Enterprise Process Automation: the Key to Faster, Smarter Workflows

If your team is spending countless hours each week on repetitive tasks, enterprise process automation can help. It’s a straightforward solution that eliminates the need for manual tasks, enhances productivity, boosts efficiency, and supports faster, smarter decision-making.

Learn how to create a scalable automation strategy that helps enterprises cut costs, reclaim valuable time, and gain a competitive edge.

What is enterprise process automation?

Enterprise process automation (EPA) seeks to mechanize complex, cross-functional workflows, transforming how a business operates. EPA differs from task automation (automating a single repeatable activity, such as setting up calendar reminders) and process automation (linking and automating several tasks within a department, such as routing expense reports for approval) because it scales automation across an entire organization.

Enterprise process automation often requires orchestration across multiple enterprise platforms, such as enterprise resource planning (ERP), human resources (HR), customer relationship management (CRM), and financials. Successful enterprise process automation efforts can boost customer satisfaction, data consistency, regulatory compliance, and scalability.

Types of enterprise process automation

Enterprise process automation is complex and includes several distinct types of automation:

• Rules-based automation (RBA) uses predefined rules or algorithms to execute tasks. Specific conditions trigger actions for consistent execution — often defined in “if this, then that" statements. Examples of RBA include automated data entry and invoice processing.
• Integration automation protocols (such as APIs) connect various software systems, applications, or databases to facilitate data flow within a diverse software ecosystem. APIs help connect siloed data and enable real-time data processing, but development and integration can be complex and challenging.
• Intelligent automation uses data analytics, AI, and machine learning (ML) technologies to make quick decisions and perform complex tasks. These tools automatically learn from data and adapt to shifting conditions. Thanks to AI and ML, intelligent automation learns and improves over time to handle more complexity than other types of automation.
• Robotic process automation (RPA) automates repetitive, rules-based tasks by mimicking human actions. You can use this type of workflow automation for data entry, transaction processing, and other routine tasks. RPA is generally quick to implement into your existing systems and helps reduce manual errors. Because it’s constrained to structured data and rote tasks, it’s not as useful for complex processes.
• Business process automation (BPA) optimizes complex business workflows and minimizes human involvement. It emphasizes task integration within a business process to execute an overarching automation strategy. While implementation is a bit more involved than with RPA, BPA can boost process efficiency and is able to support more complicated workflows with multiple steps.

A step-by-step guide to enterprise process automation

Automating simple tasks can save teams significant time. But what does implementing an enterprise process automation system look like? It starts with evaluating your current processes and creating clearly defined goals.

1. Map current processes that could be automated

Carefully review your current processes and workflows to see which ones could benefit most from automation. Start with the least complicated but most time-consuming processes — such as entering data across multiple systems or routing invoices to the proper departments — before thinking about how to automate tasks that are more complex.

When mapping processes, it can be helpful to collaborate and share ideas in a Slack canvas. That enables teams to build flowcharts to visualize and optimize each step based on input from those who use these processes every day.

2. Set clear objectives for enterprise process automation

Once you’ve evaluated existing processes, define your goals. What are you hoping to achieve with enterprise intelligent automation? How do your goals align with your business priorities?

Set up a Slack channel to gather input from employees and other stakeholders. This can help you refine your goals before selecting a tool. Ask respondents about the tasks that take up most of their time and what automation could take off their plates. Then, create a list of specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound (SMART) goals so you can measure success later.

3. Select the right enterprise automation tools for your needs

To start using automation right away, look for low- or no-code software, like Slack Workflow Builder. Intuitive tools that don’t require advanced technical skills to create and manage workflows can help speed up adoption among teams.

Your enterprise process automation software should:

• Integrate with your existing tech stack. It should also provide robust APIs and pre-built connectors that integrate easily with large-scale IT systems and ensure seamless data flow across the organization.
• Support security and compliance. To protect sensitive information, your solution should adhere to key security protocols, industry standards, governance, and relevant regulatory requirements such as General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA), and Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA).
• Offer AI enhancements. Choose tools enhanced with AI that can carry out entire workflows just as your team members would. Autonomous AI agents can help your team scale or lend support during high-volume periods.
• Include robust analytics and reporting. Get real-time insights into process performance to identify bottlenecks and respond quickly. Your solution should also be able to generate custom reports so you can monitor KPIs and make smarter strategic decisions.

4. Develop a phased implementation plan

Once you’ve selected the right automation tools for your needs, create a phased implementation plan with detailed milestones and deadlines. Begin with a small pilot project — automating one of your simplest processes — to test your chosen tools and identify any potential challenges.

