-time-to-recovery (MTTR) statistics, which they can use to providecost justifications in IT budgets RBA should not be confused with the automation that you can find in network-and operations-management software Those tools usually require specific modules to drill down into individualapplications Automation that is available with such tools is only for automating alerts or actions within specificsupported applications and is rarely usable across applications

The goal for RBA is similar to that for BPA: Take the manual, redundant tasks out of the hands of users andautomate them, to free those users up for other activities The RBA market tends to be separated into productsthat are specific to a certain vendor or management product, and to those products that attempt to work acrossthe many different network- and system-management tools commonly found in IT departments

With this general foundation about BPA and related concepts and technologies, lets look at how BPA works

How Does BPA Work?Three activity classes define a BPA solution:1 Integration2 Orchestration3 Automation

BPA applications tightly tie these three components together, enabling them to be used to automate applica-tions on almost any scale, from simple keystroke automations, to complex integration of multiple applicationswith completely automated operation Good, solid techniques and application of these three areas of responsibility

allow the automation software to scale as the enterprise and business needs grow

IntegrationIntegration is the fundamental enabling concept for BPA BPA allows applications and operating systems not onlyto read data that the systems produce, but also to pass data between the component applications of the businessprocess, and to modify the data as necessary


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Based on the parameters outlined when the BPA process is configured, BPA tools make use of this integrateddata exchange to make decisions and to make changes to the process to keep it updated and optimized Giventhat the purpose of BPA is to tie together processes that are occurring anywhere in the computing environment,regardless of application or location, integration is the glue that allows the BPA processes to run

OrchestrationOrchestration, as its name implies, is the process that gives the business side of the house the input on how thingswill work, and to direct the BPA process The orchestration engine works hand in hand with BPAs integrationcapabilities both to read and report on the steps that are being taken in any managed process and also to providethe decision-making capability that is critical to an effective BPA solution From the top down, orchestrationprovides the tools for designing the BPA solution, the intelligence to apply the information acquired via the inte-gration that the solution requires, and ties together what can be an incredibly diverse selection of applications andsystems The process of orchestration also enables the ability to bring tasks that exist across multiple machines

and perhaps even across different business silos or branchesall under one umbrella that is the business processitself Orchestration is the key to maintaining ongoing optimization of the BPA solution

AutomationAutomation is the whole point of imple-menting a BPA solution With repetitivemanual tasks soaking up a disparate amount of resources, the bottom line for the technologyof a BPA solution is to deliver a solution thateliminates or even just minimizes the amountof manual intervention in these types of tasksOrchestration and integration unite with auto-mation to deliver the capability to provide arules-based process of automatic execution thatcan span multiple systems and enable a moreeffective, nimble, and efficient business process(Figure 4)

Fi ure 4: The three pillars of BPA

Chapter 2 Piecing Together Fragmentation 7

Business Process Automation

INTEgRATION

TheFundamental

EnablinProcess

or BPA

AUTOMATION

A BPA ProcessThat Takesthe Manual

Repetitive Tasksand Makes theProcess More

E cient

ORCHESTRATION

The Direction,Inte ration

and On-goinOptimization

o the BusinessAcross theEnterprise

A More E ective and E cient Business Workfow


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What Is BPA's Impact on Business Work low?Lets look at the average type of business workflow that requires human intervention For example, in most casesthere is a point at which data needs to be entered or manipulated Often, this data is drawn from other sourcesalready available to the user in electronic form

So the user needs to move the data from its current location to its desired location, move the data betweenapplications, or generate additional data using the existing data and applying formulas or reporting tools to theexisting data The data that the user has massaged and manipulated is then delivered to other applications orusers, with the help of all sorts of delivery mechanisms that can range from uploading a file to a server, to enteringthe data into a Web publishing system, to emailing a report to a manager

