Debunking 4 Common Myths about Process Automation

In today’s business landscape, using automation to save time and simplify back office processes is generally accepted as good practice. But that doesn’t mean that everyone understands how it works. Today, we debunk 4 common myths about process automation.

Myth #1: Using process automation will replace jobs

We hear this one ALL the time – as both a positive and a negative. Closer to the truth would be to say that process automation will replace some aspects of many jobs. Though physical factory-line automation did indeed replace many jobs, process automation isn’t the same thing. Business processes are rarely so straight forward that they don’t require some human input.

For example, say that you’re an HR professional and want to automate on-boarding new employees. Though automation can take care of adding the new employee to various software packages and ensure that you remember to schedule the on-boarding meeting and have the agenda at your disposal, it obviously won’t run the meeting for you. Bots are better than we are at something like filling in forms, but humans continue to be better at building a relationship with a new employee on their first day. So though automation will make the HR professional’s job more pleasant and give them more time for “human” work like meeting with new employees, it is unlikely to actually replace their jobs. Instead, it will transform jobs, creating new roles that require human skills such as creativity, critical thinking, and emotional intelligence. Automation can augment human capabilities, allowing people to focus on more strategic and value-added activities.

Myth #2: Process automation is only for large companies

Many people assume that automation is best for large companies with deep pockets. But many inexpensive SaaS products now have automation built right in, and this may be the easiest first step in automation. Some of these products even offer free tiers that may do some basic automation. And the automation they provide can really save valuable time; for instance, consider using something like MailChimp to automate email campaigns or Hootsuite to schedule and track social media posts or Trello to automate project assignments.

But even custom automation is affordable by small businesses today. Is it an investment? Sure, but it’s worth it in the time saved and the improvements in accuracy. There’s no shortage of places for small businesses to spend money, but automation is a worthy choice. With benefits like increasing speed for customer service or better decision-making through collection and analysis of data, small businesses can level the playing field with larger businesses by investing in automation.

Myth #3: Process automation is a one-time implementation

Payment for automation can come in many different forms, but it’s rarely a one-time expense.

• For SaaS products that include automation, you’ll just increase the monthly payment to add automation options.
• You may pay an automation company a one-time fee to write an automation, but that automation will likely use resources that have a monthly cost associated with them. In addition, coded automations need support, so there will be a cost for that.
• Even if you decide to have an automation company write your automation but opt to host and support it internally, there will still be the cost of the occasional additional workload for your team. (You should only try to go this route if you have developers and/or dedicated IT team members on your team.)
• Some companies might charge monthly for a recurring block of hours for the developers’ time. The positive of this payment model is that is spreads out the cost and can just become a monthly budget line. The negative is that it will likely take longer to get your automation implemented.

Myth #4: Process automation delivers immediate results

Many people expect automations to go live and *PRESTO!* the work just gets done from then on. That’s an idealistic (but rarely accurate) picture. All automations will need a testing period before you start using them with live data. Some automations will use a “sandbox” (or a fake copy of a live environment) to test fake data before setting the automation loose.

In addition, some automations will use machine learning to actually get better over time. In these cases, you’ll want to give the automations six months or so to run before judging their effectiveness.

If you’re having a custom process automation written, there will likely be a stage of refining and defining the process before any development work even starts. And you WANT that – optimizing for efficiency before actually automating the process just makes good business sense.

The bottom line is that this is always true: automation will just plain take longer than you expect.

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So what’s NOT a myth about automations? They do save time and make your business run more efficiently over time. Want to talk to someone about process automation for your business? Email info@robosource.us.