Fix Fragmentation with End-to-End Process Orchestration

IT leaders have long believed that integration is the best way to connect a chaotic enterprise technology landscape. However, that approach is falling short. It's not powerful enough to manage the complexity, which has only increased with the introduction of AI.

What’s needed now is an overarching, holistic view of people, data, processes, and AI—a view that’s made possible with end-to-end process orchestration.

End-to-end process orchestration is a method for managing complex enterprise processes by connecting systems, unifying data, and incorporating humans, AI, and automation in a central platform.

It’s larger than simple task automation, systems integration, or even process automation (although any of these tools could be used when implementing end-to-end process orchestration).

Enterprises use end-to-end process orchestration to bridge the gaps between disconnected data, systems, and tools and achieve real transformation that creates business value. 

Here’s a real-world example: CNA, one of the world’s largest commercial property and casualty insurance companies, used Appian as a process orchestrator to connect their multinational underwriting activities from end-to-end. 

Before orchestration, the underwriting process took place across multiple systems. Getting data, managing spreadsheet versions, and rekeying data across all these different systems made work slow and resource-intensive. 

Using Appian, they built a new solution that connected hundreds of strategic business partners, systems, and data across 164 countries. By doing this, they were able to cut time spent per transaction by 60%.

With an end-to-end process orchestration solution, IT can stop fighting fragmentation. Instead, you can connect the pieces to enable smoother processes, and ultimately create more business value. Consider these benefits of process orchestration tools:

Enterprise processes nearly always span several tools and data sources. By leveraging a single orchestration platform, IT can connect disparate systems, understand the role of each, and determine where and how to consolidate.

Orchestration is meant to optimize and direct resources across the enterprise. By automating management of resources such as software, servers, storage, and networks, orchestration tools reduce waste and lower operational costs.

But efficiency doesn’t stop at digital resources. By orchestrating complex workflows and systems, you can involve employees in only the tasks that require human intervention, coordinating efficient usage of both digital and human resources.

Leaders, employees, and customers all want the same thing: efficient work that leads to real value. End-to-end process orchestration technology streamlines employee experiences by automating manual tasks​​ and reducing errors.

Process orchestration software leads to better turnaround times, service, and experience with your brand. With agile processes, you can:

• Serve customers faster with connected systems, data, AI, and users.
• Make customer-centric decisions in every process with access to enterprise-wide data.
• Make it easy for customers to self-serve with flexible digital experiences, self-service portals, and mobile apps.

Adaptable processes are critical especially for managing risk and compliance. An end-to-end process orchestration platform lets you adapt fast to meet stringent regulatory requirements and changing industry standards.

While the ‘why’ of end-to-end process orchestration may be clear, the ‘how’ isn’t always evident. What systems can you replace, and what should you keep using? What do you need to add to your technology stack? Even more confusing, vendor capabilities can look similar even if they’re in different automation categories.

Gartner® research sheds light on the future of the automation market. They’ve identified four overlapping automation markets: low-code application platforms (LCAP), business process automation (BPA), robotic process automation (RPA), and integration platforms as a service (iPaaS).

These four types of software are coalescing into one new market: business orchestration and automation technologies (BOAT).

BOAT encompasses all the benefits of these specialized markets in a consolidated process orchestration platform. Such a platform unifies automation technologies with a strong orchestration layer, enabling enterprises to transform their businesses by automating end-to-end processes.

With the right capabilities, a BOAT solution can address a wide range of complex enterprise use cases. Look for features that enable:

Enterprise connectivity. A strong solution will have connective features and capabilities like:

• APIs and RPA. Look for API integrations and robotic process automation (RPA) to integrate with external systems, using APIs for most systems and RPA for systems without adequate APIs.
• Data fabric. A data fabric unifies data from across the enterprise and provides it securely so that digital and human workers have the data they need for the process at hand. Appian data fabric lets organizations use their data to build impactful and data-rich digital solutions combined with automation, AI, and low-code design.

Intelligence. Embedded AI gives you better governance over your AI and AI agents while allowing you to improve process experiences across the enterprise, whether it’s a development task (upload a PDF and Appian will turn it into an interface) or a back-office task (use Appian AI Skills to classify and extract text from documents).

Low-code. Regardless of the type of workflow you’re building in your BOAT solution, you should be able to use a low-code design experience to do it. For example, in Appian, you can build robotic tasks just by recording a series of actions just as a user would perform them.

Real-time monitoring. The end of every process orchestration platform is continuous optimization. Look for a solution with real-time monitoring so that you can analyze your processes and optimize them over time.

While the automation market will necessarily continue evolving, BOAT platforms seem to be the logical next step to implementing end-to-end process orchestration. It’s a consolidated solution to fix the fragmentation, so that you can make progress in your digital transformation journey.

With end-to-end process orchestration, you can unite people, AI, and data to create powerful processes that deliver more business value than ever.