How True Business Process Automation is Incomplete Without Robotic Process Automation

The fact is, there’s no program that can do everything you need from a software point of view. You’ll find plenty of great purpose-built programs on the market for activities such as accounting, sales, customer relationship management (CRM), but how do you get them to all talk to each other and work efficiently?

The answer: robotic process automation

Cloud technology and SaaS

Let’s get the basics out of the way. Many businesses are now opting for cloud technology and SaaS programs. As a brief overview, here’s what that means:

Cloud technology – In a business sense, cloud technology can encompass a lot of functions, but the main definition of ‘cloud computing’ relates to the way you store, manage and access your data online, rather than on traditional office-based servers.

SaaS – Stands for ‘Software as a Service’. These software programs are also cloud based, in the sense that they are hosted online and users can purchase licenses for them on a subscription basis. Popular examples are Dropbox, Mailchimp and Salesforce.

The reason for businesses and enterprises turning to the cloud is simple. Improved productivity by allowing users to access, share and collaborate on data from anywhere, and also the added security benefits. Your data isn’t locked to one server, meaning physical security is no longer an issue, and you don’t need to perform constant backups.

There is also the question of scalability. It’s easy to purchase more cloud space or more SaaS licenses as your business grows, rather than paying for things you don’t need. In that sense, it’s more cost-effective.

How robotic process automation helps with SaaS applications

While SaaS programs are great for business, they are designed with specific purposes in mind. You may license some accounting software, another piece of software to manage communications, a CRM program – but they all work independently of one another.

Enterprise cloud computing is a way of keeping all of your programs and data safely stored on the cloud, but again, this doesn’t mean the programs you use are talking to one another.

In order to truly automate your business processes and achieve efficiencies, you need to consider robotic process automation (RPA). RPA is a way to automate a range of manual functions and business processes in such a way that the work flows seamlessly through a number of different SaaS programs.

As an example, if a customer places an order through your website, RPA can log the purchase in an ordering system, email the customer a confirmation, record the payment in your accounting software and schedule post-sale actions through your CRM. All without human interventions.

Robotic process automation makes marketing easy

One of the key considerations in all businesses is marketing. If you’re using marketing automation programs like Salesforce, you’ll know how easy it can be to generate leads and manage relationships with your customers. But imagine how much easier it would be if your marketing activities could link in seamlessly with other business functions?

RPA can make that happen – whether it’s automatically recording online payments to your accounting software, or placing orders automatically with your warehouse, there’s plenty of streamlining you can do with RPA that makes your marketing efforts even more powerful.

Robotic process automation saves time and money

For IT experts to make complex changes to enterprise SaaS, it is extremely time consuming and expensive. Even if you have custom-built software that manages several unique aspects of your business, it’s the IT experts who need to continually upgrade these systems to meet the ever-changing needs of your business.

Robotic process automation, on the other hand, allows automated processes to be put in place that are aligned with the systems you’re already using. No extra investment is required to purchase new software, or re-design current systems.

It also gives businesses more control over automating their own manual process, especially with RPA programs like Automation Anywhere, which features easy-to-use click, drag and drop functionality.

Contact the experts

Bringing all of your systems together to work efficiently and complement each other isn’t an easy task. At Neevista, we work to understand your business needs. We can analyse all of your current technology and systems and use robotic process automation to streamline business functions in ways you never thought possible.

For your business to truly grow, robotic process automation is one of the best ways to find operational efficiencies and use human staff time more effectively. Contact us today, and find out how we can increase productivity in your business.