Modern workplaces have undergone a seismic shift due to the ongoing pandemic, with remote and hybrid working becoming the norm. The COVID-19 crisis has made it mandatory for organizations to transition from physical to digital workplaces. However, the changing business models are posing various challenges towards employee collaboration, teamwork, and productivity. Towards this end, the corporate world is looking to embrace innovative technologies that can help redefine their workplaces and implement a digital strategy to keep their workforce integrated and collaborative.

According to a recent McKinsey global survey, 85% of organizations believe that a push towards automation is vital to take their digital workplace capabilities to the next level. The adoption of automation technology will help build a more intelligent, digital, and futuristic workplace. It will catalyze collaboration and empower employees to be more productive and engaged.

Why Automate Business Processes with SharePoint?

Over 200 million users rely on SharePoint as their platform for information management and enterprise collaboration.

– 2020 Gartner Content Services Platforms Magic Quadrant Report

Today, SharePoint is delivering a growing number of experiences across Microsoft 365 enabling teams to adjust and thrive in the new way of work. From files, lists, and videos to engaging sites, custom apps, and knowledge solutions on the desktop, web, mobile, and increasingly, inside Microsoft Teams, SharePoint is enabling better content collaboration and allowing employees to teamwork seamlessly from their homes or offices, anytime. As a top-rated and trusted product, SharePoint will remain the backbone of your organization’s digital future. Thereby it is essential to optimize the platform to meet the present and future business requirements.

SharePoint Business Process Automation (BPA) enables organizations to reimagine the utilization of SharePoint and address the modern workplace requirements. It helps streamline and accelerate various document-intensive routines, thereby allowing organizations to boost productivity, increase process transparency, and achieve cost savings. With SharePoint BPA, organizations can also increase process management visibility by transforming manual, paper-based processes into electronic, automated processes to improve outcomes.

Benefits of SharePoint BPA in the Post-Pandemic World

Pushed into uncharted waters by the Pandemic, organizations across industries are relying more on process automation.

– Cognizant’s Center for the Future of Work study

The study further found that more than 24% of routine, rules-based tasks executed by humans today will be automated by 2023. Automation that emerged as the biggest facilitator of business growth during the Pandemic, will be a lynchpin for post-pandemic business success.  

As a very flexible platform, SharePoint can be leveraged to automate human-dependent, rules-based and mundane business processes. It can be used to create an infrastructure of the future. SharePoint BPA will deliver a competitive advantage to organizations and keep them ahead in the post-pandemic business world. Anticipated benefits of SharePoint BPA towards post-Pandemic business success include:    

• Productivity Surge:SharePoint BPA reduces the time needed to complete daily tasks. This can enhance productivity across all mundane tasks, with the side benefits of freeing up employees’ time. Employees can use this saved time to concentrate on other complex and revenue-generating activities.
• Time & Costs Reduction:Manual tasks, essentially need to be performed one at a time and at a much slower pace than the automated tasks, leading to extra costs. Process automation allows organizations to accomplish tasks utilizing few resources in considerably less time.
• Mitigation of Errors & Inconsistencies:SharePoint BPA ensures that all the actions are performed identically, leaving no room for error. Each task needs to be performed in a certain manner, without any deviations. This results in improved quality of work and removes any chances of manual errors.
• Process Planning Improvements:Automation systems, such as dashboards, allow employees to view and monitor where things are standing at any given moment. This helps them manage deadlines efficiently and tweak plans accordingly. For managers, this is useful in managing deadlines and for capacity planning purposes.
• Standardization of Operations:BPA systems followrigid guidelines regarding the control of documents and process actions. Such rules eliminate situations where processing steps might be missed or documents misplaced. Employees need not worry about verifying the accuracy of information and tasks; it’s all built-in to the system. This greatly increases the dependability and reliability of the process.
• Boost in Employee Experience:Automation allows employees to stay highly productive. It removes some of the tedious, repetitive, and routine tasks from their daily schedule. The employees who were too busy performing mundane tasks can concentrate on more complex, challenging, and revenue-generating activities.

Predictions for SharePoint BPA in Post-Pandemic World

• The Rise of No-code BPA: No-code solutions will dramatically fast-track the implementation of SharePoint BPA in the post-Pandemic world. Organizations will leapfrog their competitors by using No-code SharePoint BPA solutions. Such solutions will enable organizations to implement automation eight times faster than the traditional coding approach. It will enable organizations to easily integrate automation to transform employee experience, productivity, and operational efficiency.
• Focus on Quick Data Processing: Data is already the fuel of modern business processes. In the post-Pandemic world, business success will depend on how quickly and accurately organizations can process and act on data insights. SharePoint BPA leveraging No-code solutions will simply SharePoint reporting and allow organizations to get timely insights to make data-driven decisions.
• Expansion in SharePoint BPA Use Cases: Experts predict the proliferation of use cases for SharePoint BPA. Presently, the benefits of SharePoint BPA are confined to a few departments. However, in the future, SharePoint BPA will be a pervasive technology helping fast-track tasks across multifarious departments. The adoption of SharePoint BPA will be fueled by No-code solutions. Such solutions have already empowered everyone with business knowledge to automate SharePoint processes.
• Rush to Automation can cause Failures: Increased investments in automation technologies will continue. However, haphazard and rushed moves to automation can expose the businesses adopting it to high risk, causing monumental failures and harming an organization’s reputation. Experts believe after the Pandemic, around 30% of businesses will increase their focus on the quality of automation by proper due diligence and planning. The goal would be to embrace a product with a proven track record and robust capabilities.

Catalyze Productivity and Collaboration for Post-Pandemic Business Growth By now you understand that SharePoint BPA is the way forward for organizations that want to thrive in the post-Pandemic world. AgreeYa’s award-winning product – QuickApps allows business users to automate SharePoint-based business processes without coding. Organizations can leverage their assortment of powerful web apps and pre-built templates to automate tedious, repetitive, and time-consuming tasks. With QuickApps, business users can create automation at 80% faster turnaround time with simple point-and-click configuration. Contact us to learn more.