Our 2024 State of Business-Driven Technology Report gathers valuable insights from technology leaders across industries. An obvious theme exposed by our findings is that business leaders prioritize efficiency in their internal systems and processes. When it comes to streamlining efficiency in everyday tasks, there’s a lot of room for improvement. According to OpenAI, 96% of the nearly 1,000 job types in the US involve tasks that can be assisted by or benefit from technology. Tasks like document processing in banking, supply chain planning and optimization, and software development and testing can all benefit from the efficiency and streamlining that automation can provide. Let’s dive into the benefits of business process automation, what innovations and trends we’re currently seeing in this technology, and how your organization can put this technology to use.
Why Consider Business Process Automation?
Automating tedious business tasks frees up valuable resources. By handing off data entry, document processing, and other repetitive tasks, employees are free to leverage their skills to innovate and grow your business. Streamlining office processes and workflows can enhance productivity, improve operational efficiencies, and achieve resiliency all while reducing costs.
Trends To Watch
Robotic Process Automation (RPA)
Robotic process automation (RPA) is a software technology that makes it easy to build, deploy, and manage software robots that emulate human actions interacting with digital systems and software. Just like people, software robots can do things like understand what’s on a screen, complete the right keystrokes, navigate systems, identify and extract data, and perform a wide range of defined actions. RPA can be deployed to complete mundane, repetitive tasks and complex business processes alike using tools like UiPath and Automation Anywhere.
Hyperautomation
Hyperautomation takes automation a few steps further. Where RPA can automate repetitive tasks like data entry or populating cells in a spreadsheet, hyperautomation combines the capabilities of RPA, Machine Learning (ML), and AI (Artificial Intelligence) to automate complex and broad business processes. Hyperautomation is a comprehensive approach to automating as many different businesses and IT processes as possible. Automate billing cycles, customer service interactions, and even track and forecast inventory. By leveraging hyperautomation, businesses can streamline processes to be quicker and more accurate than ever before.
QA (Quality Assurance) Automation
QA testing and automation is a critical component to delivering high-quality software. Testing an application requires significant time dedicated to mundane planning and detailed execution by quality assurance teams. This arduous cycle is mandatory to deliver quality code and uses significant effort from developers and quality assurance testers. Automation allows a developer or QA tester to merely run a script to confirm whether a specific test is working or broken. Over time, these scripts serve as the backbone of regression testing. They also allow developers to focus on new code.
Business Process Automation At Work In The Hospitality Industry
Business process automation has the ability to transform backend processes in any industry. In our experience, RPA and QA Testing is incredibly useful and makes a large impact in the hospitality industry. Our client, Great Wolf Resorts, has seen tremendous results thanks to the automation of everyday business and technology processes.
Great Wolf Lodge Saves Time And Resources with RPA
Each Great Wolf Lodge location relied on the front desk receptionist to complete the closing of the day’s books and other manual, operational tasks over the course of 5-6 hours every night. Xcelacore worked with GWR to document the current manual processes, design a proposed automation roadmap, and leverage tools like UiPath to complete, test and deploy the automations. Robots now execute processes like cash reconciliation, night audits, and various other forms of financial reporting. By leveraging technology like RPA, GWR’s employees are no longer spending hours of their day executing these tasks manually. Instead, they are free to focus on guest interactions and projects that drive revenue for the organization.
QA Testing and Automation Improves Great Wolf Resorts’ Mobile App Ratings
Great Wolf Resorts’ mobile app allows guests to better plan their trip, check-in for their reservation, order food, and find entertainment. Unfortunately, GWR guests were occasionally experiencing glitches within the app including random app crashes, mismatched data, and the miscalculation of order totals and taxes. These inconvenient and unenjoyable app experiences resulted in less than desirable ratings and reviews. Great Wolf Resorts enlisted the Xcelacore team’s help to establish and execute QA Testing and Automation. By establishing a diligent QA Testing team and protocol, the Xcelacore team identified the root cause of complex bugs, thus greatly improving app efficiency and streamlining the customer experience provided by GWR’s mobile app. By resolving these defects, the team improved the app’s overall user experience for GWR guests, increasing ratings from 2.8 in 2021 to 4.8 for IOS in 2023 and from 2.8 in 2021 to 4.2 for Android in 2023.
Organizations today prioritize streamlining processes to promote efficiency and cost savings. By leveraging Business Process Automation, organizations can do just that while driving revenue with newly liberated resources. Business Process Automation is just one of many key technologies transforming businesses today. Download our full report for more key technology takeaways and compelling insights into decision-making at the intersection of business and technology.
