Automation Leads to Innovation with MuleSoft

The integration and automation space is one that’s rife for expansion, with no one organisation yet to dominate the sector. However, one brand that is making truly disruptive waves is MuleSoft, a sub brand of Salesforce.

MuleSoft’s tagline is “Automate anything. Empower everyone. Deliver Success Now”, and they’re certainly true to their word. With MuleSoft, organisations have the ability to seamlessly integrate data and systems while automating their workflows and processes. Robotic Process Automation (RPA) allows businesses to simultaneously streamline their operations and improve customer experience by automating repetitive tasks. This in turn contributes to manual error reduction.

In this blog, we’ll explore how MuleSoft RPA and Composer can contribute to building a 360 degree customer vision, along with their specific use cases. As a Salesforce Summit Consulting Partner, we can call upon 350+ multiskilled Salesforce experts who utilise technologies like MuleSoft every day. This empowers us to help our clients speed up connectivity across their ecosystem and translate data insights into actionable responses to drive sales and marketing initiatives. But enough about us, and more about MuleSoft.

What are the Benefits of both Salesforce and MuleSoft?

Salesforce and MuleSoft offer unified solutions for automation and integration, making them the ideal solution for technical and non-technical teams needing to adapt to an evolving business landscape. Salesforce is a global leader in CRM, while Salesforce Flow offers complete automation technologies across the Customer 360 designed to boost productivity and deliver more streamlined experiences. 

MuleSoft, on the other hand, offers an integration platform which boosts operational efficiency by connecting data, apps, and devices across on-premises and cloud computing infrastructures. Salesforce customers are running billions of MuleSoft transactions daily and decreasing operational costs, while saving over 100 billion hours of work every month with Salesforce Flow. Across industries, customers are using Customer 360 with MuleSoft to automate workflows at scale and enable business growth, but MuleSoft can be used for other applications too.

Building a Customer 360 Vision with MuleSoft

One of the key stumbling blocks in achieving a customer 360 vision is the integration of customer data from multiple sources. MuleSoft’s iBaaS (Integration Bot as a Service) will connect and integrate customer data sources, including siloed backend systems used for file and image based integration. By unlocking and better utilising data from these various systems and bringing them together in a unified 360-degree view, businesses will have a more comprehensive and well-rounded understanding of their customers. This in turn can help improve customers’ experience to facilitate and drive real and sustained growth.

MuleSoft RPA also plays a critical role in improving customer experience by automating laborious and repetitive tasks. Key features such as service desk manual task automation, automated customer on-boarding and registration and automated expense or invoice approvals can all make life easier for your employees while facilitating a smoother customer experience. Furthermore, by automating these tasks, companies will enjoy manual error reduction and an improved operational efficiency, which can itself lead to cost reductions and improved value realisation.

Collaborate with MuleSoft Composer

Composer is MuleSoft’s no-code/low-code platform specifically designed to facilitate collaboration between business and IT teams in developing applications and software solutions. It boasts a brilliantly collaborative development environment and point-and-click interface, allowing for fast adoption to support rapid business changes. What does this mean? Well, Composer can help to bridge the gap between business requirements and IT capabilities by empowering business teams to respond quicker to evolving market conditions and customer needs. Furthermore, Composer can help align business needs with IT strategy and goals, resulting in more efficient and effective software development.

You’re probably thinking: This all sounds great, but what are the practical applications for MuleSoft?
That’s a great question, so let’s jump right into it. 

Use Cases for MuleSoft RPA

Finance

In the finance industry, efficiency and accuracy are key, with a small error having the potential to cost an organisation a small fortune. MuleSoft RPA can be used to automate invoice processing, for account reconciliation, and data entry for financial reporting. This helps to reduce manual handling errors that are part and parcel of data entry, while also improving operational efficiency and cost reduction.

Manufacturing

Businesses in the manufacturing industry face their own unique challenges, such as inventory management, order processing, and the logistical difficulties that arise with shipping. MuleSoft RPA automates all of these processes, helping to improve supply chain operations, minimise disruption, and reduce lead times. 

Healthcare

The healthcare industry faces unparalleled disruption because of several factors such as staff shortages, appointment backlogs, and the challenges of hybrid working. Patient experience should be at the forefront of everything they do, but a disjointed and disconnected system offers a fragmented experience, while mistakes only worsen this issue. In fact, 86% of mistakes made in the healthcare industry are administrative. MuleSoft RPA is now being used to streamline patient registrations, appointment scheduling, and claims processing, to name but a few. This is helping to reduce wait times and improve customer experience, but this is only the start. 

Use Cases for MuleSoft Composer

Retail

The retail industry has to deal with its own unique set of challenges, being both customer-facing and having to handle shipping issues too. MuleSoft Composer can be used to integrate e-commerce platforms, manage inventory, and point-of-sale systems to improve customer experience and streamline operations. This is great for increased sales and customer satisfaction.

E-commerce

Shipping, ordering processing, payment processing, and fulfillment processes are all vital in the e-commerce industry. With MuleSoft Composer, all of these are easily automated, helping to reduce lead times and improve customer experience.

Logistics

In the logistics industry, MuleSoft Composer can be used to integrate warehouse management systems, transportation management systems, and order processing systems to optimise supply chain operations. This can help reduce costs and improve operational efficiency.

Automate and innovate today

MuleSoft RPA and Composer provide powerful solutions for organisations wanting to streamline their operations and boost customer experience. By automating repetitive tasks, reducing manual errors, and simplifying operations, businesses can save money and improve efficiency. With MuleSoft, your business can now achieve hyper-automation without the need for extensive coding experience. In an increasingly digitalized world, maybe it’s time you made the change.

How can I learn more?

This article is part of a greater series centred around the technologies and themes found in the second edition of the Devoteam TechRadar. To read further into these topics, please download the Devoteam TechRadar.