Whenver I make a new business or personal acquaintance and the conversation leads to what I do for a living, this question is almost always asked!

What is Business Automation? Isn’t it a thing of the past where automation shifted the world economy from agrarian to industrial in the 19th century and from industrial to services in the 20th century?

I try to explain what Business Automation means in the 21st century…

Business Automation is to use SOA enabled software and SaaS services to automate a process in business to gain competitive advantage and contain costs. It consists of automation of individual processes and integration between disparate systems within (A2A) and across business boundaries (B2B).

Acronyms

• SOA – Service Oriented Architecture
• SaaS – Software as a Service
• A2A – Application to Application
• B2B – Business to Business

What do you think Business Automation is in the 21st century? I’d really like to know!