At the base of every business process, there are 4 essential steps:

1. Incoming content
2. Transformation
3. The Decision Process
4. The Close

You can apply these four to virtually any business process.  It’s true that there are circumstances where the underlying processes to these steps can become quite complex, however, it remains part of the fundamental step.

The What, The How, The Why and The When

With each step, there are 4 basic questions we must answer;

1. What is coming in?
   1. Are we getting invoices, delivery receipts, purchase orders, sales orders, applications, mortgage loans, etc.
   2. Do we have control of what is coming to us?
2. How are we getting it?
   1. Is it coming in email, fax, paper, electronic file, etc.
   2. Do we have control of how we’re receiving it?
3. Why are we getting?
   1. Is it to initiate a transaction, to confirm a transaction, or to support a transaction?
   2. Is it required?
4. When are we getting it?
   1. This addresses the timing of when we receive content and frequency (volume).
   2. Do we have control over when we receive content and how much we get?

The Right Solution, The Right Way for The Right Reasons

Before you start any process automation project, you really should have (or establish) a clear vision and focus for what you want to accomplish, why you’re doing it, the changes required to make it successful and the long-term effects to the organization.

Searching Google for document management, workflow, RPA, or artificial intelligence solutions, without a clear understanding of the answers to the questions above, greatly increases your odds of failure.

Great teams always do everything they can to put the odds in their favor.  The first thing they focus on are developing solid fundamentals.  If you don’t know what the fundamentals should look like, then put the odds in your favor by getting someone with experience to help.