Navigating the BOAT: Understanding the Convergence of Business Orchestration and Automation Technologies
In today’s fast-paced digital landscape, enterprises face mounting challenges in streamlining operations. As businesses strive for more efficient processes, the need for multiple automation technologies to work in harmony has become increasingly evident. Enter Business Orchestration and Automation Technologies (BOAT) — a concept introduced by Gartner that consolidates key automation technologies into a unified platform. This convergence addresses operational challenges by enabling seamless orchestration of business processes, thereby enhancing productivity and efficiency.
What is BOAT?
BOAT represents the convergence of four major technologies that were previously distinct:
- Robotic Process Automation (RPA)
- Low-Code Application Development (LCAD)
- Business Process Automation/Management (BPA/BPM)
- Integration Platform as a Service (iPaaS)
These technologies, once considered separate, are now merging as organizations realize the need for seamless orchestration across all four. The core idea behind BOAT is to create a cohesive and efficient end-to-end operation, establishing a unified layer over existing enterprise applications and systems.
The Role of IDP and AI in BOAT
While the BOAT framework primarily focuses on the convergence of RPA, LCAD, BPA, and iPaaS, Intelligent Document Processing (IDP) and AI play pivotal roles as well. Although not classified as core technologies within BOAT, IDP acts as a crucial “intelligence” layer supporting nearly all automation scenarios. By extracting, interpreting, and processing unstructured data, IDP integrates seamlessly within the BOAT ecosystem, enabling more informed and accurate decision-making across various automated processes.
Moreover, Gartner suggests that AI Agents will soon become a core capability of BOAT. These AI-driven agents will enhance decision-making and enable autonomous task execution, further improving businesses’ ability to orchestrate complex processes with minimal human intervention. As the BOAT concept evolves, the integration of AI will play a key role in driving the next wave of automation innovation.
The Role of Each Technology in BOAT
- LCAD: Modernizes user experiences by creating a web-based front end where work is performed. This eliminates the need for users to navigate complex legacy systems, providing a streamlined interface that boosts productivity.
- RPA and iPaaS: Play essential roles in integrating BOAT with enterprise applications, where master data resides. These technologies allow the visualization, use, and modification of data within modern applications developed using LCAD. Furthermore, RPA and iPaaS automate mundane tasks like data entry and facilitate the flow of information between legacy and modern platforms.
- BPA: Acts as the “brain” of the operation, orchestrating the entire process by tracking the next steps. BPA coordinates the actions of humans (via LCAD), RPA bots, and iPaaS systems, ensuring that the workflow progresses smoothly and efficiently.
- IDP: Although not a core technology within BOAT, IDP plays a critical role by enabling the extraction and processing of unstructured data that feeds into various automation processes. Whether it’s handling invoices, contracts, or purchase orders, IDP enhances the accuracy and efficiency of the entire system.
Real-Life BOAT Use Cases
To bring the concept of a boat to life, let’s explore two real-world scenarios where our clients use these technologies to work together to solve complex challenges.
Use Case 1: Order Intake of Purchase Orders (Manufacturing)
In the manufacturing industry, companies often receive millions of purchase orders (POs) in PDF format. Each PDF may contain hundreds of rows of data, requiring the extraction of key values – in our client’s case 40 key values – for production planning. This is where Intelligent Document Processing (IDP) comes into play, efficiently extracting the necessary data. However, some values may have low confidence levels, necessitating human validation through a high-productivity user interface developed with LCAD.
Next, the extracted data needs to be matched against external sources to ensure consistency with the company’s ERP system. This task is managed by an iPaaS solution, which integrates data from multiple systems. Finally, RPA is used to enter the data into the ERP system, as the system may lack APIs. The entire process is orchestrated by a BPA tool, which keeps track of the PO’s state and pushes it forward, seamlessly coordinating between humans and automation technologies. This approach can lead to an automation rate of nearly 50%, with efficiency gains exceeding 80%.
Use Case 2: Managing Chronic Disease Follow-Up Protocols (Healthcare)
In healthcare, managing chronic disease follow-ups can be a daunting task. While Electronic Medical Records (EMR) systems handle patient journeys from registration to dismissal well, they often fall short in managing long-term follow-ups. For chronic disease patients, the journey spans years, even a lifetime, requiring regular check-ups, test results analysis, and possibly further treatments.
A BPA tool manages the entire follow-up protocol, orchestrating various tasks. RPA bots and humans work together to invite patients for follow-ups, ensure appointments are booked, and process test results from external systems. IDP is used to extract key data from invoices and other documents, while LCAD provides a user interface for validation and decision-making. This results in a highly coordinated process that ensures patients receive timely care while reducing the administrative burden on healthcare providers.
Introducing the Outsmart Platform
At Digital Workforce, we embraced the BOAT concept years ago, driven by customer demand, and integrated these technologies into our Outsmart platform. Outsmart is designed to help businesses achieve seamless process orchestration and automation across various industries. Whether managing purchase orders in manufacturing or chronic disease follow-ups in healthcare, our platform offers a comprehensive solution that can be quickly deployed as a managed service with minimal setup time.
Outsmart combines the power of RPA, LCAD, BPA, and IDP into a single, cohesive platform. By leveraging these technologies together, we help our clients navigate the complexities of modern business operations, enabling them to achieve higher efficiency, reduce manual effort, and enhance the overall customer experience.
Conclusion
The trends behind BOAT have been apparent for several years, and the emergence of this term marks a significant shift toward wider adoption. By recognizing that solving operational pain points requires multiple technologies working together, organizations can unlock new levels of efficiency and productivity. As the market continues to consolidate around this concept, our managed service offering Outsmart makes sailing the BOAT easier. Whether you’re in manufacturing, healthcare, or another industry, BOAT is key to staying ahead in the digital age. With the integration of AI Agents, BOAT’s capabilities are set to expand, offering even greater possibilities for business orchestration and automation.