Mistakes Made When Moving Processes to a Digital Environment

Fevzi Öztürk, Operations Director, GGSoft

MISTAKE #1: Undefined goals

Before you start moving processes to a digital environment, ask yourself: "What is the purpose of automating processes?" Are you trying to cut costs by reducing the amount of manual work? Do you want to complete transactions faster? Perhaps you want to make your processes more predictable and therefore less risky.

If goals are not defined in advance, you will not only waste your money. You will also lose business and profit.

MISTAKE #2: Automating undocumented processes

Processes must be examined and documented before they are automated. To uncover the process an organization currently follows, you need to interview employees. This is where the problem starts. Many office workers know how they do their jobs but cannot describe it accurately. Documenting and carrying out a business process are completely different things that require different knowledge and skills from doing the job itself. What happens if you automate a process without breaking it down into tasks and stages? Most likely, you will create a complex workflow that brings no benefit to the company.

Takeaway: You need to find the expertise that will help you identify the tasks and stages that make up the process and define its inputs and outputs. Because it helps organize processes and avoid inconsistent results, process documentation should always come before automation.

MISTAKE #3: Automating inefficient processes

Automating inefficient processes does not mean they will run faster. Unless your processes are defined and working beforehand, you cannot fully realize the advantages of automation.
Process optimization will help identify and eliminate bottlenecks and increase throughput. This way, you can maximize efficiency, reduce costs and add value to your processes.

Takeaway: Take care to establish standards and procedures for testing, validating and improving processes. Based on these standards, you can evaluate different process metrics (stability, speed, flexibility, etc.) and find process errors and ways to improve

MISTAKE #4: Forgetting the human factor

Automation means working smarter, faster and more efficiently, but it also means working differently. And people do not willingly accept change. On the contrary, many employees resist technological advances because they fear they will lose their importance.
As a result, employee participation in the automation process may be low, which can reduce the overall success rate of automation.

Takeaway: To prevent this, you need to clarify the concerns users raise and dispel their fears. You can also develop programs that give your employees reasons to accept the change. By motivating people to work in a new way, you can greatly improve the outcome of automation.

MISTAKE #5: Choosing the wrong solution

If you do not have a clear idea of what to automate and how, you are likely to buy the wrong tool. Using software that is not fit for purpose can lead to many unwanted results, such as low ROI, lack of flexibility and poor effectiveness.
Before choosing a tool, you should consider the scope of automation, identify your real requirements and prioritize your software requirements. Also, process automation is not something that never changes once you have done it. Your processes and systems will change, and you will need a tool flexible enough to implement those changes.

Takeaway: There is no better tool for process automation than a BPMS (business process management software). You can model your business processes and automate them, with no coding required. Another important feature of a BPMS is its exceptional flexibility. Processes automated with a BPMS are not hard-coded, and you can evolve them along with customer demands and market conditions. In addition, good BPMS software does not just automate manual work, it also makes it more efficient, manageable and transparent. By choosing a BPMS tool, you will take your automated processes to the next level and have full control over their performance.

Sources

https://camunda.com/blog/2024/04/what-is-business-process-management/
https://www.ibm.com/think/topics/workflow
https://www.ibm.com/think/topics/workflow-automation