Business Process Automation (BPA) has moved from a 'nice-to-have' to an essential strategy for survival and growth. But where do you begin? The sheer number of options can be overwhelming. The key is to start small and focus on high-impact, low-complexity tasks. Look for repetitive, manual, and error-prone processes within your organization—these are your prime candidates for automation.
Many businesses fall into the trap of trying to automate everything at once, or starting with a highly complex process. This often leads to frustration and a poor return on investment (ROI). A better approach is to create an automation roadmap. Identify one or two core processes, such as data entry, invoice processing, or customer onboarding. Automating these can provide quick wins and build momentum for larger projects.
How to identify ideal candidates for automation?
The best way to find automation candidates is to talk to your team. Ask simple questions: 'Which task takes up most of your time?', 'What part of your job is the most monotonous?', or 'Where do mistakes happen most often?'. The answers will point you to the 'low-hanging fruit' – processes where people manually copy data between systems (e.g., from Excel to a CRM) or perform the same sequence of clicks repeatedly.
Once you have a list of potential processes, prioritize them. Use a simple evaluation matrix. For each task, assess: (1) Frequency (how many times per day/week?), (2) Time Consumption (how many team hours does it consume?), and (3) Cost of Errors (what are the financial or reputational consequences of a mistake?). Processes with the highest score should be at the top of your roadmap.
Choosing the right technology: RPA, scripts, or AI?
The term 'automation' is very broad. The aforementioned RPA technology is powerful because it can mimic human interaction with a user interface (UI). It's ideal when you're working with legacy systems that lack APIs. It acts as a 'band-aid', allowing automation without costly software rebuilding.
However, if your systems (e.g., accounting system and e-commerce platform) have APIs, a dedicated integration or a custom script (e.g., in Python) is often a much faster, more stable, and cheaper solution than RPA. On the other hand, Artificial Intelligence (AI) comes in where the process requires decision-making. AI can, for example, read the content of an unstructured invoice (OCR + AI), understand customer intent from an email (NLP), or flag a transaction as potentially fraudulent.
Automation and the team: managing change
The most common barrier to implementing automation is not technology, but team resistance. Employees often hear 'automation' and think 'job cuts'. Transparent communication is key here. The goal is not to replace people, but to augment them – to take away the monotonous, repetitive tasks so they can focus on what they are irreplaceable at: creative problem-solving, building customer relationships, and data analysis.
Show your team the benefits. An employee who spent 10 hours a week copying data can now spend that time analyzing that data and drawing business conclusions. Automation often leads to upskilling. Employees become process supervisors, not manual executors. This transforms fear into excitement about new development opportunities.
Measuring success: how to calculate automation ROI?
The Return on Investment (ROI) for automation is more than just 'man-hours saved'. Of course, this is a basic metric – if automating a task that takes 20 hours a month cost X, it's easy to calculate when the investment will pay for itself. But the full picture of ROI is much broader and should also include opportunity costs.
The real value of automation also lies in: (1) Reducing the cost of errors (how much did each manual data entry mistake cost your company?), (2) Increasing process speed (faster customer onboarding means faster revenue), and (3) Compliance (automation ensures 100% process repeatability, which is crucial in FinTech, for example). Don't forget the 'soft' benefits either, such as increased employee satisfaction from no longer having to perform boring tasks.
At MQS, we believe automation is a journey, not a destination. Our process begins with a deep dive into your existing workflows to identify the best automation opportunities. We help you build a strategy that aligns with your long-term business goals, ensuring every step you take delivers measurable value. Ready to take the first step? Contact us for a free consultation and let's build your automation roadmap together.