Bizagi, a leading digital automation and business process improvement application provider, today announced the findings from its 2021 State of Process Innovation Report. The report examines the current state of business processes, what enterprises are doing and where they're falling short after a year in the pandemic. Lack of automation was revealed as companies' biggest downfall, as 67% of respondents said they were frustrated with the amount of repetitive manual tasks in their jobs.

Enterprises that understand the importance of modernizing technology such as intelligent automation, low-code/no-code and cloud-based tools were found to benefit from a more productive and efficient workforce. In fact, 23% of respondents said broken processes were a barrier to their overall productivity. Businesses that actively seek to identify broken areas within a workflow can adapt quickly, ultimately saving time and money during an unpredictable era of work.

Additional findings include:

● Employees want more AI, bots and automation: Although there's a constant debate on whether tools like AI and bots will take over all jobs in the future, 70% of employees said they wish their company offered tools like artificial intelligence (AI), digital bots, and business process management (BPM) and business process automation (BPA) tools.

● Professionals say they could handle a 4-day work week — and they believe automation could help: The top two factors respondents said would need to happen for a four-day workweek are the elimination of unnecessary tasks and the automation of some tasks with technology.

● No-code and low-code technologies are the key to a hybrid workplace - Most respondents said their companies provide a cloud network and communication tools, however, 59% of respondents said their company does not offer low-code/no-code workflow tools.

● U.S. respondents are less enthusiastic about hybrid workplaces: Despite this positive sentiment, U.S. respondents were less likely to prefer a hybrid work environment and more likely to prefer working full-time in the office compared to respondents from other regions.

"Our findings highlight where organizations have stepped up to the challenge of the past year as well as where they have fallen short," said Gustavo Gómez, CEO of Bizagi. "This is a critical time for business resilience and organizations need to make one key decision when it comes to business processes— remain stagnant or become agile."

Bizagi surveyed 1,500 employees from the U.S., Europe and Latin America. Respondents encompassed a variety of job levels from entry-level to C-suite and worked across the public sector, manufacturing and financial services. Of those surveyed it was discovered that organizations have a major opportunity to put the power of process innovation into the hands of employees through citizen development and focus on business agility instead of slipping back into old processes.