When operational efficiency tanks, you need workflow orchestration
Every business wants to be more efficient, but often the challenge is knowing how to make that happen across the entire operation, not just one department. Bringing in automation or AI in an attempt to speed things up is one thing, but improving the end-to-end ecosystem is much harder to achieve.
This is a challenge that workflow orchestration addresses. It’s an off-the-shelf solution that resolves operational inefficiency by taking a holistic approach. Rather than tackling problems in silos, workflow orchestration runs across all your processes for immediate, evergreen results.
Why does workflow orchestration matter for operational efficiency?
The average service operation is complex, just one task can involve multiple systems, stakeholders and teams. Introducing technologies aimed at efficiency, such as AI, may be good in theory, but complicated in practice as if the process is broken, automating it won’t fix it.
Workflow orchestration wraps around everything - people, processes, and tasks – from end to end. It lets you work from one dedicated platform where everyone gets visibility into how work is done, how long it takes, and what could be improved. The bottlenecks and delays that regularly slow down productivity are brought into the light, allowing businesses to improve operational efficiency in all the areas that need it.
The value businesses are placing on workflow orchestration can be seen in the strength of market growth. The technology is expected to grow from $6.76 billion in 2025 to $13.15 billion in 2029. Business leaders are waking up to the fact that their automation dreams haven’t been realised and looking for a solution that can plug and play automation, while taking care of the bigger problem… Fixing the way operations are run.
Workflow orchestration is the glue that connects everything, providing greater visibility, a single source of truth, and data points in real-time. Once you’ve got that data and clarity, only then you can start to deploy automation successfully.
What do businesses stand to gain with workflow orchestration?
Here’s a closer look at the advantages businesses can gain from introducing workflow orchestration into their operations.
- Speedy output - By introducing time savers such as intelligent assignment tracking and SLA monitoring, work gets done quicker with less delays.
- Total visibility – Shining a light on your operation allows businesses to identify and fix issues quickly, before they escalate.
- Happier employees and customers – Nobody wants to work with rubbish systems. Less time spent on repetitive admin tasks means teams can get time back to focus on customer success.
- Compliance taken care of – Workflow orchestration tools are built to handle variance between geographies and have built-in compliance so you’re always doing things by the book.
- Cost savings – Most businesses report a 20% resource saving within 3 months of introducing workflow orchestration.
Workflow orchestration fixes the cracks
There are several usual suspects when it comes to challenges in operations management. The good news is that workflow orchestration fixes most of them.
- Fragmented tasks and systems – Teams and programs working in isolation, across multiple systems, causes mistakes, delays and crossed wires.
- Manual work meltdowns – Repetitive, mundane tasks take an age to complete. Workflow orchestration lets you plug and play automation tools to tackle grunt work.
- Broken processes - How efficient is your team in Berlin compared to Brazil? If you can’t see your operation under the microscope, you can’t improve it.
- Scalability barriers – Disjointed operations and manual processes make it difficult to scale as a business grows. You need a consistent approach.
Workflow orchestration in motion
Workflow orchestration can be applied in pretty much any B2B service. To see how it works in principle, here are some specific industries and areas where it helps solve the issues outlined above.
Customer service
Most customer service teams are juggling incoming phone calls, emails, live chat systems, social media channels, and CRM platforms. This way of working risks issues like urgent messages not being prioritised and duplicate enquiries being missed.
Workflow orchestration ties all systems and channels together in one place. It uses built-in AI tools like email triage to prioritise important messages, get them sent to the right person, and help customer service teams provide faster and more consistent high-quality support.
Supply chain management
Notoriously difficult for managing operations due to geographies, supply chains can struggle with visibility across suppliers, logistics partners, and internal teams. This can mean bottlenecks and delays might not be picked up as quickly as they need to be, causing issues with customers down the line.
Workflow orchestration connects the moving parts, keeping data moving smoothly across all channels, so any hold-ups or problems are immediately flagged and handled quickly.
Finance admin
Finance teams have typically been slowed down by manual work, with data entry and spreadsheets that don’t integrate with finance software. It can be easy for invoices, expenses, claims, and other documents to take a long time to handle, fall through the cracks or be processed incorrectly.
When workflow orchestration is in place, all systems are integrated, and tasks like approvals and data entry can be automated. Everything keeps moving along with clear responsibility for each step, reducing errors and delays.
HR operations
HR teams have to deal with a lot of admin-heavy work, such as onboarding, payroll, and employee records. Managing this takes a lot of time, which could be spent on the higher-level aspects of recruitment and employee development.
Pulling everything together on one workflow orchestration platform lets you deploy automation to take on the grunt work and standardise tasks. Repetitive paperwork such as employee onboarding gets done quicker, and HR teams can focus on providing the best possible employee experience.
Healthcare
Appointment scheduling and patient records carry sensitive information, but often the two systems don’t communicate with each other. This creates a poor experience for patients but also makes it harder for healthcare providers to deliver an efficient and personal service.
Using workflow orchestration, all systems work together, with patient data easily and securely accessible, while appointment scheduling can be automated. This reduces the manual admin work and gives providers the time and information they need to provide high-quality care.
Selecting the right workflow orchestration solution
The best workflow orchestration solution for you depends on the unique needs of your business, but these are some important factors to focus on.
Be guided by business goals
Rather than looking for the flashiest new tool, look for what you actually need. Are you looking to improve customer service? Reduce manual work? Get data points across operations? Establishing your goals at the beginning will help you make the right choice.
Does it scale?
Even if it’s not a high priority right now, when you go through a time of growth, you want your solution to be able to easily scale to handle increased demand. Consider how easy it will be to add new users and processes and integrate additional systems when making your decision.
Don’t underestimate usability
Low or no-code solutions are far more accessible to a wider range of employees. Intuitive and easy-to-use platforms allow your team members to build, change, and manage workflows easily, without heavy reliance on skilled IT professionals.
Beware of common pitfalls
It can be easy to get carried away with lots of impressive features and over-customisation early on, but this can result in slower adoption and make maintenance more complicated. Meanwhile, don't under-invest in sufficient training and change management, as your new solution will need company-wide adoption and buy-in to be effective.
Consider the long-term impact
Solving immediate problems, while important, can distract from the bigger picture. The right workflow orchestration platform should provide long-term value in terms of solution, visibility, consistency and scalability, or your business could quickly outgrow it.
Why choose Enate?
Enate’s end-to-end workflow orchestration platform gives you a clear view of your people and processes. It’s so user-friendly that anyone in the business can be trained to use it, and is ready-to-use from day one. Enate gives you crystal-clear visibility into your operations from start to finish and has a range of ‘touch button’ AI features to help you speed up work, from intelligent document processing to email triage. Intelligently assign work by skills and competency, fix problems as they arise and bring your operations into the light.
To learn more about what Enate can do for your business, get in touch to book a 1-2-1 call with our team.
