Business Automation Guide 2023 Begins from Here

The automation of multi-step corporate operations and transactions is referred to as business process automation.  You may not fully comprehend what that entails. 

First, let's define "Business Process." 

What is a Business Process?

A business process is a collection of tasks or endeavors you undertake to bring about a particular result. It enables the standardization of team processes and guarantees more reliable outcomes.

Every size of business gains from having clearly defined processes. They improve accountability by outlining expectations clearly. Employees are aware of the tasks they are in charge of and the deadlines for completing them. 

A business procedure would be processing invoices. From beginning to end, these are the steps:

A typical business process [Source: Google Images]

The process for approving invoices has distinct steps. The approval process might be slowed considerably by activities like manual data entry and document routing.

This may lead to problems like missed opportunities for discounts and delayed payments. How therefore can you improve your procedures while lowering the possibility of mistakes? Automation is useful in this situation.

Technology is used to automate repetitive and repeatable manual labor in business processes. Reducing, and in some cases eliminating, human intervention, improves the efficiency of your processes.  Process automation in the company can result in significant time savings.

In actuality, time savings of at least four hours per 40-hour workweek are reported by 75% of IT & technology business leaders who have used automation solutions. 

Let's review the aforesaid invoice approval procedure.

You may automate these processes by using accounting automation software rather than manually entering invoice data into your accounting system and sending papers for approval.

Your business probably uses dozens, if not hundreds, of procedures to do tasks. You may increase the productivity of your operations and relieve your staff of time-consuming and repetitive activities with the correct automation software.

The Business Process Automation Advantage 

Using manual processes only at the beginning of a company may be effective. However, they can easily become bottlenecks and restrict your ability to scale.  Here are some advantages of business process automation for your company.

Standardizes Business Operations

You often take the same processes whether you're onboarding a new employee, processing an invoice, or managing a client return. But if these procedures aren't standardized, issues could arise (e.g., employees applying discounts differently). 

Clarity is necessary when automating a process. Automation is challenging if you don't comprehend the jobs and participants. You may standardize operations and guarantee more consistent results by automating your processes.

Increases Employee Productivity

Most workers continue to spend a sizable portion of their time on activities that could be automated.

20% of employees' time, or around 1.6 hours every eight-hour workday, is spent on monotonous duties, accounting for 71% of all employee time. Spending time on menial chores takes away from time spent on more beneficial duties, such as creating a sales presentation, integrating a new client, responding to consumer questions, etc.

Business process automation enables you to scale back and even get rid of repetitive operations. Employees may concentrate on the work they are paid to do rather than wasting time on activities like data input. Not only does this increase productivity, but it may also increase employee engagement.

Reduces the Risk of Errors

Manual procedures are prone to mistakes; for example, a worker preparing a document can make a calculation or typographical error. To fix these errors, forms must be sent back for revisions, which adds to the backlog of work. 

Your risk of problems like data input errors can be decreased by automating your procedures using a program.

Its capture recognition technology, for instance, enables you to precisely and digitally record data from documents like bills. To guarantee the accuracy of the data you're recording, you can even establish certain parameters.

Increases Process Visibility

Manual procedures frequently experience visibility issues. Managers find it challenging to keep an eye on a process when workers complete each step by hand. This lack of visibility can have an impact on production and make it challenging for managers to use their resources most effectively. 

With real-time visibility into your processes provided by workflow automation software, you can keep track of how each phase is progressing. That makes it easier to find the bottlenecks and inefficiencies slowing down a process.

Improves Compliance 

Heavy fines may be imposed for breaking some industrial regulations. With manual processes, it might be challenging to compile the required paperwork to demonstrate compliance. 

These documents may also offer additional protections for procedures like invoice approvals. Before approving an invoice, for instance, you can check the audit trail to ensure that the right steps were performed.

How to Start a Business Automation Project? 

When implemented properly, business process automation can completely transform your firm.

To begin, adhere to these guidelines. 

Get Your Team's Support

As a major effort, automating your processes requires the support of crucial stakeholders. Otherwise, your automation initiatives may fail or fail to get any traction at all. 

Choose one or two procedures that use a lot of time and other precious resources.

Afterward, detail how automating these operations will make them more efficient. Examples include streamlining processes and minimizing data entry. Creating a strong case for automation will encourage support. Key stakeholders are more inclined to support you if you can show a favorable ROI.

Audit Existing Processes

Before you can automate your process, you need to have a clear understanding of each. Look at each of your processes. What are the tasks involved? Who is responsible for them?

Auditing your existing processes will help you uncover any inefficiencies and identify tasks that you can automate. Consider seeking input from those involved to get their feedback. Note down any challenges or bottlenecks that they frequently encounter.

Determine Organizational Needs 

You should first determine any specifications an automation solution needs to meet before you begin your search. You can use this to find the appropriate software. 

For instance, if reducing human data entry is one of your automation goals, you should search for software that has capture recognition technology. You will be able to easily gather data digitally and input it into your systems as a result.

Choose an Automation Solution

The next step is to decide which business process automation solution to use. Because there are so many possibilities available, it is obvious that this is easier said than done. 