Once the pilot project is running smoothly, expand upon it with more complex process automations, following the cycle of testing each automation before rolling it out across your organization or department. As you begin a wider rollout and more people start using automations, schedule regular team huddles or create a dedicated channel where people can ask questions and share feedback.

5. Train your team on new enterprise automation tools

It’s important to provide training and ongoing support to your teams as they adopt new tools and technologies. Clearly explain the benefits of automation and invite employees to be part of the implementation process by offering opportunities for testing and providing feedback. Encourage continuous open communication and address concerns and problems as they arise.

Salesforce’s Trailhead Academy is a free online resource you can share with your team for access to valuable on-the-job skills and training they can use right away.

Here’s how different types of teams can automate workflows to increase efficiency:

Enterprise process automation use cases

Wondering how enterprise process automation looks in real life? Here are several use cases that illustrate its value across the enterprise.

Sales and CRM

When your sales team must gather leads, create proposals, manage contracts, and onboard customers manually, it’s a time suck. Enterprise process automation lets you build mechanized workflows to capture and score leads, trigger responses, automate data entry into a CRM system, send follow-up reminders, and streamline customer onboarding.

IT and help desk

Help desk and IT teams manage a high volume of repeatable tasks, making this area an ideal use case for enterprise process automation. Instead of sorting and responding to support tickets manually, you can build a workflow that automatically categorizes requests based on pre-determined parameters and routes issues to the right specialist. You can also automate patch management and responses to critical system incidents such as outages or security breaches.

HR and onboarding

Bringing on new employees depends on several departments — IT, HR, facilities, and payroll — acting in step with one another. Manual onboarding processes can lead to security gaps and compliance risks. When you automate onboarding tasks such as new hire paperwork, account provisioning, benefits enrollment, equipment requests, and compliance training, you’ll provide a better onboarding experience for your new team members and reduce the clerical burden on administrators.

Customer service

Customer issues reach across enterprise departments, from billing to logistics. Manual handoffs often cause delays, leading to customer dissatisfaction. Applying enterprise process automation to customer service lets you route cases intelligently, triggering immediate responses from AI agents, and escalating cases to the right team automatically. Customers benefit from faster resolution times and improved consistency.

Benefits of enterprise process automation

Enterprise process automation offers numerous benefits for businesses, employees, and customers alike. From improving regulatory compliance to streamlining data entry, automation can transform and optimize your business performance.

Top process automation benefits include:

• Enhanced cross-functional efficiency. Enterprise automation helps organizations reduce the time and effort spent on repetitive tasks. This frees up workers to focus on more strategic, higher-value activities. For example, a cloud computing company used Slack’s Workflow Builder to transition from a traditional IT ticketing desk to an automated system in Slack, resulting in 34 percent faster ticket resolution.
• Reduced operational costs. Workers are saving an average of 3.5 hours every week through automations, according to Slack’s 2023 State of Work survey. With the adoption of AI tools on the rise — along with an increased potential for more sophisticated enterprise process automations — time savings are growing and, because time is money, so is the potential to dramatically reduce operational costs.
• Simplified regulatory compliance. You can use enterprise automation solutions to help comply with regulatory requirements and industry standards by ensuring process consistency and data accuracy. Automation also helps companies scale operations to handle increased workloads without the need to increase manual effort.
• Better customer experiences. Business workflow automation directly benefits customers. For example, autonomous AI agents can help ramp up service and personalization efforts, such as handling processing workflows, so customers get faster service, accurate answers, and targeted suggestions.
• Improved decision-making. Teams can set up automated workflows to get real-time data and smart recommendations to support business decisions, inform strategic planning, and improve operations. Agentforce in Slack, for example, lets employees deploy and engage with trusted AI agents across departments. These agents can then provide CRM data to help a sales rep close a deal or provide quick troubleshooting tips to IT teams.
• Reduced data and application errors. Combining Slack with real-time error monitoring can help your enterprise detect and resolve data and application errors. A recent study by a software development company found that integrating automated Slack notifications helped reduce the organization’s mean time to resolution by 88.5 percent, with most issues now detected within minutes rather than hours. Automation can also reduce errors associated with manual data entry and help improve process consistency across departments.

Enterprise process automation is within reach

While enterprise process automation may sound like a highly technical process, you can easily build workflows in Slack.

Slack Workflow Builder makes it easy for anyone to learn. Intelligent automation means you tell AI what you need, and it creates a new workflow for you — whether it’s to gather marketing leads, route HR requests, or make approvals. Empower your teams to automate routine processes and keep work flowing within a centralized work OS. You can also integrate your favorite tools into Slack, including Salesforce and more than 70 other compatible apps, to streamline your work experience and cut down on context switching.

Learn more about Workflow Builder and discover how automation helps Slack users achieve a 28 percent increase in time savings.

Enterprise Process Automation FAQs