Enterprise Workflow Automation: Getting Started

Enterprise Workflow Automation: Getting Started

Manual errors, delayed approvals, and other complications can stall vital workflows, leading to inefficiencies, unplanned costs, and other problems. That's why businesses use automated workflows to streamline operations. Workflow automation is even more critical for large businesses considering the scale and complexity of their operations. Enterprise workflow automation helps large-scale organizations automatically execute business processes with high efficiency and at a lower cost.

In this post, we’ll discuss enterprise workflow automation, its benefits, and its key components. Then we’ll provide the steps to implementing enterprise workflow automation and the best practices to help you succeed.

What Is Enterprise Workflow Automation?

Workflow automation is the process of using automation technology to execute repetitive, time-consuming, manual tasks based on predefined rules, conditions, and triggers. It allows processes to run efficiently without human intervention, enhancing efficiency, reducing errors, and improving execution speed. You can apply workflow automation across many functions, including security operations, human resources, customer support, regulatory compliance, finance and accounting, and more.

Enterprise workflow automation integrates enterprise systems such as ERP, HRIS, CRM, and ITSM platforms to support cross-functional processes like employee onboarding, procurement, compliance reporting, and incident management. It streamlines, optimizes, and accelerates complex business processes, reducing manual effort, eliminating bottlenecks, and enhancing consistency and transparency across departments.

Benefits of Implementing Enterprise Workflow Automation

1. Reduced Error Rates

Manual workflow processing is prone to human error. Automation enforces standardized rules for task execution for consistency and to reduce error rates. Consistent processes increase accuracy and reduce the need for rework.

2. Improved Employee and Customer Satisfaction

Automation frees employees so they can focus on creative and strategic work, boosting their morale and productivity. Automated workflows can also improve the speed with which customers get services and can provide real-time updates and communication, improving customer experiences and creating a consistent brand experience.

3. Efficient Regulatory Compliance Management

Enterprise workflow automation solutions have built-in regulatory compliance tracking and reporting features. They provide visible audit trails (capturing critical timestamps like when a file was accessed, shared, or modified) to maintain compliance with data privacy and protection regulations such as GDPR, HIPAA, and SOX.

4. Improved Efficiency and Productivity

When you reduce manual repetitive tasks through automation, you can manage higher workloads of high-value tasks that are core to the business.

5. Cost Savings

Enterprise workflow automation reduces manual labor and optimizes resource allocation, driving costs down. By maintaining regulatory compliance, the organization can also avoid fines and other penalties.

Key Components of Enterprise Workflow Automation

1. Workflow automation: Allows you to replace repetitive, time-consuming tasks with rule-based systems that can execute tasks with minimal human intervention.
2. Integration capabilities: Connects automated workflows to different applications, data sources, and systems across departments or the entire organization.
3. Security compliance and reporting: Ensures automated workflows adhere to regulatory requirements and secure sensitive data to maintain trust.
4. Monitoring and analytics: Provides visibility into workflow performance.

Getting Started with Enterprise Workflow Automation

Setup, Prerequisites, and Planning

There are various prerequisites and considerations you need to be aware of before designing and implementing enterprise workflow automation.

Integration With Existing Business Systems

Evaluate existing business infrastructure to confirm that the current tech stack (e.g., cloud platforms, APIs) supports automation tools. Enterprise workflow automation relies on interoperability between systems, allowing real-time communication and data exchange, so the business needs a strong integration architecture. Also, check for API and connector availability and their limits. Map API rate limits against the expected workflow transaction volume for minimal disruption of activities during peak times.

Security and Compliance Considerations

Integrated automated systems exchange sensitive data. Securing this data from the start helps you avoid the consequences of noncompliance, promotes trust, and supports audit readiness. You must put various security controls in place, such as access segmentation (defining who can view, create, edit, execute, and approve workflows), MFA, and vulnerability scanning. Workflows that process data must comply with standards and regulations such as GDPR and HIPAA. Finally, encrypt data exchanged between systems both in transit and at rest using mechanisms such as AES-256 and TLS for data in transit.

