What is Business Process Automation (BPA)?

We’re not afraid to say it—there's too much time spent on administrative work. 

Between sending status updates, chasing approvals, assigning tasks, and updating stakeholders, there’s barely enough time for actual innovation or improvements.

By mechanizing routine tasks, business process automation (BPA) helps your team reach its full potential and reduces costs. With BPA, your team focuses on strategic initiatives while elevating your IT service desk and your overall project management processes.

 Project managers can automate everything from task assignments to compliance reporting without writing a single line of code. And while that might not be news to everyone, there are process tips you’ll want to follow to make an actual impact.

What is business process automation?

Business process automation leverages technology and tools to streamline and automate recurring tasks or processes that businesses usually handle manually. It automates repetitive processes that involve multiple phases using IT management systems.

BPA focuses on improving business efficiency, reducing errors, and freeing valuable human resources for more strategic activities. This lets you optimize workflows for incident management, request fulfillment, or ensure risks are mitigated.

Instead of relying on time-consuming, error-prone manual tasks, BPA uses tools and software to handle these processes automatically.

This speeds up the process with precise, consistent execution of each step. Whether it's automating ticket creation, routing requests to the appropriate teams, or generating regular reports, BPA enhances the overall efficiency of IT service by reducing manual effort.

What business processes can a company automate?

Automating specific business processes can significantly enhance efficiency and accuracy. Identifying the processes to automate is crucial to ensure an effective, targeted effort.

Here are critical business processes that are ideal for BPA:

• High-volume tasks: Automating tasks with high frequency, such as data entry and report generation, can save time and reduce human errors such as typos.

• Time-sensitive tasks: You can streamline business processes that require timely execution, such as monitoring system alerts or sending out automated notifications. Automation ensures prompt responses and prevents delays.

• Multi-person tasks: Automate business tasks involving coordination between various team members, such as approval workflows or cross-team processes. This enhances collaboration and speeds up task completion and on-time deliveries.

• Support processes: Mechanize routine support tasks, such as system backups, to free up staff time for more strategic activities and improve service desk efficiency.

• Tasks requiring audit trails: These tasks include processes requiring detailed records for compliance and auditing, such as financial transactions.

• Long-tail tasks: Automation is effective for infrequent but necessary tasks, such as periodic system maintenance or compliance checks. This ensures consistent completion without manual oversight.

How process automation works in businesses

Business process automation in projects follows a straightforward pattern built on a few key mechanics, including: 

• Triggers: An event that starts the automation, like a task being completed, a deadline approaching, or a status change. 

• Rules: The conditions that determine what should happen when a trigger occurs, such as “if a task is marked complete, then notify the project manager.”

• Actions: What actually gets executed automatically, such as sending a notification, assigning a new task, or updating a field. 

• Automated workflows: Sequences of triggers, rules, and actions that work together to handle entire processes from start to finish. 

These elements combine to create automated workflows that connect tasks, teams, and project data seamlessly. Examples of this could look like:

• When one task finishes, the next one automatically begins.

• When a milestone is reached, stakeholders automatically get notified.

• When risks are identified, alerts automatically escalate to the right people. 

The automation works in the background, creating a smooth execution flow that keeps projects moving forward without constant manual intervention.

Business process automation examples

What specific tasks can benefit from automation? Here are some real-life examples: 

• Incident management: An automated system can create tickets for reported issues, assign them based on severity, and notify relevant team members, reducing response times and improving resolution efficiency.

• Service request fulfillment: BPA can process requests quickly, verify all necessary approvals, and notify users of the status, significantly reducing processing time.

• Change management: Automation tools can manage requests, track the approval process, and execute changes according to a predefined schedule, minimizing disruption and enhancing control.

• Onboarding and off-boarding: BPA can manage account creation, assign necessary equipment, and handle access permissions during onboarding. It can also deactivate accounts and retrieve company assets during off-boarding, ensuring consistency and security.

Benefits of business automation tools

BPA tools offer a range of advantages that can significantly enhance your team’s operational performance. These tools include workflow management software that automates routine tasks or customer relationship management platforms that handle data entry and lead tracking. 

Key benefits of business automation tools include the following:

1. Increased efficiency

Business automation tools significantly increase efficiency by streamlining repetitive tasks. They reduce manual effort and minimize human error. 

For example, automated ticketing systems in IT help speed up issue response and resolution times. This addresses problems more swiftly and effectively, leading to increased customer satisfaction.

2. Enhanced decision-making

Enterprise resource management software integrates and synchronizes various business processes, cross-departmental data, performance metrics, and more in one location to create a single source of truth.

In addition to making these resources readily available, it provides teams and leaders with real-time, data-driven insights into a business’s resource utilization and performance for more informed decision-making regarding project planning.

Tools like the capacity planning feature in Jira help leaders make informed and strategic decisions regarding resource allocation. It helps calculate team capacity against forecasted work.

This allows them to determine what their teams can realistically accomplish within a given deadline and the resources available to them.

3. Improved accuracy and consistency

Consistency is crucial. That's why workflow automation is implemented to keep teams consistently following standardized procedures and processes to improve accuracy.

By reducing the likelihood of mistakes in data handling and service delivery, automated systems help maintain consistency and reliability in IT operations.

4. Cost reduction

Automated processes help lower operational costs by minimizing the need for manual labor and extensive support staff. They also decrease downtime and reduce costs associated with inefficiencies and errors, leading to more cost-effective operations.

5. Better resource allocation

Automation tools allow for better resource planning and allocation. Automating routine and administrative tasks will enable you to focus on higher-value tasks and strategic initiatives. 

Optimal resource use ensures people dedicate time to activities that drive growth and innovation rather than repetitive tasks.

Streamline tasks and workflows with business process automation

The path to successful automation starts with high-impact processes. Look for the tasks that consume the most time, cause the most frustration, or create the biggest bottlenecks.

Embrace business process automation to revolutionize how you manage IT services, enhancing efficiency, accuracy, and cost-effectiveness.

Lean into Jira automations to automatically assign tickets, escalate issues, or send notifications based on predefined triggers. Jira reduces manual effort and ensures faster response times.

Additionally, use tools like Jira Service Management, purposefully built for IT services, to streamline workflows and optimal resource use. Whether it's routine tasks, such as incident management, service request fulfillment, and change management, you can streamline and automate your IT service operations.