This process occurs anywhere from hundreds to thousands of times daily in the average business environment,and it is fundamentally fraught with potential problems Repetitive tasks are just that: repetitive; and althoughmachines are very good at this sort of thing, people rarely are Constant repetitive tasks often lead to inattentionwhich, in turn, leads to errors in the process And people are human: They focus on other activities during the

business day, such as going to lunch, grabbing a cup of coffee, answering the phone, or just responding to emailsfrom a coworker During such times, their attention cannot possibly be focused on doing those repetitive, infor-mation-processing tasks that are a staple of the business world Simple errors, such as spelling mistakes, to majorerrors, such as using outdated data to generate updated reports, are often simply the result of a few moments of inattention And, of course, people take vacation, get ill, and are often not on-site for any number of reasons, all of which directly impacts getting their work done

Properly implemented BPA solutions reduce the number of repetitive tasks that users must get involvedwith A task that has been automated now puts less impact on the users who interact with the task Automatingas many tasks as is reasonable within a business process streamlines that business solution and makes it morecapable With automation, larger amounts of information can be handled faster and more efficiently than if thesame processes were still being done manually

The bottom line for business workflow (Figure 5) is that companies that comprehensively implement andapply BPA in areas where it can be most effective will see a significant streamlining and optimization of theirbusiness workflow processes Their workflow becomes more effective and flexible, and better able to support busi-ness growth and expansion


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Fi ure 5: A sample BPA workflow

Chapter 2 Piecing Together Fragmentation 9

OrderReceived

OrderReceived

OrderEntered

OrderEntered

CC or PO? CC or PO?PO Data

ManuallyEntered

PO

Approved

PO Sent orApproval

CCApproved

CCApproved

Unautomated Process

Order Sentor

Ful llment

Order Sentor

Ful llment

BPAAutomated

PO ApprovalProcess


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BPA and ROIAutomated processes dont get tired, lose focus, make mistakes in data handling, or spend time on other businessactivities They allow the business to take the time-consuming, repetitive tasks, which are better handled by thecomputer anyway, out of the hands of the users and refocus those users efforts on other business activities that canbe more in line with business goals and needs Doing this multiplies the effectiveness of both users and applica-tions But lets look at the direct, specific effects and improvements that BPA can have on ROI, not just the ROIof the BPA software, but the effective ROI of other applications in place in the users environment

1 Reducing errorsBy automating the movement of data between applications, common errors that occur in the process of rekeyingdata entry are eliminated Issues related to using the wrong data sources or sending erroneous data to other users,clients, or customers are eliminated Once the BPA process has been tested and deployed, there are simply feweropportunities for common user-introduced errors to have an impact This reduction in errors results in saving both

time and money that would otherwise be spent fixing the errors and any problems that the errors introduce fur-ther down the process chain

2 Improving performance and process effectivenessIn many cases, tasks that must be done manually are the bottleneck in the process Automating those manualtasks speeds up the effective throughput of the application, thus allowing the existing software solutions to delivertheir results more efficiently and effectively This combination can reduce the need for additional spending tomeet the needs of the business for that specific process

3 Making users more efficient and effective

By automating tasks that were consuming personnel resources, those resources can be redirected toward core busi-ness needs This allows the business to effectively gain available man hours that it can apply to other businessprojects without additional expenditures People can focus their energies on the tasks they do best, allowing thecomputers to handle those that machines are best suited for

4 Making the business more responsiveWith a good BPA tool, the business can easily automate new applications and processes as they are introduced,and so allow the business to become more responsive to business and customer needs, without significant newexpenditures BPA deployment can take days/weeks instead of the months required to implement a manual pro-cess change Furthermore, a good BPA platform will enable an organization to implement BPA without requiringhighly technical development resources making the automation application life cycle much easier to implementand maintain

Fundamentally, effective BPA results in an improvement on ROI for many aspects of the business model,in turn increasing the effectiveness of both new and existing applications that are suitable for use with a BPAsolution

ROI is usually met with proper implementation within 3-6 months, if not sooner, depending on the scale of the implementation and intended use Typically, the larger the implementation, the quicker the time to recoupinvestmentfor example, a large manufacturing/distribution company might digitize its ordering process withBPA The elimination of paper and storage costs alone would pay for the deployment

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