Steps To Implementing Enterprise Workflow Automation

1. Define the scope of the workflow by reviewing existing business processes and identifying repetitive, time-consuming, and error-prone tasks. Also, review existing workflows to identify areas for improvement.
2. Define the end goals of automation and align them with organizational needs.
3. Design and build workflows. You can use off-the-shelf or custom enterprise workflow automation solutions.
4. Pilot and test the automated workflows for performance, functionality, and user experience, and make adjustments to refine them.
5. Once you successfully pilot workflows, it's time to deploy the automated workflows across the entire department or organization.
6. Continually monitor workflows and review them to incorporate user feedback, address issues, and adapt to changing business needs or regulatory changes.

Best Practices for Enterprise Workflow Automation

1. Set clear goals: 

Before executing automation, define the business reasons (for example, reducing costs, improving accuracy, speeding up processes, or boosting employee productivity). Then align automation with your specific goals.

2. Avoid overcomplicating workflows: 

Complex workflows are hard to understand and maintain and may be a recipe for errors.

3. Properly document: 

Maintain comprehensive documentation of all workflows—including process maps, configurations, integration details, and troubleshooting guides—for the sake of consistency and seamless onboarding, audits, and issue resolution.

4. Involve stakeholders and end users: 

Engage all parties that will use the automated workflow and other stakeholders involved in the implementation, such as IT teams and departmental heads. Implementing their feedback will help you create user-friendly workflows.

5. Monitor performance: 

Track KPIs such as error rates, adoption rates, and cycle times. This will help you monitor progress, optimize workflows, identify inefficiencies, and eliminate bottlenecks and underperforming processes.

6. Keep scalability in mind: 

Build automation workflows that can accommodate future changes in workload.

7. Select the right enterprise automation tools: 

Consider ease of use, vendor support, integration, and scalability when choosing a tool. Consider low-code or no-code solutions since they reduce dependency on IT teams.

Measuring the ROI of Enterprise Workflow Automation

We’ve discussed the value of enterprise workflow automation, including cost savings, improved productivity, reduced error rates, and better employee satisfaction. But how can you determine if these benefits are a good return on investment? Measuring the ROI of enterprise workflow automation is not a straightforward affair. How, for example, can you quantify the value of improved customer satisfaction?

Simple ways to assess if your automation has succeeded can include the following:

1. Calculating hours saved on manual tasks and translating them into labor costs
2. Measuring how faster processes drive sales
3. Assessing employee productivity when freed from performing repetitive tasks
4. Factoring in reduced fines or audit expenses due to better compliance management
5. Estimating the cost of errors before and after workflow automation

Custom vs. Off-the-Shelf Solutions

Custom enterprise workflow automation solutions address an organization’s unique goals, processes, and workflows. They're built with scalability in mind, and you can easily modify them to match evolving business needs. They're designed from the start to seamlessly integrate with existing systems, legacy software, and niche tools. With custom solutions, you retain full control over data, compliance, and security protocols. However, these solutions require a high initial investment, they take longer to implement, and the maintenance burden is on you.

In contrast, off-the-shelf solutions require lower up-front costs. They come as prebuilt, highly configurable platforms that are ready to deploy and use almost immediately. The vendor handles maintenance, troubleshooting, and upgrades. The downside is that these solutions offer limited customization, and their features are built for a broad market.

Final Thoughts

Organizations leverage enterprise workflow automation to streamline complex processes, improve efficiency, and drive significant cost savings. Automation eliminates manual inefficiencies, enables real-time data exchange, and enforces standardized processes, transforming how businesses operate at scale.

Enterprise workflow automation platforms enable businesses to design and build workflows that automate everyday tasks quickly. Blink Ops is an AI-powered, low-code platform that allows you to build automated security workflows. We've provided a free eBook to help you learn more about how you can optimize security automation in your organization.

‍This post was written by Caroline Wanjiru. Caroline is a software developer and a technical writer. In her work, she has developed interests and worked on many machine learning and artificial intelligence projects.