What are Business Orchestration and Automation Technologies (BOAT)?

Successful automation isn’t just about building and buying the latest tech tools; it’s about blending them into a high-performance process automation machine. That’s where orchestration comes into play, empowering IT leaders to manage the overlap and convergence of process automation technologies across the enterprise.

Here’s a checklist of critical capabilities provided by orchestration tools:

Modularity
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The right orchestration platforms allow developers to build pieces of functionality using modular, low-code components. This enables businesses to design and deploy workflows with flexible, interchangeable components. Like Lego blocks, each module can be easily added, removed, or rearranged without affecting the entire system. This modularity allows for quick adaptation to changes, streamlined processes, and seamless updates, ensuring efficient and scalable operations.

‍Discovery and insight
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‍Advanced orchestration tools provide comprehensive analytics and monitoring capabilities. For example, process mining and process intelligence technologies dig deep into business operations, uncovering hidden patterns and inefficiencies. These tools offer insights into process performance and bottlenecks, enabling you to identify areas for improvement and make data-driven process optimization decisions.

‍Enterprise connectivity
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‍Orchestration tools integrate disparate systems, applications, and data sources to ensure smooth communication and data flow across the enterprise. This can be accomplished using integrated APIs, robotic process automation (RPA), and data fabric for underlying data sources. By unifying various technologies and data points, orchestration tools eliminate silos, enhance collaboration, and provide a holistic view of the business.

‍Embedded AI
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‍Incorporating AI into a BOAT platform helps organizations make smarter decisions and automate complex processes. AI enhances operational responsiveness and bolsters business resilience.In the next section, we’ll explore the essential tools that make business orchestration a game-changing capability for IT leaders.Business process orchestration is a management approach that connects workflows, technology, and people into end-to-end automated processes. It provides a 360-degree view of workflows, speeds up processes, and eliminates manual data entry through tools like robotic process automation (RPA),intelligent document processing (IDP), and artificial intelligence (AI).

‍Essential business orchestration technologies:

RPA

RPA automates repetitive, rule-based tasks, acting like a digital workforce that operates 24/7. These bots reduce human error, increase efficiency, and free employees to focus on more strategic activities, ensuring consistency and reliability in business processes.

‍Microservices

A microservices architecture breaks down applications into smaller, independent services that can be developed, deployed, and scaled individually. This approach enhances modularity, allows for faster updates, and ensures that each service can operate independently, improving business operations' overall agility and scalability.

‍Infrastructure

‍This is the backbone of effective business orchestration, providing the necessary computing power, storage, and networking capabilities. It ensures that all orchestration tools and platforms run smoothly, supporting the seamless execution of automated processes and workflows.

‍API Management
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API management solutions oversee the lifecycle of APIs, ensuring seamless integration and connectivity between software components. These tools provide the means for designing, publishing, securing, monitoring, and analysing APIs, facilitating efficient and secure communication between different systems and services.

‍Task Management

These orchestration tools manage human tasks, ensuring manual interventions are efficiently integrated into automated workflows. These tools assign, monitor, and track human tasks, ensuring they are seamlessly integrated with automated processes.

‍Data Management
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Effective data management is crucial for business orchestration. These tools ensure data is accurately captured, stored, and processed, providing real-time insights and supporting data-driven decision-making. A data fabric is the best data management option for organisations to build applications with a 360-degree view of their data and real-time insight into their operations. They enable data integration from various sources, ensuring consistency and availability across the enterprise. Plus, data fabric reduces the need to migrate data, simplifying overhead and data maintenance.

These digital technologies form the foundation of a robust business orchestration framework. IT leaders can ensure efficient, scalable, and adaptable processes by leveraging bots, microservices, solid infrastructure, API management, task management, and data management. Let's talk about why orchestration matters and how it drives operational excellence and competitive advantage.