Business process automation has become possible thanks to web development and the advent of special software. This article will analyze the best software for process automation.
What is business automation?
Business management models change under the influence of time and modern technologies. In today’s economic development, there is a need for continuous improvement of management based on the introduction of scientific advances and, in particular, the introduction of computerization in the implementation of their current activities, especially as companies today are forced to look for effective ways to increase their competitiveness. One of such ways is the introduction of integrated business process automation systems.
Comprehensive automation of business processes covers a wide range of tasks. It includes not only the movement and processing of documents but also affects the implementation of various operations performed by employees, step-by-step automatic data processing. During the business process, various documents can be processed and interact with external IT systems. As a rule, the following business processes of enterprise activity are automated:
- formation of orders;
- execution of customer requests;
- development and launch of new products;
- daily simple and numerous processes.
Complex automation of business processes covers a holistic enterprise management system, and therefore consists of specific subsystems:
- financial management;
- sales management;
- production management;
- HR;
- logistics management.
The best options of business automation software
Today, the purpose of software products used by companies, depending on the functional purpose, can be divided into several groups:
- Computer Information Systems (CIS). The main purpose of this type of system is the compatibility of the economic information system with automated process control systems, aimed at covering all the main elements of the technological process, which ensures complete data security at all stages of information processing. These products are found under the names: corporate information systems (CIS), information and analytical software products, automated workstations (AWP), accounting and management programs, ERP products (Enterprise Resource Planning – enterprise resource planning), MRP (Manufacturing).
- DBMS class software products (database management systems). Products of this class are quite popular in the world market as they are universal, provide a multiuser mode, reliable storage of information, help to achieve perfection at any level of the basic operations to communicate with clients, sales and channels of agents can be adjusted quickly enough. providing automation of routine work of the company. These are the products of companies MySQL, Oracle, Sybase, etc.
- Software products for business processes (business process management – BPM). As an example of software products in this group, we can include a customer-oriented strategy – CRM (Customer Relation Management). During the implementation of the CRM strategy, the client performs the function of control, and management – an integrative function that optimizes the business processes of the main divisions of the company (marketing, service, staff, finance, sales, etc.).
Software class DоcFlоw (document routing systems) and WorkFlоw (workflow management systems). These are software products for describing and modeling business processes. The most common methodologies for modeling business processes include (Business Process Modeling), job flow description (Work Flow Modeling), and data flow description (Data Flow Modeling). Virtual Dataroom software also belongs to this group. The advantages of using a software product of this group there are short terms of implementation, ease of modification, and development of the system. The built system is open and has the ability to expand in terms of databases. The disadvantage is the high cost of the software.