I’ll admit that business process automation isn’t the first thing that comes to mind when I see the acronym “BPA.” Given the benefits below, maybe it should be. BPA can be a standalone initiative or part of a larger, overarching business process management (BPM) strategy. The terms BPA and BPM are sometimes used interchangeably, but they aren’t the same. These are specialized platforms specifically designed to handle repetitive, IT operations tasks, such as scanning network traffic, optimizing databases, or cloud maintenance. Manual Reporting and Budgeting
This distributor relied on multiple systems–not all of which communicated with each other. As a result, they had to manually pull data out of each system and work with it in Excel.
While you can use business process automation to optimize business processes, business process management (BPM) can involve tactics outside of automation to streamline and enhance procedures. In short, BPM may or may not include BPA, but BPA always contributes to improving BPM. Process mining analyzes enterprise system logs to map out business processes and variations in how they are executed. Process capture — sometimes called task mining — uses machine vision to watch over an employee’s screen to generate a map of processes that span multiple applications. Process intelligence is a newer term to describe the use of both technologies combined with business intelligence and analytics capabilities for greater automation and insight. Your business goals determine where and how you implement business process analysis.
In addition, there are the supporting processes that are not necessarily responsible for the final product, but help the entire system run smoothly. These include, for example, the various marketing and customer loyalty campaigns, accounting, employee onboarding, and order fulfillment. Integration processes refer to the integration of systems or services, for example, to orchestrate microservices or ensure consistency in remote communications. Despite the small start, BPA requires the support of top-level executives and stakeholders as business process automation is highly scalable and is the most beneficial when implemented at scale.
A business process is an activity, or set of activities, used to accomplish a specific organizational goal, such as producing a product, assimilating new employees and bringing on new customers. It focuses on “run the business” as opposed to “count the business” types of automation what does bpa mean in business efforts and often deals with event-driven, mission-critical, core processes. BPA usually supports an enterprise’s knowledge workers in satisfying the needs of its many constituencies. Replacing humans with machines to handle repetitive tasks saves time and reduces errors.
This created a month-long budgeting process and a reporting process that required 8 hours per week (across multiple people). They automated their budgeting and reporting process and now have each available on-demand. In its simplest form, BPA is an integration-based solution that allows multiple applications to talk to each other. For example, with an integration platform as a service (iPaaS), you can stitch together virtually any app to streamline parts of a process. Business process automation is closely related to business process digitization.
Developing fetuses can’t break down BPA, making them more sensitive to exposure. Some evidence suggests that BPA exposure in utero can affect gene expression, which may contribute to a variety of health problems — including an increased risk of obesity and metabolic disease (14). Still, we need more research to understand if there is a true safety threshold for BPA exposure or if it can cause harm at any level of exposure.
