POINT OF VIEW
Introduction
Business automation software and tools like BAW increase efficiency by reducing manual and tedious tasks. They allow businesses to transform productivity without increasing investment.
For example, instead of hiring new staff, a business can automate tasks and workflows that is largely manual and repetitive so staff can focus on more high value work. This also applies for consolidating staff knowledge of processes so this understanding is not lost should staff retire or resign.
In today’s ever evolving digital landscape, workflows have three essential pieces, agility, innovation, and visibility. Becoming more agile to respond to change and growth, innovation for new initiatives and visibility for insights and performance.
Organisations are growing; increasing business efficiency to complete objectives. Find out how BAW can help your business achieve your objectives.
This POV will help organisations understand what BAW is and how it provides value.
What is BAW?
Business Automation Workflow (BAW) is an IBM platform built to create workflow applications that improve productivity. It is a mix of IBM Case Manager, and IBM Business Process Manager.
BAW automates process workflows, managing and improving oversight of task and information movement throughout an organisation. This improves the outcomes of processes and workflows, as there is now little reliance on manual intervention to monitor the progress of a process through each step.
Whilst manual tasks are possible in BAW, they are monitored by the software to ensure tasks are completed when necessary, until the workflow concludes.
If escalation is necessary, BAW will raise tasks until the step is complete. Say goodbye to a lack of insight into process progress, and say hello to successful outcomes.
Monitor, control, and create workflows on any environment, whether it be cloud or on premises.
Read about the differences between cloud and on-prem, here.
IBM BAW has built in analytics to identify best actions with decision recommendations and task prioritisation to enhance collaboration between teams. Additionally, BAW allows you to complete tasks and connect staff without using time consuming processes, giving staff more time to focus on higher value work.
The platform enables businesses to digitise, automate, and optimise workflows which results in many benefits.
How is BAW Beneficial?
Efficiency:
Business Automation Workflow minimises manual intervention by staff by automating tasks. This improves business efficiency as processes are monitored to ensure tasks are completed in a timely manner by the right system/staff member/user with the right information available to complete the task.
BAW can be used in conjunction with other automation tools to improve the efficiency of a process workflow. For example, RPA may be used to automate data collection from a system for use in a manual task. RPA will retrieve the data from the system of record and bring it into BAW to be passed to a user for a task.
This reduces the chances of human error and the need for rework, as humans are no longer copying and pasting information as they need it, rather it is made available to them when and where necessary.
Read more about BAW and RPA, here.
Productivity:
As BAW allows for workflows to be completed with less human interaction, it leaves employees with more valuable time to work on important tasks. Manual tasks come with delays and lack of transparency in status of tasks, so there are higher chances of bottlenecks.
When workflows are automated, there is assurance that tasks are completed on time, in order, and to completion of the process. Additionally, BAW can moderate if there are any bottlenecks in its own process that could limit productivity in a workflow.
Reduced Costs:
Manual business processes that are repetitive and aren’t time efficient can be costly due to taking up resources. Using BAW eliminates most or all human interaction, saving money whilst reducing time to complete tasks.
BAW can also be used to consolidate and record staff knowledge.
Automating workflows and processes allows organisations to harvest staff knowledge of their roles and understand how specific processes work and impact other areas of the business. This reduces business costs and risks as should integral members of staff change roles, resign, or retire, there is a clear handover of responsibility and process knowledge through BAW.
Organisations no longer need to rely on specific individuals to understand and complete a workflow, as this knowledge is held in BAW.
Having tasks raise to groups instead of individuals means there is always a task recipient to pick up the next step of the process and ensure it is completed, again, reducing the risk of tasks going incomplete, increasing time and cost.
Clear Communication:
BAW creates clear paths of communication between staff.
A managed, automated, workflow allows data to be shared and employees to be connected. With manual processes there can be a lack of communication, either because of unawareness, distance (cross-departmental), or because the information is unavailable.
Lack of communication can delay processes, decreasing efficiency and increasing costs to resolve. Teams can become side-tracked trying to figure out where the issues lie when they could be working on more valuable tasks.
BAW allows for seamless communication between tasks and staff, sending automatic alerts for tasks, deadlines, and escalation. It can also track the status of a task to monitor and provide insight to staff so they are aware of progress and intervene if required.
Use Case: Paediatric Asthma Care Pathway
This example shares how the NHS use BAW to manage their Clinical Care Pathways process workflow. This workflow allows oversight of the movement of data between consultants and departments to better manage patients from initial consultation through to discharge.
BAW allows data and information to move through different departments and be displayed to the relevant staff, allowing them to complete their tasks at the right point of the process. If tasks go unaddressed, escalation points can be defined to ensure patients do not drop out of the care pathway.
Using this example, the patient can be booked in for a consultation and have all their relevant information move through departments until the workflow is completed. There may be various endpoints and outcomes including a diagnosis and treatment plan that has been reviewed by the right specialists at the right time, or a patient being referred to a separate specialist department if they are deemed to need different treatment.
This minimises the chances of wasting staff and patient time, by ensuring data is not lost, and that only those individuals who are required to be consulted, are.
See more here: Asthma Care Pathway using Responsiv Unity – YouTube
Conclusion
To summarise, organisations use BAW to create workflows that enhance team or departmental collaboration, provide insight, and boost productivity. By using BAW, you can optimise existing processes or create new ones that will transform efficiency, agility, and innovation in your business.
Responsiv Consulting provides advice for organisations that need to automate their processes and improve access to data. This advice comes in the form of strategic guidance or specific/bespoke technical solutions to move organisations towards their desired outcomes in line with business needs.
Responsiv Consulting will help you define and optimise your business processes and workflows to ensure you get the most out of your software.
Find out more here.
Read more about Business Automation Workflow here:
Get in touch and find out more about BAW and how it can optimise your processes and workflows!
*By pressing submit you agree to receiving communication from Responsiv. You may unsubscribe from communications at any time.
