“In 2022, organizations will require more IT and Business Process Automation (BPA) as they are constrained to accelerate digital transformation plans in a post-COVID-19, digital-first world.”

– Gartner

The pandemic has altered the business landscape and continues to encourage innovation and technological adoption. Before the pandemic, organizations looked at technology as a beneficial way to improve and automate their business processes, increase productivity, and engage with customers effectively, yet they never considered it a mandate. But the repercussions of the pandemic have dramatically sped up digital adoption by several years. In the last couple of years, BPA solutions have witnessed broader adoption across all business sectors.  

As we head into 2022, the growth story of BPA will continue to rise further. Organizations will be more focused on implementing specific BPA solutions to improve efficiency and profitability in key areas of their businesses. 2022 will see new BPA trends emerge, like all previous years. Below we are listing some of the anticipated BPA trends to watch out for in the upcoming year.

Top Business Process Automation Trends in 2022

#1: Low-Code/No-Code (LCNC) adoption is the future of enterprise resilience

The popularity of LCNC development platforms has skyrocketed in the post-pandemic world. Such a visually integrated development environment (IDE) allows professional developers as well as business users to develop an application without complex coding using simple point-and-click configuration. Given the intense demand for new applications in the market and an acute scarcity of software development talents, it’s easy to predict that LCNC will continue to gain popularity in the coming years.

AgreeYa’s experts believe that LCNC solutions will be more extensively utilized to build applications that automate mundane yet essential business processes. Such solutions will empower the business users to unburden themselves from the routine tasks and contribute towards more challenging work with higher growth opportunities. Additionally, organizations that keep persisting with the traditional, code-based development approach will lag, while others that embrace LCNC solutions will experience a surge in productivity and efficiency.

#2: Adoption of automation in new employee onboarding will be widespread

An organization’s onboarding process determines how an employee perceives the company in terms of values, work culture, and environment. A faster and smoother transition in an organization gives a fulfilling experience to the employee. Our experts believe that 2022 will be the year when automation of new employee onboarding will go mainstream. The adoption of BPA in this essential process will pave way for a structured, comprehensive, and engaging onboarding process to make an excellent first impression on the employee. It eliminates tedious paperwork, manual errors, unreasonable delays, and employee dissatisfaction. The new hires can easily understand the organization, its vision and onboard to the specific team with excitement.

LCNC solutions will enable organizations to rapidly automate and streamline the new employee onboarding process. Automation of this manually handled and document-intensive routine will inspire the recruitment team to put their energies into other high-value tasks.

#3: Automation to emerge as an enabler of employee growth 

For decades, there has been a lot of buzz around the future of work and automation. For years, employees have feared automation as something that has arrived to steal jobs and take over from humans. However, various researches prove that such assumptions are wrong. Though there are many benefits offered by automation, at the end of the day, robots won’t ever fully replace humans in the business landscape.

We believe that with the widespread adoption of automation across all sectors in 2022, employees will finally be able to get over years of skepticism. Automation will emerge as an enabler for employee growth and work satisfaction. It will allow humans to move to more strategic positions where employees can utilize their skills and intelligence to contribute towards organizational growth.

#4: Proactive approach to Cybersecurity will be essential

Everyone knows that the complexity and nature of cyber threats are increasing every day. Today, cybercrime poses a threat to organizations of any size and industry. While large organizations have been securing themselves and their system with security automation, but that is hardly followed by medium and small organizations. Most organizations still do not understand the severity of cybercrime and underspend on cybersecurity.

However, advancements in security automation solutions enable organizations of all sizes to stay proactive and sense a threat early. BPA helps in creating a security blanket around an organization that detects cyber-crime before it enters or harms the system. Security automation solutions capably automate and validate all ongoing processes and identify a threat increasing overall cyber resilience.

#5: AI-powered BPA will transform the way organizations work

In 2022, the existing process improvement platforms will converge and be challenged by new AI-led entrants; investment to address global worker shortages will be prioritized; and to address the future head-on, enterprises will embrace an automation fabric to fuel extreme innovation.

– Forrester

In the near future, different tools such as Robotic Process Automation (RPA) and Digital Process Automation (DPA) will be integrated to enhance the power of Business Process Automation. AI-powered BPA will redefine the possibilities of automation, transform digital workflows, increase productivity, and accelerate deliveries. It will enable organizations to get more done with less.

Business Process Automation will continue to be a core focus for growing organizations 

New trends emerge every year and some of them shape the way organizations operate. 2022 promises to be a huge year for BPA. Automation of processes will progress from good-to-have to an imperative for business growth. Organizations can overcome various daunting business challenges, bolster productivity, and increase employee satisfaction by embracing BPA.

AgreeYa’s suite of intelligent automation solutions has been enabling organizations to increase process efficiency, enhance customer experience, optimize operations, amplify workforce productivity, reduce process costs and risks. Contact us to discuss your process challenges.