To assist with this stage, think about designating an automation project manager. They will be in charge of scheduling product demos and assessing individual vendors. They will also act as the internal stakeholders' point of contact.

Start Small and Involve Your Team

Businesses commit the error of attempting to automate everything at once.

The issue here is that your staff may become overburdened if you make too many modifications. Start by automating no more than one or two processes. Pick a procedure that involves a series of well-defined steps and is frequently repeated. When it is automated, it should also bring about financial gain. 

Optimizing this procedure, for instance, can assist minimize processing costs and shorten turnaround times if your accounts payable team is spending a lot of time processing invoices. 

Don't forget to record and discuss the modifications you make as you automate your procedures. To prevent overloading your workforce, think about implementing changes in stages.

Automation by Department

Every department in your company will encounter problems that automation can address.

You may apply workflow automation in a way that increases the effectiveness of these departments and minimizes the amount of tiresome work that the staff must do by using a targeted approach to tackling these issues. 

Let's examine a few of these departments to see how automation might improve them.

Marketing

The members of your marketing team must continually apply innovation and strategic thinking to their work.

Their capacity to apply their entire range of talent to their marketing efforts may be compromised if they are juggling tiresome or repetitive tasks. This division can gain from marketing automation in several different ways. Here are just a few advantages of automation for your marketing division.

Lead generation can be made simpler by automating some activities. Your team can respond to leads and modify lead advertising more quickly by integrating Salesforce, Marketo, and other crucial marketing apps. This will save time. 

Make social networking simple by automating tasks like cross-posting to Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and other platforms.

Additionally, you may automate notifications to inform your social media staff whenever you receive mentions or engagement.

Sales

Your sales team will benefit greatly from automating several steps in the sales process and sales funnel.

When your sales force has more time on their hands, they can concentrate on closing those deals, prospecting, and preserving fantastic connections with current customers. Giving your sales team more time to sell can help them stay with your business longer because sales teams can also be subject to high turnover.

Here are some advantages of process automation for your sales team:

Automate lead generation and follow-ups

​Lead generation and follow-up emails can both be automated. Instead of frequently checking in, your sales team simply needs to handle high-level conversations with prospects. 

Automate proposals

​Automate the proposal generation process so that your sales force doesn't have to keep coming up with ideas for prospects.

CRM automation

​Salesforce and other CRMs don't require your sales team to spend hours manually adding leads and contacts. For them, it can be completed automatically.

Finance

Your finance and accounting team handles repetitive labor that demands 100 percent accuracy. Human error is inherent when people are asked to complete repetitive activities. Your financial staff can cut back on spreadsheet time and errors when automation is used. The following are a few ways that business automation might benefit your finance and accounting departments:

Organize your invoices

​Automation can help you streamline the invoicing process. Assured timely, accurate, and automatic creation and delivery of invoices.

Track and record spending

​Automation can greatly simplify expense tracking. It is simple to automatically import and add expense reports without the need for manual input.

Connect your preferred programs, such as Google Sheets and Quickbooks Online, quickly. 

Keep track of new customers and updates to client records

​With automation in place, new clients and adjustments to client records can be automatically reflected in your various CRM and accounting applications.

Human Resource HR

Automation implementation promotes business expansion. HR needs to stay up with the increasing demands as your business expands.

With automation at your side, you can make sure that they are equipped to handle the increased number of people onboarding and HR-related issues. The HR department may be impacted by automation in the following ways:

Automate recruiting efforts

​Automate your recruiting efforts to save time and keep everything organized. You may do this by scheduling interviews, reviewing resumes, and more. 

Automate aspects of onboarding

Automate certain components of onboarding so that your HR team doesn't have to worry as much about routine administrative duties like providing legal documents, getting signatures, organizing training, and sending out recruit materials.

Customer Support

Your company's customer support crew is a cornerstone, yet they can quickly become overburdened with support requests. They can handle the more difficult consumer requests while automation handles the rest, thanks to automation. The following are a few techniques to automate customer support:

Automating customer care responses

A lot of the time, a customer service issue can be simply fixed with a straightforward response to their query. These kinds of queries can be handled by automatic responses rather than by your customer support staff. 

Automating notification of requests

Automation enables your customer care team to react quickly. It is possible to make sure that a customer support agent is informed as soon as a ticket is created by linking apps like Zendesk to apps like Gmail and Slack.

IT 

IT automation can be utilized to eliminate a lot of the manual work your IT team likely deals with consistently.

Your IT team has tons of processes that can be automated, and you can free them up for much more strategic work by implementing the right processes.

Here are some of the things you can do with IT automation:

Incident response automation 

IT can learn about events more quickly, address them more quickly, and cut down on the amount of downtime by automating incident response procedures. 

Application deployment

During the testing stage of the development of an application, a wide range of tasks can be automated.

Application deployment will happen more quickly if your IT team has the resources they need to automate these procedures.

You can see that we're only beginning to scratch the surface of what automation can do for your many departments. You might have a better idea of how much deeper influence automation can make if you conducted a more thorough opportunity evaluation.

The Bottom Line

Making your process more efficient is the main goal of business process automation.

It can assist you in getting rid of tedious duties and provide workers more time to concentrate on higher-value work.