Automation supporting human efficiency drives BPA growth

Businesses today face a common challenge: expectations continue to rise while time, talent and resources remain constrained. The organisations creating the most value are removing friction, simplifying operations and enabling people to focus on higher-value work - and that's what's driving growth in Business Process Automation.

That's according to Lancom Technology CEO Priscila Bernardes, who adds that organisations are looking beyond automation as a technology initiative, viewing it instead as a business enabler.

"The most successful automation projects are not about replacing people, they are about removing the barriers that prevent people from doing their best work," she says. "Every organisation has processes that consume time without creating meaningful value. Remove that friction and you create capacity for employees to focus on customers, innovation and growth."

With this approach, Lancom Technology’s Business Process Automation division has delivered solutions internally and for customers that eliminate the busywork surrounding revenue-generating activities.

Bernardes says the company’s technology base in the Microsoft stack, including Azure, Microsoft Dynamics and Microsoft 365, along with the Power Platform, and Copilot and CoWork AI tools, provides a wide base where it delivers value. “Most organisations use Microsoft for their productivity applications, and many for their line-of-business, too. That means there’s ample opportunity for improvement on a common code base.”

Recent analyst research highlights the growing momentum behind automation. Future Market Insights estimates the global Business Process Automation market will grow from US$17.1 billion in 2025 to US$52.2 billion by 2035, representing a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 11.8%. Independent market forecasts similarly predict growth from approximately US$15-18 billion today to more than US$33 billion by 2030, driven by digital transformation initiatives, cloud adoption and increasing demand for operational efficiency.

Standing behind those growth numbers are benefits including productivity improvements, reduced operating costs, faster service delivery, improved compliance, and higher employee satisfaction.

Bernardes says Lancom's work makes the research numbers local and real.

Over the first half of 2026, the company has delivered a series of projects showcasing how targeted BPA initiatives drive business outcomes across customer onboarding, CRM modernisation, field service operations and internal business processes.

For an Australia consulting services company, TSP Mentor, Lancom tackled a routinely encountered friction point: onboarding. The process had become heavily reliant on a single staff member manually managing user provisioning across HubSpot and Microsoft 365, with multiple repetitive steps, including reviewing user records, creating guest accounts, assigning permissions, updating group memberships and configuring folder structures.

The resulting bottleneck meant inconsistent turnaround times with increased risk of human error.

Lancom’s answer is a fully automated onboarding workflow triggered directly from HubSpot. The solution automatically invites users into the Microsoft tenant, manages Entra and Microsoft 365 group memberships, validates required structures, creates folders when required, and removes obsolete permissions when membership changes occur.

The result is a faster, repeatable onboarding process with reduced administrative overhead, improved consistency and significantly lower reliance on manual intervention.

At another client, an ageing on-premises CRM platform and approaching Microsoft support deadlines necessitated change. Lancom delivered a comprehensive migration programme to Dynamics 365 Online, migrating one million records, rearchitecting the CRM, and remediating custom code. New integrations with Business Central and Customer Voice took out manual data transfer, with a solution that now offers scalability, enhanced security and reduced technical debt.

Additionally, Lancom developed and delivered a new field service application using Code Apps and Microsoft technologies enabling equipment installers to manage appointments, track travel distances through map integration, update job statuses in real time and create quotes directly within the application. This saves time on every job while making administration convenient for technicians.

Lancom has also applied the same automation principles internally, says Bernardes. “We strongly believe in applying our skills to the way we work, constantly seeking opportunities to automate away the things we don’t like doing, so we can focus on the things that add real value.”

Using Microsoft Power Platform and integration with its ITSM platform, Lancom developed a secure overtime management application providing real-time visibility, centralised approval workflows and payroll-ready exports. Approvers now action requests immediately rather than waiting for month-end processing cycles, resulting in faster approvals, improved visibility for employees and managers, and significantly reduced administrative effort for finance teams.

"This is a good example of how relatively small automation initiatives can deliver meaningful business value," says Bernardes. "By streamlining routine processes, organisations can improve governance, increase efficiency and create a better experience for both employees and leaders."

"As expectations on businesses continue to grow, organisations need to find smarter ways to scale without adding complexity," says Bernardes." The most successful businesses use AI and automation to remove friction, improve consistency and empower their people to do their best work. Technology is at its most powerful when it enables people to focus on creating value rather than managing process."