Process automation is more important than ever

In a survey conducted by the DIHK (Deutscher Industrie- und Handelskammertag e. V. - Association of German Chambers of Industry and Commerce), 77 percent of around 8,500 companies surveyed said they expected sales to decline in 2020 as a result of the corona virus. More than a third of the companies are planning fewer investments.

According to the DIHK chief executive: "At the same time, in view of the enormous challenges in digitization and the energy transition, we need innovation and investment here in Germany in order to remain competitive after the crisis."

Ensuring competitiveness is also an issue for corporate finance departments when it comes to streamlining processes and thus reducing costs in the long term. Even though the finance department is ERP-based, time-consuming, manual processes are still a burden on day-to-day work and cause unnecessary expenses.

Furthermore, since the financial crisis, financial statement processes have become increasingly complex, and not only due to regulatory requirements. For example, the IFRS9 annual financial statements of an insurance company can easily comprise more than 50 process steps in the future, which are executed by different departments, people and applications.

Such a level of complexity is tantamount to a Sisyphean task for the person responsible for the process without the support of a suitable tool. In this respect, the question of transparency also arises, for example, in order to be able to act in time in the event of delays in a process step. In addition, it is not easy to ensure quality throughout the entire process in the case of manual interventions without tool monitoring.

The advantages of process automation by means of suitable software are obvious when one considers that most process steps in ERP systems are the simple manual execution of programs in the correct sequence, where errors occur only in the rarest of cases. In addition to the increase in efficiency, greater transparency about processing times can also be achieved.

In addition, new checking steps are easy to implement, these can be carried out automatically during the night if necessary, and thus the quality of the processes can also be significantly improved within an ERP system.

Furthermore, data from processes that have already been carried out is often available in such applications, so that not least improved research options can help in the optimization of business processes. Nevertheless, by no means all companies have corresponding applications for the automation of complex business processes in use.

Yet modern ERP systems, such as S/4 Hana, already offer many options for automating and parallelizing programs. As with any software selection process, companies considering the procurement and introduction of an automation tool should describe their minimum requirements for the solution in advance. Among other things, the following aspects could be of importance.

The application should be able to display processes clearly. For example, all relevant processes and their respective status could be displayed as a kind of cockpit on the start page for the respective user, so that the user can identify problems at a glance. The application should also be able to map different processes and process variants per company unit.

In addition, several process steps (standard programs, customer-specific checks, manual activities, etc.) should be able to be started automatically and in parallel depending on other process steps. With a modern, for example SAP UI5 user interface of the software, process management can not only contribute to securing competitiveness, but also achieve the necessary acceptance among users to handle complex processes in a more automated way.