Why It Matters
Many business processes were designed around people doing manual work, and they carry inefficiencies that nobody notices because “that is how it has always been done.” Process automation forces you to examine each step critically, and often reveals steps that are redundant, out of order, or unnecessary. The result is a faster version of the old process, and a better process overall. Automated processes also generate data. You can see how long each step takes, where bottlenecks occur, and where exceptions are most common. That visibility makes it possible to continuously improve operations based on evidence rather than intuition.
Example
A recruitment agency manually processes candidate applications: an administrator downloads CVs from email, renames the files, saves them to a shared folder, enters the candidate’s details into a spreadsheet, and sends an acknowledgement email. The process takes fifteen minutes per application and is error-prone at volume. After mapping and automating it, applications submitted through a form are automatically parsed, the candidate’s details are added to the CRM, the CV is stored with a standardised filename, and the acknowledgement email is sent, all within seconds of submission. You can see how we take a process this far in our business automation services, and the rest of our glossary defines the related terms you will meet along the way.
