As you explore the realm of boosting business efficiency, the concept of Digital Process Automation (DPA) may spark your interest. DPA, a term coined by Forrester Research in 2017, employs low-code development tools to facilitate automation across numerous applications. This tool is primarily known for transforming enterprises by streamlining business processes and customer journeys.
Spanning areas like sales, marketing, management, IT, and production, DPA proves to be a game-changer. An evolutionary offshoot of business process management (BPM), it also exhibits potential in automating aspects like customer onboarding, procurement, and order fulfillment.
Moreover, DPA’s collaboration with Robotic Process Automation (RPA) and its integration with AI and machine learning tools paves the way for Intelligent Process Automation (IPA). Implementation of DPA involves a strategic plan, namely identification of automation candidates, synchronizing with IT, ensuring governance, and initiating small to scale up.
As an added advantage, various providers, including renowned names like Appian, IBM, Pegasystems, and many more, offer DPA tools that are further categorized into DPA Deep for lengthy processes, and DPA Wide for rapid automation platform development. As a result, you reap the benefits in the form of time savings, cost-efficiency, improved customer experiences, and overall management gains.
Understanding Digital Process Automation (DPA)
Concept and evolution of DPA
Digital Process Automation (DPA) is a strategy adopted by businesses to enhance their digital transformation. By using low-code development tools, DPA facilitates the automation of processes across an array of applications. This way, you can streamline your business processes and customer journeys conveniently. Over time, DPA has grown to be viewed as the next stage in the evolution of business process management (BPM). The two are similar, but DPA focuses more on automation and flexibility within the digital ecosystem.
Areas where DPA is predominantly used
DPA has been successfully spun into various sectors of organizations. It’s commonly found multi-tasking in sales, marketing, management, and IT, as well as production. Why is DPA present in these crucial areas? Simply because it grants these departments the time and cost effectiveness they need. By automating tedious manual tasks, DPA affords them the space to engage with tasks that demand human intuition and creativity.
Differentiating between DPA and traditional business process management
While DPA and traditional business process management share similarities, DPA takes a step further by focusing on digitizing and automating processes. Traditional BPM primarily orbits around improving process efficiency by redesigning and controlling them. On the contrary, DPA offers a broader scope by instantly integrating systems, people, and processes.
The Birth of DPA: A Historical Perspective
Forrester Research and the coining of DPA
Let’s take a quick dip into the history pool and trace the origin of DPA. The term Digital Process Automation was coined in 2017 by Forrester Research. They recognized the growing need for technologies that could streamline the integration of processes and applications within enterprises.
The role and impact of DPA in the digital transformation era
In the era of digital transformation, DPA plays a pivotal role. Its ability to automate various business operations has transformed the way businesses function and interact with their customers. DPA not only increases efficiency and saves costs, but it also enhances the customer experience by ensuring faster and more accurate services.
Exploring the Potential Benefits of DPA
Time and cost savings with DPA
There are reasons aplenty to adopt DPA. First, time and cost savings. By automating manual tasks, DPA drastically reduces the time taken to complete business processes. This, in turn, leads to cost savings as resources can be diverted to areas that may require more attention.
Improved efficiency through DPA
Next is the efficiency of processes. DPA ensures that processes are not just faster but also make fewer errors. When processes are reliable, you can expect greater output quality and a significant rise in productivity.
Enhancing customer experience via DPA
Lastly, DPA is about creating superior customer experiences. By automating the customer journey, businesses can offer quicker services and responses. This leads to customer satisfaction, and in the bigger picture, customer loyalty.
Practical Applications of DPA in Business
DPA for customer onboarding
It’s crucial that your onboarding process is smooth as it’s the first interaction your customer has with your business. DPA can automate aspects of customer onboarding, reduce the time taken for onboarding and ensure the customer starts with a positive experience.
Procurement automation using DPA
Procurement is another area where DPA can prove its worth. By automating procurement processes, businesses can ensure orders are processed quickly and correctly. Overall, procurement becomes more efficient and cost-effective.
Order fulfillment and DPA
The order fulfillment process involves various steps that can be automated with DPA. This results in faster delivery times and higher accuracy in order fulfillment, positively impacting business operations and customer satisfaction.
