Faster! More! Better! We are constantly trying to use our job and resources to maximum. Surely, no one wants to fall behind competition.
What if I would tell you that every day you are losing thousands of dollars irreversibly, just because you are not utilizing the tools that are laying right in front of you? Tools that are an integral part of medium and big businesses? There’s a good reason why Gartner had mentioned Business Process Automation as one of key strategical technology trends for 4 years in a row. Thanks to advanced applications, everyone can automate work in their own company. But what does this actually mean?
What is a Business Process Automation
Many of the actions that are being executed by humans can be done without their interference. Something that requires complicated logistic operations can be solved just by a few clicks. That is called automation. It is a constant strive for minimalization of the amount and difficulty of tasks performed by a worker. Because of that, they can focus on more responsible projects and what’s more important- less boring ones.
Is it worth to bet on Business Process Automation
It’s natural that not always things resulting in an efficiency increase will be suitable for every business size. Especially small firms can question themselves, is process automation worth it?
Statistics show that companies are benefiting significantly from integration of automation tools. One of the most known management consulting firm McKinsey & Company informs one third of the tasks can be done without human interaction. Moreover, more that 80% of business leaders report that they are speeding up work process automation and expanding their use of remote work.
Likewise, Gartner implies the importance of these trends. They are predicting that 69% of all managerial work will be automated by 2024.
The benefits of Business Process Automation
Automation is the most important when we are drowning in tasks or when those tasks need multiple people involvement. The computer can do such things more efficient and at every time of the day. It increases productivity of the whole company and individual employees, while reducing the costs of their commitment. Errors happen less often and informational chaos is no more.
Despite the fact, than not all tasks can be delegated to machine, countless amount of them may be improved. Every day examples, of automated processes in companies are:
- data aggregation and migration
- helpdesk support
- payroll and invoicing
- product launches
- lead nurturing
- time and attendance tracking
- creating customer case studies
Productivity increase
First thing that comes to mind when you think of process automation is overall productivity increase. Thanks to passing repetitive tasks to computer, we can leave more involving and pleasing work for our employees that have actual impact on the company, instead of being just a fill for logistic hole. Simultaneously you can use your resources more efficiently while they are being more productive itself and more engaged in work.
78% of business leaders report that task automation is increasing the productivity for all sides involved.
Time savings
Human won’t outrun the machine. At the end, the system will still finish all the calculations in a blink of an eye. Reduction of process maintenance time is the effect of both: getting rid of communicational and logistic problems and the speed of computer algorithms.
73% of IT leaders are saying that thanks to automation success, employees are saving between 10% and 50% of the time they previously spend doing manual tasks.
Cost reduction of Business Processes
According to Forbes, investment in automation typically paybacks within several months to several years, resulting in cost savings of 40% to 75%, which is not a surprise. Machine, doing its job, replaces dozens of workers at the same time. It allows cutting costs of errors and low efficiency. For bigger companies, solutions such as AI or Business Intelligence are resulting in even greater savings, because of self-learning systems that by using data analysis are learning how to manage work more efficiently inside and outside of the organization. Though it comes with enormous spendings, that are just not necessary for smaller firms.
Minimalizing human errors
Having placed regular worker and a computer next to each other and giving them a single task to do 100 times, who is guaranteed to do the task error-free? Without a doubt it would be a machine, which when programmed correctly, can for the rest of its days, complete his task again and again with minimal chance of failure. And obviously, less errors = time and cost savings.
Business Processes standardization
Standardization of processes is the key to efficiency increase in company. Let’s take sales procedure for example. Firstly, the request must be registered in system and checked for availability. Then the order has to be completed and packed, while the payment accepted and booked by accounting. In the end all you need is to send the product and confirm the reception by client.
On every of these steps you can partially involve the automation. By preparing forms and procedures, registration and accounting are working much smoother. Virtual system with all the warehouse and client data, will help with logistic, planning and information management, by keeping everything we need to know on one server.
By using the right platform, you are able to delegate the tasks to the right person easily, keeping possible decisions simple, just as a few possible options, while minimizing the time of informational flow between our employees and with our client.
More efficient communication and teamwork
Another reason why process automation may increase work efficiency, is removing communication barriers. Collaboration is much easier when everyone is working in the environment designed for it. All of the necessary elements are gathered in the same place, to which you have access either from office, home or tram. We don’t have to call our employees to know if the task have been finis hed. System is doing it for us, displaying status of every workflow and necessary actions for us to take, without causing painful organization chaos.
What’s worth remembering when it comes to planning of integrating business process automation?
Without the right preparation it’s impossible to achieve fulfilling results. It’s worth to invest some time in acknowledging our company’s needs and getting to know various systems as well as functionalities they offer. It is crucial for us to choose the most effective tool, for reasonable price.
Write down your goals and workflows that you want to automate one by one. Remember that the implementation of those systems is a process, which can take every up to few months. It will take some time to create workflows and to train all workers. The effects will come later.
About further ways to process optimization you can read in the article – Company Process Optimization through the NAVIGATOR platform.
Summary
The amount of companies benefiting from automatization, will be more and more every year. The values coming from implementing of solutions like that are incredible. Starting from increasing the effectiveness of processes inside and outside of the company, up to reduction of costs created by errors and time spend. No matter if you are managing the wholesaler, producing the office materials or offering IT services, thanks to automatization your whole company benefits.
Data based on McKinsey & Company report, thanks to frevvo.
Marketing Intern, especially interested in SEO and SEM.
Right now is beggining to write his master's thesis in Informational Management at Jagiellonian University. Michał loves playing billiards, board games and is a huge e-sports fan.
