You may have heard or read about the expression “citizen automation”; however, it is likely that you still don’t know precisely what it means. In this article, we’ll discuss the definition and benefits of automation led by citizens, how you can spot these professionals within your team, and the ideal tools for supporting this digital transformation.
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What is citizen automation?
Citizen-led automation happens when non-technical business users, without any knowledge or background in coding, develop digital strategies to improve their work routines. These efforts save time and release IT from frequent requests, allowing developers and engineers to focus on more complex issues.
Citizen automation is part of the citizen developer movement. Citizen automators create solutions to replace human labor with machine intelligence, promoting digital transformation. Repetitive tasks that don’t require intensive analysis are potential subjects of automation.
International Data Corporation predicts that “by 2024, over 75% of organizations will implement some level of automation across multiple processes.” This indicates the fundamental role citizen automation will play in the near future.
Read the report No-Code Automation: Good for Business, Great for IT
Benefits of citizen automation
Enterprises can take advantage of citizen automators in multiple ways. Here are some benefits of an automation process:
- Less human mistakes
- Shorter deadlines and faster execution
- Elimination of bottlenecks
- Improved communication
- Increased collaboration among team members and between departments
- Less time spent on unnecessary manual actions
- Enhanced visibility of SLA’s and individual performances
- Lower operational costs
These outcomes can be achieved without additional requests to IT or a set of different applications. As a result, IT teams can optimize their time by dedicating themselves to specialized activities.
How to recognize your citizen automators
Common attributes of citizen automators make it possible to spot them among hundreds of employees and leaders. Potential developers might be spread around all departments and teams. Their main characteristic is the ability to find automation opportunities and to create solutions without coding skills.
Do you want to recognize citizen automators in your workplace? If so, search for the following traits:
- Professionals who have a deep understanding of their working processes
- Someone who can think outside the box and find solutions
- Curious tech-savvy team workers
- People who pursue high performance
- Someone who has a hands-on approach to solving problems
A potential citizen automator might be a curious marketing manager who identifies problems in the everyday processes and decides to shape an automated workflow to streamline new campaigns. Or an HR analyst who could speed up the company’s hiring process by using no-code software to save the whole team from sending repetitive emails to candidates.
How to choose the right tools for citizen automation
Moving one step ahead of applications built by citizen developers to simplify processes, automation replaces human efforts with computer intelligence to complete simple tasks. Therefore, the main difference between developers and automators is that individuals in the second category use Robotic Process Automation (RPA) to optimize their work.
Find the right automation tool for your business with the Buyer’s Guide to Automation Platforms
However, it doesn’t mean they create robots that you would see in sci-fi movies. The main tools for citizen-led automation are no-code or low-code software. They allow individuals without development skills to undertake the automation strategies they have in mind.
By 2024, low-code application development will be responsible for more than 65% of application development activity, according to a Gartner Report.
But how can you choose the ideal no-code software to achieve the desired level of automation? The following features should be your priorities:
- User-friendly interface. Citizen automators are not IT specialists. They are more likely to create automation by using a software that is simple to understand and navigate through.
- Customized automation rules. The chosen tool should be scalable and versatile, allowing every team to automate their processes according to their needs.
- Connection between different processes. Different departments benefit from automation. Thus, the ideal tool should allow processes to connect, integrating tasks between teams, and speeding up final results.
- Multiple integrations. Software programs with integrations can enlarge the possibilities of automation. Pipefy, for instance, allows you to connect Slack, Salesforce, or Zendesk to workflows.
- Personalized templates. Having hundreds of templates already designed for different workflows will save your citizen automator’s time.
- Increased visibility. The ideal software should ensure visibility to all processes, facilitating progress tracking and
Many companies were able to simplify internal processes by using no-code or low-code software. Find some real cases below: - By applying automation to 46% of all email communication, an enterprise could save 600 hours of work time per quarter, releasing teams from manually writing over 3,000 messages.
- By automating 49,000 of 60,000 internal requests and integrating all processes and departments, an accounting company saved 3,5 thousand work hours in only four months.
- By adopting a no-code software and applying over 75 automation rules to support requests’ workflow, a global leader in medical technology began solving those requests 33% faster.
Benefit from citizen-led automation with Pipefy
The examples above refer to companies that successfully adopted Pipefy as a solution to automate their workflows. Pipefy is a no-code management platform that enables you to take advantage of citizen automators within your teams. The software adds centralization, standardization, and visibility to your processes, saving you time and money.