Integration of DPA with Other Technologies
Complementing Robotic Process Automation (RPA) with DPA
But DPA doesn’t have to operate alone. When combined with Robotic Process Automation (RPA), businesses can realize a whole new level of automation capabilities. While DPA focuses on automating high-level organizational processes, RPA targets simple, repetitive tasks, creating a comprehensive automation environment.
Combining DPA, AI and machine learning for Intelligent Process Automation (IPA)
The marriage of DPA with other technologies hails a new era of automation. When combined with Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning, DPA can evolve into Intelligent Process Automation (IPA). This opens up a new range of capabilities, offering smarter and more complex automation solutions.
Strategizing DPA Implementation
Identifying key areas for automation
Getting started with DPA, you need to identify the areas that could use a bit of automation. Whether it’s a redundant task in sales or a time-consuming manual process in marketing, this step involves careful examination of your existing operations.
Collaborating and coordinating with IT
Make your IT department your partner in this venture. As DPA involves technical integration, it’s important that the IT department is in sync with your goals. This teamwork ensures successful implementation and smooth execution of DPA.
Ensuring governance in DPA
Like any new adoption, governance framework plays a crucial role in DPA as well. Having a proper governance structure ensures that the DPA implementation aligns with your organizational rules and regulations, and dispute management happens effectively.
Starting small and scaling DPA efforts
Start with automating small, low-risk processes. This gives you a clear understanding of how DPA works, what to expect, and how it can fit into your organization. You can then apply the insight to scale your DPA efforts and achieve a broader range.
A Closer Look at DPA Tools
Distinguishing DPA Deep and DPA Wide
DPA tools are divided into two major categories: DPA Deep and DPA Wide. While DPA Deep focuses on the robustness, dealing with long-run processes, DPA Wide is about rapid development of automated process platforms. Depending on your needs, one may be more suitable than the other.
Rapid development and long-term integration of DPA tools
A key feature of DPA tools is their capacity to rapidly develop platforms for automation and to integrate these platforms with existing systems for long-term use. This makes DPA tools not just an asset for immediate use, but also a long-term investment.
Examples of DPA Tool Providers
Exploring the offerings of Appian
Appian is a big name in the DPA market. Their tools have been instrumental in helping many organizations enhance their automation capabilities and build efficiency.
Features of Bizagi’s DPA tools
Bizagi has also carved a niche for itself in the DPA sphere. Their tools assist businesses to automate processes, improving their productivity and business growth.
The role of Bonitasoft, Genpact, and IBM in DPA
Bonitasoft, Genpact, and IBM also provide DPA tools that have been used by a number of organizations. They have been critical in helping organizations automate their processes, enhance efficiency and improve their overall business performance.
Impact of DPA tools from OpenText, Pegasystems, AgilePoint
OpenText, Pegasystems, and AgilePoint are other key players in DPA. Their tools have helped to bring about significant improvements in organizations’ process automation journeys.
Exploring Lesser Known DPA Tool Providers
Understanding Axon Ivy and Creatio’s DPA tools
Despite being somewhat lesser-known, providers like Axon Ivy and Creatio still offer powerful DPA tools. Those who’ve gone the road less travelled and used these tools have found significant value in their offerings.
Insight into JobRouter, K2, Newgen and Nintex’s DPA solutions
Other providers like JobRouter, K2, Newgen and Nintex also offer DPA solutions that are value-based, result-oriented, and focused on performance enhancement.
The contribution of Ultimus in the DPA sphere
Ultimus, a technology company specializing in BPM and DPA tools, has made a significant contribution to the DPA sphere, helping businesses to remodel and enhance their operational efficiency.
The Future of DPA
Anticipated developments in DPA
When looking toward the future of DPA, anticipated developments include altogether more complex and smarter automation capabilities. This is anticipated to result from further combination of DPA with technologies like AI and machine learning.
Potential challenges and solutions
However, the evolution of DPA isn’t expected to be void of challenges. Some potential challenges could be resistance to change in organizations, security threats due to connectivity, and the need to upskill staff. Thankfully, these can be mitigated by investing in change management, strong cybersecurity measures, and ongoing training for personnel.
Expected growth and trends of DPA in the business world
Finally, the growth of DPA in the business world is envisaged to be substantial. With increasing need for efficiency and automation, and the progressing capabilities of DPA tools, more businesses are expected to adopt DPA in their operations. This paints a future where DPA is not just a technological tool, but a catalyst for business transformation.