CBPA and CEBP Are Not the Same

By Tim Passios,
Director of Product Management, Interactive Intelligence

In previous articles, we examined how automating business processes using Communications-Based Process Automation (CBPA) positions a company to gain a competitive advantage in today’s market. In addition, these optimized processes place a company in the catbird seat when the market trends up because they are prepared to handle significant increase in production without increasing employee count.

However, based on the responses we’ve been getting surrounding our articles, it is clear that I need to clarify one big point – how is CBPA different than Communications Enabled Business Processes (CEBP)?

Let me see if I can clarify this. While talking with an analyst in the communications field, he asked why we weren’t talking about CEBP like everyone else. “It is clear,” he said, “that this is a term that is adopted by the market and seems to resonate well with customers looking to automate their business processes.” I told him the reason we don’t talk use “CEBP” was simple – there is major difference between CEBP and CBPA. Puzzled, he asked me to explain.

I told him CEBP only embeds communications into a business process while CBPA actually goes one major step further and actually automates those processes and embeds communications throughout the process. Apparently he didn’t get the difference. He described his customer was using another product to send notifications to key personnel once each step of an automated process had been completed. To him, CEBP and CBPA were not different.

Using his example, I asked him, “Who was doing the actual automation of the business processes?” He replied, “Uh, I don’t know…some process automation tool. Why?”

“Because that ‘process automation tool’ is exactly the difference between CEBP and CBPA. CBPA queues, routes, monitors, reports, and messages throughout those processes, all within the same application and without the need to integrate different systems!”

As we talked, I contrasted a simple business process that could be automated by a CEBP or CBPA tool — widget order processing. Let’s keep this simple with just a few steps. 1. A salesperson faxes in an order 2. A sales admin pulls the order off the fax machine and manually enters it into the order processing system 3. Order fulfillment opens up the order processing system, identifies the customer’s order, picks the order from the shelf, and ships it out the door. 4. Order fulfillment checks a box inside of the order processing system indicating the order has been shipped

Keeping things very simple, here is how CEBP would handle this process:

1. Assuming some automation, the fax is received via a fax server and an automated notification is sent to the salesperson acknowledging receipt of the fax.

2. Another notification is sent to the sales admin that a new order arrived. The fax sits waiting for the admin to open and enter it into the order processing system – human latency is still present.

3. Once the admin opens the fax, reads it, it gets manually entered into the order processing system – human error is still present.

4. An automated notification is sent to order fulfillment notifying them of a new order. The order sits waiting until order fulfillment processes it – human latency is still present.

5. After order fulfillment opens the order processing system, they repeat the existing process and manually update the system.

6. An automated notification is sent to the customer informing them the order has shipped.

Again, keeping things very simple, CBPA would handle this process very similarly, but with additional functionality, including all the same notifications:

1. Once the order is received in the fax server, it is scanned using Optical Character Recognition (OCR) to capture sales, customer and order information and automatically enters the information into the order processing system.

2. Instead of the order sitting idle waiting for one particular sales admin to open the system, it is queued and routed to the next available sales admin (based on their availability using presence) for approval. If the sales admin doesn’t process the order in a timely fashion, it is rerouted to another sales admin to ensure it is handled promptly.

3. Once the order is approved, it is queued and routed to order fulfillment based on their availability using presence. Again, if it isn’t processed in a timely manner, it is rerouted until it is fulfilled.

4. Throughout this entire process, supervisors, sales managers, executives, and anyone else can view the status of this order through a supervisory console. At any step in the process, alerts can be triggered to notify them of delays or completions.

CBPA differs from other methods because it uses queuing, routing, presence, recording, and supervisory monitoring to track the entire process and automate as much as possible. Those differences give CBPA-enhanced processes a clear ROI and offer companies a competitive advantage.

Tim Passios is Director of Solutions Marketing for Interactive Intelligence, Inc. and has more than 18 years experience in the contact center industry. Interactive Intelligence is a leading provider of IP business communications software and services for the contact center and the enterprise, with more than 3,000 installations in nearly 90 countries. For more information, contact Interactive Intelligence at [email protected] or (317) 872-3000.

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