Business Process Automation for Enterprises: Challenges & Best Practices
For growing enterprises, keeping up with the competition often means finding ways to make operations smoother, faster, and more accurate. As such, many are leveraging business process automation – but without a clear roadmap and a trusted implementation partner, automating key business processes can end up introducing more problems than it solves.
As experts in helping enterprises with process automation, we’ve outlined some of the most common challenges companies face alongside some tips and best practices to ensure success.
Important things to know about business process automation:
- What business process automation is and why it’s important
- Common business process automation challenges
- Tips and best practices to drive business process automation success
What is business process automation, and why is it important?
Business process automation involves the use of technology to execute recurring tasks or processes where manual effort can be minimized. This doesn’t mean you’re replacing your people – you’re merely providing them with better tools so they can focus on strategic, high-quality work.
When conducted correctly, business process automation improves accuracy, speeds up cycle times, and frees us teams. However, as large enterprises know, “conducted correctly” involves a lot more than simply having good software.
Common types of processes that benefit from enterprise automation:
- Accounts payable and receivable workflows
- Employee onboarding and offboarding
- Purchase order approvals
- Expense reporting and reimbursement
- Payroll and time tracking
- Customer data management
- Inventory tracking and supply chain notifications
- Compliance and audit documentation
What are the challenges of business process automation?
While business process automation sounds great upon first glance, the reality for many enterprises is that they will need to face unique hurdles that smaller businesses won’t have to navigate. When you’re handling thousands of employees and multiple business units, even the smallest automation error can have wide-reaching consequences.
That’s why it’s essential to gain a full understanding of your enterprise’s operations before you turn to automation.
Common enterprise automation challenges:
- Fragmented legacy systems that don’t integrate easily
- Poorly documented processes (or worse, no documentation at all)
- Employee resistance to change or lack of training
- Security and compliance risks tied to sensitive data automation
- Over-automation of processes that actually benefit from human judgment
- Difficulty maintaining process continuity when key staff leave
Enterprise Automation Tips & Best Practices
- Start by mapping the “as-is” state
- Focus on automating processes with high volume and error rates
- Start small to ensure proper functionality before scaling
- Ensure business process automation is in line with overall growth goals
- Focus on documentation and employee training
- Implement a plan to monitor, measure, and ensure continuous improvement
Start by mapping the “as-is” state
Before implementing any new tools or workflows, it’s essential to document how things currently work, including information on detailed process narratives, user roles, exceptions, and how decisions were made.
By creating flowcharts and conducting interviews with employees, your enterprise can successfully identify any issues or areas of improvement well ahead of automation.
Focus on automating processes with high volume and error rates
Not everything needs to be automated. For best results, focus on tasks that are:
- Repetitive
- Time-sensitive
- Error-prone
- Cross-departmental
For example, if your AP team is spending days chasing down approvals, automating those approval workflows can unlock serious time savings.
Start small to ensure proper functionality before scaling
With business process automation, it’s essential to start small. Choose one department, test one process, and pay close attention to the rollout. Once you’ve ironed out any kinks, use this as a playbook for other business areas. By focusing on a phased approach, your enterprise can reduce risk while ensuring teams aren’t overloaded by all the changes.
Ensure business process automation is in line with overall growth goals
It’s certainly nice to modernize, but enterprise automation should still align with broader business goals. For best results, involve finance, operations, compliance, and HR from the get-go. By taking a proactive and cross-functional approach, you can ensure that automation works for the entire company – not just one department.
Focus on documentation and employee training
One of the most overlooked parts of automation is sustainability. For example, what happens if the person who created the workflows leaves? Process documentation and employee training ensure that knowledge doesn’t depart in the instance an employee does – which is especially important in audit-sensitive areas like payroll or compliance.
Implement a plan to monitor, measure, and ensure continuous improvement
Enterprise automation isn’t something that can simply be switched on and left to function in the background. That’s why it’s essential to build in metrics and feedback loops. For example, are you seeing fewer errors, faster turnaround times, or more satisfied employees? To ensure business process automation success, use dashboards and KPIs to measure ROI and identify new areas for refinement.
Final Thoughts on Business Process Automation for Enterprises: Challenges & Best Practices
Business process automation, when done thoughtfully, can streamline operations, reduce risk, and give teams the time they need to conduct more meaningful work. However, enterprise automation success takes a lot more than good intentions. It requires strategic mapping, stakeholder alignment, and ongoing process enhancement.
Ready to automate & innovate?
At DLC, we support enterprise organizations at every step of the automation journey. Whether it’s robotic process automation, process mapping, system alignment, or documentation that holds up during transitions and audits, we bring the structure and clarity you need to move forward with confidence.
Let’s make automation work for you – not the other way around.
