Automating business processes creates a more efficient organization.
Are you struggling to improve your business processes? No matter what you do, you just can’t seem to make processes better or more
cost-effective. This is a tell-tale sign that it might be time for your business to go through a digital transformation to automate these practices. By implementing this change, you and your team will complete projects faster and more successfully than ever before.
What is Business Process Automation?
Business process automation uses technology to replace manual everyday tasks. Not only does it increase efficiency, but it also lowers costs, reduces human errors, and streamlines business processes.
Here are a few things you can automate depending on your needs:
- Data migration
- Data restoration
- Sales orders
- Time-tracking
- Payroll
- Invoicing
- Lead nurturing
- Processing feedback from customers/clients
- Following up with customers
- Moving documents between software/systems
- Copying/pasting data between business tools
How Does Automation Work in Business?
When you add automation into the mix, those features and functions can perform tasks that require logic and learn as they continue to perform them. Each time a task is completed, the software remembers what steps were taken to make the next project even more streamlined.
For example, let’s say your team manually inputs the total amount for each client invoice. This process is repetitive and time-consuming, and your organization is wasting valuable employee resources by carrying it out manually.
But if you implement a business process automation solution that uses digital invoicing, the invoice totals are now automatically populated for each client. This frees up time for your employees to focus on other important tasks like increasing sales, serving clients, and improving your business.
Why Do Businesses Need Automation?
Businesses need automation to help streamline their organizations and remove inefficiencies. With automation in place, a business can increase productivity, improve performance, enhance reliability, reduce operating costs, and eliminate waste.
Examples of Business Process Automation
For a better understanding of business process automation, here are a few examples of how they’re used.
Onboarding New Employees
Hiring and onboarding employees requires a significant amount of time and dedicated resources. Filling out forms, scheduling training sessions, organizing documents, and setting aside time for meetings are all part of expanding your workforce. Without automation, this can be quite hectic.
By automating your business process, you can deliver forms instantly, conduct training sessions on-demand, and seamlessly transition from one task to another.
Employee Analytics and Retention
Process automation allows organizations to collect and analyze key employee performance indicators. With this information, businesses can identify areas of concern and improve employee productivity and job satisfaction. Moreover, providing automation solutions means that your employees will be equipped with the tools they need to succeed.
Purchase Order Requests
Purchase order requests are common business practices across industries that are ripe for automation. If you’re submitting the request, you’re expected to fill out a form and send it to purchasing. Based on a number of criteria, the request is then either approved or denied and sent back to you. If approved, the purchase order is created and copies are then sent to the supplier.
Instead of tracking down supervisors for their signatures, purchase order requests are automatically routed to the correct decision-makers for review using business process automation. This drastically reduces the labor hours required to fill out, approve, and send the forms. Additional features include notifications and reminders and audit trails that store fulfilled purchase orders.
Customer Support
Manually answering every single customer query that comes through requires high effort and cost. This is especially true when it comes to more complicated service problems. Business process automation would allow you to send out standardized replies. You can send out automated text messages, auto-reply to frequently asked questions, and follow-up using templated emails for specific situations.
Automate Your Business with 5P
At 5P, we know how important it is to have a successful digital transformation. As technology experts, we’re ready to help you automate your business processes. We’ll analyze your processes to identify wasted resources or inefficient steps, then create a custom automation solution including the best technology to eliminate waste and increase efficiency. See how we can help your business by scheduling a free consultation today.