Businesses are highly seeking digital ways to fast-track the way they function. Organisations are also adopting disruptive technologies to improve their working system. With so many ways like BPM, BPA, RPA, etc on the line to automate business processes, digital process automation (DPA) is emerging as a breakthrough trend.

Today, more and more companies are relying on digital process automation technologies to improve efficiency, reduce cost, provide flexibility, enhance sales, improve marketing, and increase production. Digital process automation is not really taking human jobs, but is making us engage in other important works by reducing the extra time spent on time-consuming labour. According to a study, office workers spend an estimated 69 days per year on administrative tasks, which costs around US$5 trillion. It is not just the office workers who are stagnated in lengthy jobs. CEOs spend over 20% of their time on work that could be automated. Consumers too prefer companies that deliver products at the quickest. According to Forrester, 73% of customers say that valuing their time is the most important thing a company can do to provide good service. Henceforth, businesses are on a spree to automate as much work as possible.

What is Digital Process Automation (DPA)?

Digital process automation or DPA is a method where digital technology is used to automate one or more tasks involved in a business process. DPA focuses on automating workflows when a task typically needs some form of human interaction such as in sales, marketing, management, IT and production. While it sounds similar to business process management (BPM), the big difference is that digital process automation assumes that the business processes have been digitised and ready to be optimised.

Primarily, DPA focuses on automating systems and processes first and then optimising the end-to-end flow of information between business applications, systems, employees, and customers. DPA seeks to support customer experience by ensuring employees and customers have access to real-time data. This is in contrast with robotic process automation (RPA), which looks to automate simple, rules-based tasks within a workflow. However, DPS optimises the entire end-to-end workflow. Some of the key elements of DPA are,

• Rapid user response and adoption
• Substituting customer tasks with automation
• Triggered reminder and notification
• Mobile-first interface
• Process transparency for users
• Easy collaboration

Use cases of Digital Process Automation

Digital process automation is invading the business sector and making many changes in the usual routine workflow. For example, if the customers are trying to track a product that is on the 'out of stock, list, the employees have to constantly connect with the consumer and manufacturers to bend the curve. It is a time-consuming job that needs constant conversations. This can be automated through DPA, which will allow the free flow of information and automation of small tasks to let your consumers and employees know when the product will hit the shelf.

Hiring new employees and training him/her in the environment involves a lot of critical tasks. Manual onboarding processes can result in excess paperwork, compliance issues, and a low level of employee retention. By automating the process, employees will get a transition period between each step to update themselves. The same process is applicable for onboarding customers. Customers often hate the lengthy signup process. Through DPA, organizations can automate different steps to provide quicker and more enjoyable onboarding experiences.

Purchase order authorisation is an annoying process that requires one or more approvals and may be sent back and forth several times. These transitions can result in delays and reduced productivity. By availing DPA, organisations can streamline their purchase approval processes.

Benefits of using DPA

• DPA clarifies employees' roles and responsibilities throughout the organisation. It provides a real-time connection between employees and managers making the workflow easy.
• Employees will have more time to focus on the end-user experience as more workflow elements become optimised and automated.
• DPA reduces the cost spent on human labour. The revenue can be redirected to company improvement tasks.
• By implementing DPA, organisations are able to quickly launch and scale new solutions according to the needs of the market.
• DPA can reduce the likelihood of lost documents and can update employees on workflow changes.